GREETINGS

OLD BENGALI DISH IN NEW BOTTLE SORRY IN PAN, (CABBAGE, POTATO AND PEAS)

These days I am not doing any research and development work on recipes, thanks to  my great foodie friends on the net. So these days I am just whistling and making  dishes in the kitchen, with laptop open on one side. (printer is not working ).  But sometimes I need to prove, that I am still a cook. This reminds me the definition of a cook given by a great khansama ( cook) decades back.

As an young engineer, I used to brag around, during lunch in the officer's dining room ,  what a great cook I was, I cooked this and that; awesome, fantastic and all the choicest adjectives I could still remember then. One day the cook , an old bearded man in his 60s , had cooked "Mutton Glossy" a favorite of the General Manager. This cook had worked for the father of the Managing Director at his residence and for the MD too. But when MD's son got married  the new lady of the house did not like this man to boss around. So she had him thrown out of the house. She did not know what she missed, because later whenever I was invited to the MD's son's house, I had to eat the food cooked by the lady. I had to eat that with great adjectives else I knew I would be also thrown out of my job.

Coming back , while eating "Mutton glossy" I started my usual brag on what great dish I cooked, what a great cook I was. The cook standing around, waiting to get a pat from the GM for the dish, smiled at me. I was bit disarmed.

" Why are you smiling , Ali dada ,? ( even MD used to call him Ali dada ) you dont believe what I say?'

He replied in perfect Urdu 

" Of course I believe you, if you put choicest spices, onion, garlic, garam masala etc it is got to be tasty  and great dish! It is impossible to make it taste bad ,,, but you will be a cook if you can reproduce the taste days in days out. "

" What do you mean?" I asked with a reasonably modest voice, because I knew I was talking to one of the greatest Chefs of that time.

He smiled and continued "  I come to your house and you cook me a great dish to my liking. After 10 yrs I come to your place again and request you to cook the same dish. You make it . I will just put it in my mouth and if I say  say " Ghosh dada , you took me 10 years back, the taste is exactly the same", then you are a cook ( he didn't know the word Chef), else....he just implied by a smile what he wanted to say.  

But now, let me clarify , we are not chefs, we cook as ametures, we dont earn our bread by cooking. So we must innovate , we must cook new dishes, fusion dishes, dishes of the world etc every day for our near and dear ones, what can be more satisfying than this, seeing a smile or a word of appreciatrion from a near and dear one. If I start cooking all the dishes which I have learnt from my friends here , I wont be able to finish cooking them in this life.

Moral of the story is, out of 100s of dish we experiment, we must watch which one is liked very much by our near and dear ones. We must assess which dish we may need to repeat on a request, which  we would love to hear from a person dear to us. In my experiments with cooking , SOMEONE  has been very cooperative to be a guinea pig, ( Malar, no objection with the word please). So I have a list of few dishes, she loves and I can reproduce it with perfection. 

THE ANTICLIMAX

I repeated the above story to someone in the morning. She has heard it 100 times before , mostly with a yawn. But disaster followed  in the afternoon, SOMEONE arrived with a cabbage in her left hand and a pack of un-peeled fresh green peas in the other.

" I was greatly moved by your story in the morning, and was thinking what dish should I tell you to cook to make you happy !! And also, by the way, I want to see if you are still a cook!!! So please make your "Bandha Kofir ghanto" with peas and no fusion unless I had approved earlier"

I bared my teeth ( laughed I mean) " Of course , done"

The dish is very simple..but cutting the cabbage uniformly in not the job of a highly rewarded international cook. So I thought if I stabbed and cut the cabbage here and there and whatever was the outcome could be transfered into a stir fried cabbage with garlic, chili and soya, I need not have to cut it uniformly.

In the afternoon while leaving for her round at the nursing home, SOMEONE said " Discovery channel can wait , finish the cooking "

But when I entered the kitchen I saw a pile of nicely cut cabbage, green peas and peeled potatoes waiting for me. " Hummm , to be lazy some times has its own benefits indeed". ( The dialogue between me and the cabbage, which followed, is confidential , and wont tell you.)

THE RECIPE

It is an old and popular Bengali traditional dish and I have tried to maintain it. There is numerous variation, which I also cook. Here I will give, what I learnt from my mother. This dish has a garam masala flavor with a good note of ginger and cumin.. In my time all bengali vege dishes were devoid of onion and garlic, in other words any vege dish containing onion, garlic were treated as non-vege,

INGREDIENTS

cabbage 1 about 8 inch dia , cut to thin slice uniformly.

Potato 3 medium, cut to  3/4 inch cubes

Peas 1 fistful or more.

