Aam er chatney (chutney)

I love my trips to Whole Foods Market. Its almost as fun as going to the mall. The whole adrenaline that makes us happy when we buy something cute for ourselves all the while feeling guilty that its over priced but you still do it because this is better that any place other. So, that's what I mean.
We bought, plums, peaches, assortment of black, blue and red berries, and some of the not so exotic fruits like bananas and mangoes. Why? because they are organic taste better and remind me of the India I will see in a few weeks time.

I picked a raw mango and one ripe one. With the raw one I made Chutney the Bengali way it came out so well that now I am reminded everyday that we need to go back to WFM to buy one raw mango and I dread going just right now because it may just not stop at that one thing.




So here is the quick recipe:

Ingredients
One raw mango
dry red chillies
pepper crushed
paanch phoron
garam masala
salt
sugar
lime juice

wash the raw mango and cut it into long thin pieces. I use the seed as well since I like the fibrous seed all dipped in the chutney. Anyways, so. Heat a little bit of oil in a wok and put the dry red chillis, paanch phoron in it. when this starts spluttering add the mango. pour water in it ans let it boil. when the whole thing comes to a boil add the sugar, this will give the chutney a glaze. Now add the pepper and extra chili powder and lime juice if you want. Keep tasting it without burning your tongue. lower the flame and let this simmer for sometime add extra water if you think that the mango has not reached the desired softness. Then let this thicken.

PS: The chutney tastes better day 2 and 3. So I make a lot at one go which continues for at least 4-5days.

Paneer (Cottage Cheese) Home made

Wanted to make some dish with paneer. Checked my kitchen refrigerator and realized that the half packet had gone stale. I did not want to go all the way to the Desi market just to buy a packet of panner. And then let half of it go stale again, although this was the first time that it happened. So I decided to make paneer at home. And this is my method. The measures are mine.

Homemade Cottage Cheese Recipe

Things Required:
milk (full cream) - 1 and 1/2 glass

half a lemon

Directions:
Place the milk on medium flame and bring to a boil.
Take 1/2 a cup of water and dissolve lemon juice in it.
Pour this mixture onto the boiling milk and keep stirring.
Lower the flame and continue stirring till the milk gets thickened.
Once the curd chunks start floating in the yellowish whey/milk plasma and gets completely separated, remove the bowl from the heat.
Next, strain or filter the mixture through a clean muslin cloth.
Now, remove the excess water and hang the cloth for about 20 minutes, so that the whey is completely drained out. Now, put it in a container and press the paneer to give it a solid shape. Finally, take out the slab and cut small cubes out of it or simply scrape it into thick pieces.
Refrigerate or grab your recipe book, as desired.
I did not need to make any cubes since I wanted it for a veggie chochori.

This is what I made of the home made cottage.

Saute Veggie Mix

Kaanch Kola r Chochori

Last weekend was fabulous. I had a wonderful dinner invitation and that inspired me to no end. This week I made Kaanch kola r chochori, an Indo-Chinese dinner, Blueberry smoothie, a mixed veggie and an elaborate omelette breakfast on the work from home Day, that was on Monday.

But today I will give the Kaanch Kola r chochori recipe. But before that I will give the inspiration of the dish. Just by chance I watched "Bizarre Food" on travel channel. I love travel channel but generally I skip this particular program simply because they show too much of bizarre food. As I was about to change the channel I realized they were featuring India. I stopped had to. What was bizarre about Indian food? I must know and so I sat and watched the whole show.
They featured O Calcutta and their Head chef Joy Banerjee cook Banana flower (mocha), and Banana stem. That's how I was inspired to make kaanch kola r chochori. I knew how to make mocha. quite tedious, I wasn't sure if we had banana stem in the market, but I knew kaanch kola is available. So, I went and brought fresh banana squash and made this dish. It came out nice and I have been asked to repeat my feat.

