30 September

The humidity from the long rain spells is finally lifting a bit and there’s a brisk chill in the air. September is a beautiful time. late summer produce like juicy plump tomatoes are still found in abundance in the local produce market while the weather feels like fall. So this year I am thinking of creating a fall series of dishes which will bring together the light and delicate flavors of summer with the comforting style of autumnal cooking.

What is the best you can do with beautiful ripened tomatoes? Of course make them into a hearty thick and warm tomato soup. 

I have never been a fan of tomato to start with. As a child I used to hate tomato because of its mushy texture. Then once I started train journeys, tomato soup became a constant companion as the pre dinner or the lunch refreshment served onboard. It was perfect to satiate the hunger pangs we would feel in between the meals.

Rail travels always evokes a sense of romanticism. I really miss those old days when me with my extended family of 10-15 members would travel in trains to hill stations during our summer breaks. Adults sharing stories and banter sitting across the berths and kids engrossed in a game of ludo was how our train travel would look like. Not to mention the homemade snacks that would keep doing the rounds as the stories would pick up pace. 

But even after these tiny hurdles we would always crave for this in-between meal soups. They would give us the perfect excuse to sip on the warm soup sitting beside the window and staring at the beautiful sceneries whooshing past. 

The long train journeys and family gateways might have become a thing of past in the post covid world but the unmistakable aroma of tomato, black pepper, and toasted bread still plays on my senses and makes me want to go back in time. 

I hope the recipe I am taking about today takes you also back to those days of amazing train travels. This roasted tomato soup is totally a summer-crossing-into-fall type of soup and ready in around 30 - 35 minutes

Checkout other soup recipes on my blog:

• Spicy Thai Pumpkin Soup 
• Mushroom Bok Choy Soup
• Chicken Clear Soup

25 September

Maharashtra is a land of unique local flavours. And still it is mainly known for its Vada Pavs, poha, pav bhaji and modaks. I know because I also belong from a different state by birth. People only know food items that are shown in the Bollywood movies but the traditional flavors of this land unfortunately is very limited to the locals.  Thus even after spending more than 15 years in Maharashtra, I started understanding and exploring the signature regional cuisines of Maharashtra from only a couple of years ago. Mumbai being a melting pot of various cultures, I hardly came across a place claiming to serve authentic Maharashtrian Thali. I am talking about 12 years ago, it might also be that even if such a place exists in Mumbai I was unaware of. After spending a reasonable amount of time in Pune and due to some local friends and a few team lunch outs, I got exposed to the traditional fares which are uncommon to an outsider to the state. Now I really feel bad that I started exploring the beautiful cuisines of this place so late. Nonetheless, its better late than never!

Maharashtra is divided into 5 main regions : Konkan, Paschim Maharashtra also known as Desh - (Pune Division), Khandesh - (Nashik Division), Marathwada - (Aurangabad Division) and Vidarbha - (Nagpur and Amravati divisions).The coastline of Maharashtra is usually called the Konkan and boasts its own Konkani cuisine, which is a harmonized combination of Malvani, Gaud Saraswat Brahmin, and Goan cuisines. Besides the coastal Maharashtra cuisine, the interior of Maharashtra or the Vidarbha area has its own distinctive cuisine known as the Varadi cuisine.

The cuisine of each of these 5 regions are diverse and yet similar in many ways. From the coastal delicacies of the Kokan where fish curry and rice is a staple to the specialties of Deccan plateau and the fiery fare from heat of Vidharbha in the east, Maharashtrian food is truly unique. Quoting a food article, the North-Western region of Maharashtra which covers areas like Jalgaon, Malegaon and Nasik is known for its extremely spicy curries. This cuisine is called the Khandeshi cuisine which is the hottest cuisine of Maharashtra. Peanut oil, dry coconut and the Lavangi Mirch are the highlights of this cuisine. The curries are identifiable because of the red spicy oil that floats atop and is called 'Tawang or Tarri'.

There is a Maharashtrian Restaurant a little away from my place, where for the first time I got introduced to an amazing dish from Khadenshi cuisine - Kala Mutton. The burst of flavors and how succulent the mutton pieces were literally blew my mind! It was like nothing I had had before. Every inch of the mutton had a infusion of rich flavors from the whole spices, slowly cooked over the wood fire for hours. A bite of the piping hot bhakhris dipped in Kala mutton gravy with a slice of raw onions is something you need to try once in your life to know how heavenly it tastes.