Green chili 3 - 4 

Ginger grated fine or chopped 2 tsp

Sugar 1 tsp leveled

salt as required

Oil 1 tbsp ( more the merrier) 

spice soak in water to a paste

1 tsp Turmeric

1 tsp heap coriander powder

3/4 tsp cuminn powder

1/2 tsp chili powder ( more or less you decide) 

for seasoning

bay leaf 1

red chili dry  2

cumin seed 3/4 tsp

Cardamom 2

Clove 2 

Cinnamon 1/2 in

Garnishing 

Ghee 2 tsp ( Vegan no need to use) 

Garam masala ( bengali) 1 tsp level ( Powder/ paste  from equal proportion of raw cinnamon, cardamom, clove)

Coriander leaves 1 tbsp optional ( not used in Bengali traditional dishes)

PROCESS

Heat oil and give seasoning and add the Potato 

Soute Potato to light brown , low flame.

Potato added

Add peas and soute for 2 -3 min

Add the spice paste, green chili and soute until cumin aroma comes out ( sprinkle water to prvent burning)

Add salt & ginger; sugar  mix and add cabbage.

Mix thoroughly , reduce flame and cover,

Note:Water released from the cabbage should be sufficient to cook the potato and the cabbage. Else sprinkle water from time to time. If few cabbage pieces get fried and browned, that will add to the flavor, fried cabbage flavor.!!!

When the potato is done stir and dry out.

Add Ghee ( for non vegan) and garam masala powder/ paste and mix , cover and switch off.

Note: I dont use at all non stick utensils which are generally unsuitable for Indian dishes 

Eat with rice, chapati, paratha 

Geranium flower  for my great foodie friends.

 Last time I had shown the colored leaves of Geranium. I only have the red color one in my album.. 

AWARD
I got this lovely award from Malar , thank you so much!!

MURI GHANTO ( fish head curry speciality)

Yesterday, I bought a medium size Rohu fish, about 2.5 Kg, and was wondering what to do with the head. I don't eat fish head. If SOMEONE sees the tail in the packet, will obviously ask, where is the head because she is very fond of fish head. If I take it home, it will be like digging my own grave of cleaning and cooking. Anyway I have already dug half of my grave and one foot is already in it, so better dig the rest now. So I did a bit of hypocrisy by thinking " Shame on me if I cant clean a fish head for SOMEONE so dear to me!!

Now what to cook with the fish head, there are mainly 3 recipes in Bong kitchen, Dal with fish head ( you all know the dal without fish head in my blog), the other option is with Cabbage and finally the Muri Ghanto with rice. ( There is an Oriya option " ChhinchDa", but Somoo has to publish that before I try). The Muri Ghanto with rice is a delicacy.

So to find out the recipe I had to rely on my blog circle of Bongs. ( I know few recipes but did not want to tax my brain and needed a fast route.) In our blog circle , we have 5-6 authentic source of Bengali recipes , and I finally found a great recipe at Bong Mom. 

All bengali fish recipies ( barring few) are based on sweet water fish. So I think I should say few lines on this dish cooked with the head of sea fish. ( Most of my foodie friends here eat sea fish)

Few years back, when I was in Korea ( a dream land for me) SOMEONE  was nice enough to join me for few weeks leaving few 'would be mothers' with other docs. We had gone to a restaurant, on the black pebble beach, with other Korean friends. The Restaurant specializes on raw fish dishes. ( cooked dishes are also there) .

One has to go to the big aquarium of the place, chose live  fish. They will take out the fish, slice into small fillet and serve with wasabi and other sauce. ( I dont mind eating it, as it is tasteless, smell less.).  The fish head is not served and destroyed. I told the girl to pack the head for me. The girl was very curious to know what I was going to do with the head. So I quickly explained to her in english what I was going to do with it. She did not understand a single word of English. So I had to explain her in sign language ( and a Korean friend was explaining ) that " I am an Indian Magician and I am going to grow rest of the fish again by using the head and eat again. She was so amused that she jumped on to my back and started showering lot of appreciation into my right ear...and then I heard in my left ear "SOMEONE " whispered  "Enjoying?"

" I wish I could, but my knees are buckling".

So that was the 1st and last time, I had used  a sea fish head in this dish. But I had to improvise the spicing system as Koreans cant eat Indian spice. Instead of Cumin and garam masala , I had to use quite a bit of Cinnamon only. Koreans are familiar with Cinnamon as it is used  in team special drinks and sweets.

THE RECIPE

 Although rice is added to this dish it is not a Pulao rather it is treated as a curry and eaten with normal rice. The main flavor comes from garam masala, onion and ginger with cumin note.

You can use a fresh sea fish head, if you eat it otherwise.