Can I call this my original since I did not follow any one's recipe?
So this is my original, Yeppeeiiii

Kaanch Kola r chochori

Ingredients -

fresh Kaanch kola
one medium potato
half onion
dry chilli
mustard seeds
turmeric powder
pepper crushed
salt n sugar
green chilli
coriamder powder
garam masala
zeera powder

Procedure-

Cut the banana squash and potatoes into tiny slices.
Heat the oil and add the dry red chillies, mustard seeds. let them splutter, then add the onions. once the onions turn transparent and start turning golden at the end, add the potatoes and banana squash. keep frying them in the oil add salt and sugar. some water will start coming off the bananas and potatoes. let that evaporate and keep frying. In the process mash the whole then and keep stirring to make a mixture of it all in the wok. Now add the masalas, turmeric, cumin powder, coriander powder, pepper crush, all of them.
DO not put the garam masala right now.
keep mixing. now sprinkle some water i it starts getting too dry and sticks to the wok bottom. keep mixing. once you can smell all the masalas and feel the who mixture soften and all the ingredients mixed add the green chillies and garam masala.
it takes about 25-30 min to make the whole thing.
You can garnish it with fresh coriander.

PS- you can use boiled potatoes instead of frying like I do. But I like it mashed while fry cooking.

Its fun.

4-course on a week day

Been long since I did some cooking. Last couple of weeks have been quite lazy in the kitchen front. Last week our meals in general consisted of grilled chicken, fried fishes, eat outs and barbecue. But today I was am ready for some elaborate meal time. SH must also be ready for something more than just dim er dalna and dal.

So the menu today is -

-Muro diye Bandhakopi

- Maach bhaaja

-Cholar dal

- Aloo potol dalna

Muro diye Bandakopi

We had the ilish maach fried and sorshe jhol. Generally I throw the head but this time I did not want to. SH's dida told me that I could make bandha kopi with it. I wasnt too sure about it. But then decided to try it. Called my mother and took the recipe. She has warned me that Ilish has a lot of "kaanta" even in the head. But then I know that ilish kaanta can just be chewed away. So, Ultimately I made it.

Ingredients

Fish head- 1

Bandhakopi (cabbage)- half

red chilli - cumin Powder - pepper crushed - dhania powder - Green chilli
cilantro - garam masala - salt to taste

Procedure-

Wash and clean the head of the fish and rub it with turmeric.

Heat Oil in a wok. Add the fish head and let it fry. deep fry it until it turns golden. In the mean time clean and cut the cabbage. In the same oil. add crushed ginger, and the cabbage to fry. Add turmeric, salt, dhania powder, cumin powder, pepper, chilli powder. Also add the fish head. keep stirring and frying. let the water of the of the cabbage evaporate. keep stirring and frying till the cabbage turns transparent and golden. add the required salt with taste. fresh coconut, Green chillies, fresh cilantro and garam masala.

Aloo Potol Dalna

I used frozen potol for this recipe.

Ingredients

Potol (pointed gourd) - 1/2 pack
Aloo - 2

Bay Leaf

dry red chilli - Ginger - Green Chilli - Turmeric - Coriander - Red Chilli - Cumin Seeds

Salt, sugar ( To Taste )

Procedure-

Wash and cut ptatoes and potol thin, and in length.

Heat oil in a wok. Add the potatoes and potol slices. Once they start browning add the bay leaves, and all the dry masalas. and now mix it till all the water evaporates. now add 2 cups of water and let this sim. When the oil starts floating and the curry color come. This means the curry is done.

Always enjoy your meal.

Chola dal

No one at my house is a big fan of chola dal. But I make it a point to rotate all the pulses and lentils and not get stuck at the favorite which is masoor dal for both of us. One of our acquaintances who have now moved to Japan were really good at this particular dish but I never asked for the recipe because I was too busy eating and praising the dish.

This week I made a chola dal the way I wanted to.
Ingredients:
Chola dal- 1 cup
mixed vegetables (beans, carrots, peas and corn)- one cup
onion- quarter of a medium
ginger- 1 in slice
tomato- 1 small one or medium
dry red chilli- 2
turmeric- 1 tsp
cumin seeds- 1/2 tsp
coriander- 1 tsp

coconut shredded and sliced

garam masala- 1 tsp
pepper- crushed a pinch
green chillis
salt to taste

Procedure:
Boil the dal with a pinch of turmeric, salt and a green chilli.
Heat a wok, add oil let the cumin seeds splutter, then put the onions and dry red chilli's. when the onions have softened and turned transparent add the tomatoes and let them fry. keep stirring for balanced cooking. add the turmeric, coriander powder, crushed pepper, crushed ginger slices. let this fry for a minute or two. Now add the mixed vegetables. and fry for a couple of minutes. Also add the sliced coconut which will get fried and cooked along with the veggies.
When you feel that the vegetables are slightly fries add the dal and a glass of water or as needed.
this dal is just as good when made slightly dry or with more gravy. Add salt to your taste and the green chillis. Also add the shredded coconut. this makes the dal slightly crunchy and tasty.
Before serving add some ghee to make it even more delicious. A simple meal becomes just a fabulous experience on the dining table.