From then on every time I visited the place, that was the dish for me by default. I am so much smitten with this particular dish that I had to try making this at home. I just had to! The main element of the dish of course is the Kala Masala. When you look at the ingredient list you might feel overwhelmed but that is the key behind all the beautiful flavors this curry has. It is definitely a labor of love! I can proudly say, that the mutton made with this kala masala tasted super amazing and everyone at home really loved it. Check out the recipe for the masala below. I will be posting the Kala Masala Mutton Curry recipe soon. Just as a side note, I did try making this with Chicken as well, it did taste amazing but no where near to the one that you get with Mutton. So if you want to try this out for the very first time, make a Mutton curry with it.

Checkout other accompaniment recipes on my blog:

• Bengali Tomato Chutney
• Pickled Onions - Sirke Wala Peyaz
• Lebanese Toum - Garlic Sauce
• Hirva Mirchi Thecha

15 September

Raw papayas are considered very good for the stomach. When ever you need a happy bowel, a Bengali mother would always recommend you to have boiled raw papaya or what we call as seddho pepe. Full raw or partially ripened, seddho pepe always tastes awesome to me. There are many yummy vegetarian preparations in the Begali cuisine with Raw papaya and most of the times its cooked a little sweet apart from the time it is added to the daal. Cooking daal with vegetables is a common culture in Bengal. Usually Moong Daal pairs well with all sorts of vegetables and most of the time sobji diye moong er daal  (Daal with vegetables) is prepared on special occasions with seasonal produce. But pepe diye Moong daal ( Moong daal with raw papaya) is prepared like a everyday daal in a Bengali household. 

It is a simple hearty daal recipe, especially preferred during the summer months at my home. My mom used to find innovative ways to feed me vegetables when I was small, putting all the unattractive vegetables in daal was an easy way out for her.  As a result right from childhood I grew up loving this  preparation. This daal preparation doesn't have any bells and whistles but this makes up for a hearty meal when you pair it with any vegetable and steamed rice. 

• Moong Daal - 200 gm
• Whole Jeera - 1 tsp
• Raw Papaya - 1 cup, cubed
• Ginger Paste - 1 tbsp
• Dry Red Chilli - 2
• Turmeric Powder - as needed
• Bay Leaf - 1
• Salt as per taste 
• Ghee - 1/2 tsp
• Refined Oil/ Cooking Oil

Equipment:

• Pressure Cooker
• Kadai

2. Now wash the daal under running water to clean off any impurities and dirt. Transfer the roasted daal to a bowl and add about two cups of warm water. Cover and let the Daal soak for about 30 minutes to 1 hours, the more the better

Tip: Soaking the daal, reduces the cooking time.

3. Cut the Papaya into cubes. 

4. There are two ways to cook the papaya - either you boil it with the daal or you can shallow fry the papaya cubes in a kadai for about 1 minute and then add 1 cup of water and boil them separately in a pressure cooker. 

Note: The papaya I used had started to ripen, so I followed 2nd option. If you have a completely raw papaya, you can follow the 1st option as well.

5. Pressure cook the daal for 2 whistles or as required. Note that the daal should be cooked but not a mush. With a ladle give a couple of stir to mix the daal in the cooker after opening the lid.

6. Now put the pressure cooker with the boiled daal on medium flame and add salt and turmeric. Let it come to a boil and switch off the flame.

Note: If you have boiled the papaya with the daal, before this step take out the papaya cubes and keep aside, else they might get over cooked and mushy.

7. In a kadai, heat refined oil and ghee. When hot temper it with bay leaves, dry red chili and whole Jeera. 

Note: This recipe is made with white oil (refined oil) an ghee and not mustard oil which is commonly used in Bengali recipes.

8.When the spices are fragrant, add the ginger paste and sauté it keeping the flame on medium till the raw smell is gone. 

9. Now add the boiled papaya and the boiled daal. Let it simmer for about 4-5 minutes with lid on. Top it off with a dollop of ghee.

Serve it with steamed rice and vegetable of your choice.