DEVIATION

There is no deviation from Bong Mom's recipe, except an error. I did not notice that Bong Mom had used half the fish head and I put the whole. As a result the dish in the photo looks more : Fish heady" than " Rice-ee" . The test is superb, at least SOMEONE is very happy. ( May be I will take the risk of loitering tomorrow) 

 For the detailed recipe, ingredients, method etc please visit Bong Mom's MURI GHANTO   

I am giving some photos of the dish I cooked. 

This is how it looked after cleaning

 how it looked after frying

Final Look

And finally the flower for you all

KUMRO CHHAKKA FUSED ( PUMPKIN CURRY BENGALI)

Many of my friends, semi friends, semi-foes  and foes called me up, sent mails, passed message through intermediary  with prayers, requests, warnings, and threats with dire consequences etc to refrain from preambles and get down to to business with ingredients, process, thanks etc, They are not at all interested in what happened between "SOMEONE" and me, if I was loitering in the park in the name  of brisk walking, what was the dialogue between me and the Tigress prawn etc..etc.

I am in a great dilema, because non of my 38 blog followers , has said any thing like this. There may be two reasons, either they enjoy the introduction ( there are confirmed people who do enjoy) or they are too modest to say " dont write all these craps and get down to business of cooking".

Anyway , whatever I write in introduction, comes automatically. So dear Foody friends, please let me know if I should continue with some spontaneous introduction or straight get down to the business of cooking . Of course I write the blog in such a way that you can always start from Recipe or Ingredients para and ignore the bla, bla at the beginning.

THE RECIPE. 

It is a very common and traditional Bengali recipe with pumpkin. It has undergone some fusion over the years, so I have put a suffix  FUSED. The fusion is nothing but adding a bit of grated coconut taken from another famous Bengali dish called " Narkel Kumri" ( Coconut and Pumpkin). It is traditionally a vege dish without Onion and garlic.

Here I am giving 2 versions, with and without onion. The basic aroma comes from Panch PhoDon seasoning ( bengali ) cumin and a over doze of ginger for the temple / Jain version; and for the other fried onion smell will add on.

INGREDIENTS.

Pumpkin 250 gms cut to 11/2 inch pcs ( approx)

 Potato 200 gms cut to 1 inch ( I haven't used here and you may skip too, but it is used.)

 whole black gram 3 tbsp ( 1/2  fistful approx, ( ladies fist size, not mine :-)

grated coconut 1 heap tbsp (or more, I hate to grate coconut as I am scared of grating my palm ) 

 Ginger 1 heap tbsp, chopped fine

Cumin powder 1 tsp , soaked in water.

Sugar 1 tsp or more. This dish has a sweet note. The Pumpkin itself is  sweet so sugar has to be adjusted. 1 level tsp will be added always.

 Red chili powder 1/2 tsp ( more the merrier)

Turmeric 3/4th tsp

Mustard oil 1 tbsp ( or white oil or ghee) for cooking 

For seasoning 

Panch phodon 1 tsp ( Methi, Fennel, cumin, Kala jeera, Mustard (1st 3 are mandatory) mixed , equal proportion).

 Bay leaf 1

 Dry red chili 2

Garnishing 

Roasted cumin powder 1 tsp heap ( if you are roasting fresh batch please add 2 red chili, roast and grind)

1 tsp Ghee for garnishing 

For the onion version.

onion medium 1 finely chopped.

for the seasoning 

1 bay leaf

1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp fennel ( level)

 cardamom 2

clove 2

cinamon 3/4th inch 

red chili dry 1

PROCESS 

Soak the black gram in water for 2-4 hrs.

In a Kadhai, heat oil and give seasoning of bay leaf, Panch Phodon, red chili  

add potato  and black gram soute under low flame for 5 minutes. ( sprinkle water if needed)

Add cumin powder-paste and fry for a minute or two

Add Pumpkin , ginger, red chili powder, Turmeric, salt and mix.  Continue frying for 3-4 minutes.

Cover and allow pumpkin to release water. Add grated coconut .

Add water just to ensure that the potato will be cooked and little water will be left at the end. (Add water and boil if potato or pumpkin is not done.) It will have some gravy and pumpkin will be too soft and falling apart type.

Add 1 tsp or more sugar ( it will have a sweet note) , adjust salt.

Add ghee and roasted jeera powder, mix and cover.

Onion version

It will be essentially same 

Add onion after seasoning ( sea above) and fry to light brown then add the black gram and Potato, soute under low flame. Then proceed as above,  

Normally eat with Puri or Luchi also roti and rice.
Happy eating 


Here is a Himalayan wild flower for the great Chefs