Shukto

Sometime ago one of my acquaintance's mother came to visit them and she had prepared a typical Bengali meal for us. The first course in a normal Bengali lunch is something bitter and boiled/steamed. Shukto is one such dish. It is bitter and made of boiled vegetables. And it is such a wonderful dish. It was after such a long since I has tasted it that I felt I was at home for an instance. Well, I knew there were certain specific vegetables used to make Shukto, like sojne data. So I never tried making it. But the acquaintance's mother had substituted the sojne danta with phul kopir data, which i think is brilliant. The end result is fantastic. People use Hing in seasoning but I do not like the smell of hing and so I do not use it. Also using bordii ( vadi) which is usually made of moong Dal, is usual but I did not have them at home so I did not use it. Its a tasty option.

Ingredients: (the veggie list ):

phul kopir danta, bitter gourd, carrot, potatoes, beans
2 tsp mustard and 1 tsp posto
coriander powder- 1tsp
garam masala- a pinch
Seasoning:
paanch phoron
methi seeds
bay leaves
dry red chillies

Procedure:
put the mustard seeds and posto in a warm cup of water for 2-3 hrs and then grind it to a thin consistency.
cut all the veggies to about 1 inch squares or rounds. slice the danta into thin long strips.
Heat oil in a wok and add the seasonings all together. when it starts spluttering add the vegetables and stir it for a few minutes. Once the vegetables soften add the mustard-posto mixture. mix everything and then add some water if needed.
Some people like it dry, some people like it with some gravy, and some love it maakha maakha!!
*wink*wink*

Paneer with Aloo Matar

Today was a tough day of cooking. It is generally so after a few days of eating out and to gos.
S is falling into a comfortable routine of working from home on Fridays. So quite often we go out for lunch. There are specific reasons for S and me for such practice. I like the perks of eating out on weekdays which have small portions that are meant for one human being and not a wrestler, and 4- course meal at reasonable rates. Its like eating at happy hours and we need not worry about making a to go of leftovers which is more often than not three shrimps and 2 calamari strips.
Then on Saturday we felt like having some tandooris. Generally, we drive all the way to Kabab and curry which is a good 30 min drive from my home. But, since we were tried after a long day of completing some long stalled errands we went to Shalimar after some long ages. Too tired to eat at the resturant we asked for to go, picked a bengali movie and came home. Needless to repeat have some pleasant memories of food.
So when it came to Sunday which is today, I was much stumped. I wanted to have some vegetarian and S wanted to have fried rice. Too much work for a lazy me.
After much contemplation I decided on Paneer with aloo matar and cinnamon peas rice.
Paneer with aloo matar
250 gms paneer
2 medium size potatoes
half cup peas
some onion,
one flake of garlic,
1 in ginger slice
cumin seeds, mustard seeds
2 green and 2 dry chilli
one medium tomato, a piece of bell pepper/capsicum and a couple of mushrooms.
1 ilaichi, i in cinnamon
Cilantro, turmeric, salt, garam masala to taste

Heat oil in the wok. Add cumin seeds, dry chilli and mustard seeds and let them splutter then add onion, garlic. when the onion starts turning golden add the tomatoes as this gets fried add turmeric, chilli powder, dhania powder. do not allow the food to stick to the bottom. Now add the peas and potatoes. let the water dry and the potaoes stightly golden. Add salt, cinnamon and some water. let it come to a boil add the paneer and mushrooms. bring to a boil. add the garam masala and cilantro.
The rice:
wash the rice. Keep aside. heat a teaspoon oil. add some peas and cinnamon (actually you can add just about any veggie you want) add this to your rice and make it whatever way you do( rice cooker, pressure, microwave).
Today S was not sad about an all vegetarian set table at dinner :-))