11 September

- No Recipe Post ~

|| ॐ गं गणपतये नमो नम: 

श्री सिध्धीविनायक नमो नम: 

अष्टविनायक नमो नम: . 

गणपती बाप्पा मोरया ||

Presenting some of my favorite Ukadiche Modak shots from this year's Ganesh Chaturthi. This is more a photoblog.

There were many firsts this year in terms of shooting the prasad and Bappa. Last year I remember when the pandemic had hit us and we spent Ganesh Chaturthi in the confines of our home, for the first time I brought out my DSLR to shoot food photos. Before that my DSLR was purely used for travel photography. I had never imagined in my wildest dreams that one day I would start food photography, open an Instagram page and becomes suddenly so passionate about food photography, techniques, editing, composition etc. I started taking food pictures with my phone around the time pandemic hit, because like everyone else I was feeling stressed locked at home and needed some good energy through creativity. It was just a casual hobby until I took the first food photo with my DSLR.

You must be wondering why I didn't use my DSLR to take photos earlier. It was out of sheer laziness. Getting the camera, putting the right lenses, setting up a tripod just to take a food picture didn't sound too enticing to me. Point and shoot was more my genre. Plus I didn't know then that to take one single food photography there would be so many steps right from cooking till the final editing. This all changed when I took the Rawa modak shot on the first day of Ganesh Chaturthi last year. I observed that the photos of food which were taken with the DSLR were much more crisp and with beautiful depth of field. Even minimal editing made the final shot look superb. That was the beginning, after that it had been a long learning curve if 1 year so far and there are so many things I have picked up by observing other food bloggers. I feel proud at times looking at some of my recent compositions, how far I have come from last year in terms of food photography. But then there is so much more to learn, this is just the starting line. And this entire learning process is such an exciting journey. Especially, its magical what you can achieve on the editing board. While the composition needs to be good, but still with a little bit of imagination you can practically create amazing pictures. It fascinates me to no extent. When I got my hands set on Snapseed I was excited. When I learnt Lightroom, it felt exhilarating and finally when I edited the first ever drip shot in Photoshop I felt like a speck in the wide universe. Photoshop is absolutely stunning in itself. I mean don't laugh on me because I am gushing about a software which everyone knows is brilliant. But just feel from the eyes of a person who is beginning on their photoshop journey. Its simply amazing. It is a different world altogether and now I am hooked. Technology has really made magic available at fingertips. 

These lovely modaks were made by Pooja Parsewar Bachewar. 

I always wanted to create a perfect drip shot. But my tripod had been giving me some pain and I never felt confident about pulling it off. This time I took Ganapati bappa's name and plunged into the idea. The only challenge was, since my tripod was not helping me I had to find someone to hold the spoon with the ghee while I took the shot. The default choice was mom. But to convince her to hold the spoon, make her wait till I got the perfect shot after trying for N number of times, keeping a check on the receding light on a rainy afternoon and wrapping up shooting before my mother's patience ran thin was a humongous task. I think all you photographers who engage their mothers for making action shot would empathize with me right now. It is a tedious job , but at times things do fall in the right place. I do not have any BTS (behind the scene ) for this shoot because of the above mentioned reason. I had to clean up everything before she got ticked off :D. But someday, I promise, some of these days I will try to do a detailed BTS and put it up on my blog. Fingers crossed.

Bappa came in his bal avataar this time. The cute little Bappa really made us all fall in love with him.

10 September

Ganpati Bappa Morya! Wishing you all a very happy Ganesh Chaturthi. May Lord Ganesha as the harbinger of happiness dispel all distress and obstacles from your lives and shower you with his blessings.

सुखकर्ता दुखहर्ता वार्ता विघ्नाची
 नूरवी पुरवी प्रेमा कृपा जयची
 सर्वांगी सुंदरा उति शेंदुराची
 कंठि झलके माला मुक्ताफलनि

 जय देव जय देवा जय मंगलमूर्ति
 दर्शनमत्रे मनकामना पूर्ति

Welcoming Bappa home is always a joy. Somehow the elephant headed god feels more like a family than a God figure. Amidst the pantheon of Indian deities, Gannu Baba is probably the only one who has an innate boyish cheekiness. You will really be hard put to find faults with a God who loves his ‘modak’ more than anything. The ever smiling God feels like the child of the household and we love spoiling him with an overdose of Modaks and all the goodies we can think of on his birthday. 

