This sweet and ravishing Bengali daal is a candidate for any special occasions or during festivals in a Bengali Household. It has a royal air about it and definitely not a everyday dish. It pairs up best with fulko luchis or motorshutir kochuri, but is also taken along with rice and vegetable fritters. The mild heat from the fragrant dried red chillies, the subtle sweetness from the assorted dry fruits, the crunchiness of the ghee fried coconut and the alluring aroma of the ghee and freshly grounded garam masala weaves a magic that makes everyone succumb to its delectable taste.  I may as well put it this way that this is the King of all Daals. Have it once and you will never forget its lip licking taste.

My mother didn't like coconut in her dishes hence whenever she used to prepare cholar daal it would be the simpler version without dry fruits and coconut. But it would also taste super and go with any of the day to day vegetables sides like chorchori or ghonto. Specially cholar daal with badhakopir ghonto was one of my hot favorites. Now a days balancing work and home becomes so tedious that to make such a lavish daal meticulously you need much time at hand. Which is why I rarely make this one. Also Cholar daal is a heavy daal because of the big list of ingredients that go into the making of it, hence cant be consumed on a daily basis especially in this age of highly health conscious people. But once in a while indulgence is allowed and much needed too.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves:6


Ingredients:

• Chan Daal - 250 gm
• Ginger -  2 tsp
• Hing Powder- 1 tsp
• Corriander powder - 1 tsp
• Jeera Powder - 1 tsp
• Bay Leaf- 2
• Dried Red Chilli - 2
• Tomato - 1 medium sized
• Fresh coconut - Palm sized piece
• Cardamom - 4
• Cinnamon stick - 1  "
• Clove - 4
• Kismis - 8-9 
• Turmeric powder - a small pinch
• Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp 
• Salt to taste 
• Sugar - 4 tsp 
• Refined oil - 1/2 cup
• Ghee - 4 tsp
  

Serve it with rice with Brinjal or potato fritters as sides.

Chicken Sandwich

Chicken is a staple thing we have on the weekends, hence I had chicken in the freezer. I had recently found out a very nice chicken store in our neighborhood. Even after one week in the freezer when I defrost the chicken its still soft and fresh. So I decided I would make something with chicken. Chicken sandwich looked like a good option.

I checked on the net, and began searching for a nice chicken sandwich recipe. I specially wanted to avoid the recipes which were all heavy on mayonnaise. But unfortunately most of the chicken recipes I found on the net were either mayonnaise or cheese filled. Some of the indianised versions didn't sound good enough for me. After an hour of futile search I closed the laptop and decided to come up with my own version of chicken sandwich. I speculated between going for an all Chinese recipe or something more Indian. When the confusion between the two didn't appear to go, I thought why not a fusion of both? Thus the following recipe was born.

Preparation & Cooking Time: 25 mins

Chicken Mix

Procedure:
1. Clean the chicken pieces. Preferably select some fibrous pieces if possible devoid of bones.

2. Slice the onion longitudinally and chop the green chilli very finely. (If you are ok with having bigger chilli pieces then you can chop it that way)

3. Heat oil in a skillet and toss in the onion and chilli, fry till golden brown. Keep them aside to cool

4. In a deep bottomed wok take 3 cups of water. Put the cleaned chicken pieces in the water. Add 1 tsp of pepper powder, 2 tsp salt and 1 tsp of butter to the water. Cover the wok and turn on the heat. As the chicken gets cooked, the flavours of pepper and butter will get uniformly infused into the chicken pieces.

5. Boil the chicken pieces for 6-7 mins and then turn of the heat. Let it cool and then take out the boiled chicken on a plate. Note that the chicken should not be all mushy, it should remain a bit hard when you remove it from the heat.

6. Shred the chicken pieces using two forks and keep it in a mixing bowl

7. Add the fried onion and chilli, red chilli powder, remaining pepper powder, 2 tsp butter, curd, soya sauce, ginger garlic paste, oregano, cheesy spread, magic masala and a pinch of salt if required to the mixing bowl.  Mix everything together so that the chicken is well coated with all the ingredients.

8. Heat 2 tsp oil in a skillet. Add the remaining butter to the oil. You can add more according to taste. Toss in the chicken mixture into the skillet and fry it for 4 minutes, occasionally stirring it so that the mix doesn't stick to the bottom of the skillet.

9. Keep the fried mix aside. Take the bread slices, chop off the hard edges of the bread. Butter on side of the bread slices.

10. Now heat the skillet and keep the bread slices one by one, the buttered side facing the bottom of the skillet. Let the bread surface become slightly browned. Do the same for all the breads.

11. Lay the bread on a serving plate, the fried side facing down. Butter the other side of the breads lightly. Spoon some of the chicken mix on one bread and cover it with another bread. A total of 4 sandwiches are made. Cut the sandwiches diagonally and serve with some ketchup and potato chips as sides.

I am very self critical of my cooking. If I am not satisfied with the end result, no matter how much praise I get for it, I am not at peace. Today I was really happy with the end result, just the way I wanted it to be. More Indian and yet having all the right mix of Chinese flavor . Try this one and I bet you are absolutely going to love it.

It's been a long time since I have added to this space. Actually so many things have been going on lately that blog was the last thing on my mind. In between had visited hometown (Kolkata). It had been quite a whirlwind vacation with me running around more than relaxing at home. Why? Well let that story be for another time.