Ganapati Bappa has been a part and parcel of my life from the time I stepped into the soil of Maharashtra. He he simply omnipresent here. Be it the vehicle dashboard, office desks, temples in the nooks and corner of the streets, bollywood songs, restaurant names or in the grandeur of the iconic Dagduseth Mandir. Even in the most unexpected places you will find him in some form. That's how much he is loved in here.

When I first joined my workplace in Mumbai more than a decade and half ago, Mumbai was a unknown city for me. It was the first time I was going away from my home state. Everything seemed alien and scary at first. On top of that we had a very tight schedule during the training period. Infinite assignments, exams, long hours at the office, the local food made me feel the city of dreams was becoming a city of depression for me. I almost started feeling as if I needed to be back in my comfort zone away from all the craziness.

A month after I joined, it was the time of Ganesh Chaturthi. My company had a huge building in Mahape and they set up a big Ganpati Idol in our premise on the occasion. The office bus used to bring us to office at sharp 8.30 AM. We got out of bus and immediately used to line up before the Ganapati Idol as the aarti would start. Again before leaving office the evening aarti would happen at 8 PM sharp. The evening time felt more surreal, as the surrounding would be absolutely calm and the aarti would reverberate all around the premise creating a dolby effect. "Sukhkarta Dukhharta" - this aarti was the first one I learned during that time and while chanting the same with 100 other trainees in the same room it felt liberating. As if all the negative thoughts I was getting before vanished in that moment. I think it was those 10 days of Ganesh Chaturthi that helped me brave the hardships of the training phase in my company. After all these years, I fondly remember those evening aartis - they are embedded in my memories forever as one of the most cherished moments in Mumbai. This aarti still continues to be my favorite one. You feel so much power and positivity form inside when you chant this, even when you are alone. 

On this occasion today, I made Unniyappam for the naivedya. Unniyappam-Unniappam, is a traditional recipe and popular snack from Kerala. It is a fluffy deep-fried rice sweet fritter similar to Dutch Aebleskiver. Unni in Malayalam means small, Ney/Nei means ghee/clarified butter, and Appam means small rice cake. Unniyappam-Unniappam is also used as a ritual offering, in temples in Kerala (South India). Check out the recipe below. 

• Wheat Flour - 1 cup
• Rice Flour - 1 tbsp
• Banana - 1 medium size
• Baking Soda - a pinch
• Jaggery - 3/4 cup
• Salt - a pinch
• Grated Coconut - 2 tbsp
• Cardamom Powder - 1/4 tsp
• Oil + Ghee - as required for frying

Garnish:

• Roasted sesame - 1 tsp

Equipment:

• Paniyaram Pan / appachatti
• Toothpick

Method

2. Now add the rice flour to the mixing bowl

3. Take the jaggery and break it into pieces or grate it using a grater. Add about 1/2 cup water or as required. Microwave it for about 30 seconds to one minute till the jaggery is completely melted. Strain it to remove impurities. 

Note: If you do not have microwave you can melt the jaggery in a pan over the gas as well.

4. Dry roast the grated coconut till slightly browned and fragrant.

5. Mash the banana with a fork.

6. Now add the mashed banana, melted jaggery, cardamom powder and grated coconut to the dry mix in the mixing bowl. Fold in and the batter should be of a idly or pancake consistency. Let the batter rest for 20 minutes or more.

Note: You can store the batter overnight in a fridge also at this point.

7. Now add the baking soda and salt and give it a stir.

8. Heat a Paniyaram pan and fill each cavity with about half oil + ghee mixture. When the oil is hot, add about 1 tbsp of batter into each cavity. At this point keep the gas at high heat for 1 minute. Then lower the flame to medium and cover the pan. Cook covered for another minute then turn the unniayappam while the center is still soft. This will ensure they have a full round shape. Cook for another minute till a toothpick inserted comes out clean and they have a nice brown color.

Tip: fill the cavity with batter leaving a little space at the top. Once the Unniyappam starts getting cooked it will fill the whole cavity and it will be difficult to turn if there is no space.

Note: Unniyappams store nicely in the refrigerator. You can store them for 2-3 days in the fridge.

Enjoy it hot or cold.