The Kolkata weather really sucks during this monsoon-no monsoon phase. Extreme humid, too hot during the day and equally uncomfortable during the night. Pretty ideal for getting sick, especially if one is used to living in dry climates like that of Pune. And to add to it, sporadic downpour throughout the day. So no wonder I came back to Pune with a bad cough and cold.

Previously people used to avoid rice when they got fever or cold but now the doctors don't put any such restrictions. Home made balanced diet is adequate. Usually weekends mean a heavy meal twice a day comprising of non-veg dishes. But considering the health conditions I decided to keep it very simple this saturday. It's something that very commonly you would get to see in a Bengali household. 
Dal is a kind of a mandatory dish in our house. Apart from that I decided to make palong saker ghonto (mixed vegetables with palak), kakrol bhaja(crispyTeasel gourd fry) and dim bhaja (egg fry) - the quintessential Bengali recipes. Since the sides were not of very spicy nature so, a simple dal like Masoor would compliment the simple sides very well. 

I am totally in love with Kakrol, though Kakrol is not exactly bitter but more like bittersweet. I found some while walking in vegetable market of Kolkata and I decided to carry some of this to Pune, as I never saw this veggie in my neighborhood. This is a very simple and easy recipe.

Pan Fried Teasel Gourd (Kakrol Bhaja)


Ingredients:

• Tender Teasel gourd - 3 medium
• Sugar - 1/2 tsp 
• Refined Oil - 1 tbsp
• Salt to taste

Fresh Teasel Gourd

Procedure:

1. Cut the Teasel gourd in thin round slices
2. Sprinkle salt and sugar on the cut pieces and spread them evenly over all the slices
3.Drizzle oil in a thick bottomed pan and let it heat
4. Add the teasel gourd slices and saute for 9-10 mts till they attain a pink shade. As the slices are thin flip on the sides periodically to avoid burning.
5. Sprinkle minimal  water if it sticks to the pan 
5. Remove from the heat when the edges of the slices have become brown and crispy


The following is one of the most simple and delicious dal's in Bengal. Musurir dal is like a staple food for us - the daily dal that goes with just any side dish.

Bangali Musuri Dal ( Masoor Dal) :
 
Ingredients:

• Masoor dal (Orange lentil) - 2 cups
• Turmeric power - 2 tsp 
• Whole Jeera -  1 1/2 tsp
• Garlic cloves  - 5 medium (coarsely chopped)
• Green Chilli - 2 (slitted longitudinally)
• Ghee (Clarified butter)- 2 tsp (optional for seasoning)
• Salt to taste

Procedure:

Soaked Masoor Da

1. Soak the Masoor dal for half an hour; this would speed up the cooking time.
2. Take a pressure cooker and add 4 cups of warm water. Add the soaked dal. Cover and cook till the required number of whistles to make the dal creamy and thick. The number of whistles would differ depending on the quality of dal and nature of water (hard/soft water). It usually takes 6 whistles for me
3. Take out the boiled dal in a vessel and beat it into a smooth consistency with an egg beater or any ladle. This helps to make the dal even.
4. Take a thick bottomed vessel and pour the smoothened dal in it. If it feels very thick add 2 cups of water. Let it boil.
5. Take another pan and drizzle oil in it
6. Add Jeera, chopped garlic and green chillies to the oil
7. When the aroma of jeera starts to come take it out and add this entire thing into the boiling dal
8. Add turmeric powder and mix well. Let it boil for some more time (2-3 mins). Cover it so that the smell of the spices can effuse into the dal evenly
9. Add the ghee before removing the vessel from the heat

Palong saker ghonto (mixed vegetables with palak)

Ingredients:

Seasonal Vegetables

Ghonto is basically a kind of mix of all kinds of vegetables. Here you can use all sorts of seasonal vegetables apart from any vegetable which has its own distinctive smell like cauliflower or drumstick. I had used the following vegetables:

• Carrot - 2 (diced)
• Green long Brinjal - 2 (diced)
• Potato - 2 (diced)
• Ridge Gourd (Jinge) - 2 medium (diced)
• Pumpkin - 250 gm (diced)
• Hyacinth Bean (Shim) - 100 gm (cut in medium pieces )
• Red Tomato - 2 medium (diced)
• Spinach (Palak) - 1 medium bundle (wash and cut)
• Panchforon ( 5 spice mix) - Its a blend of 5 whole spices/seeds. Typically, panch phoran consists of fenugreek seed, nigella seed, cumin seed, black mustard seed and fennel seed in equal parts.In Bengal, panch phoran is sometimes made with .radhuni instead of mustard seed. In the West, where radhuni may be hard to obtain, some cooks substitute the similar-tasting celery seed.
• Dried Red Chilli (sukno lonka) - 2
• Fresh Ginger  Paste - 2 tsp (mind the word 'fresh'. That's what gives the vegetable the distinctive taste and zing)
• Ghee (clarified butter) - 1 tsp (optional)
• Refined oil - 2 tsp

1. Cut all the vegetables and keep aside
2. Heat oil in a wok and add oil
3. Add panchforon and red chilli to the oil and let it splutter
4. Add the vegetables in the following order (hard vegetables first moving gradually to the softer ones) - potato, carrot, pumpkin, hyacinth bean, ridge gourd, brinjal, tomato. 
5. Cover and cook for nearly 20 minutes so that the vegetables become softer. No need to add extra water as the vegetables will get cooked from their own water content. 
6. Stir the vegetables occasionally to avoid burning. Add slight water if the vegetables start sticking to the wok.
7. When all the other vegetables are cooked well, add the palak. Palak is a very soft leafy vegetable which gets cooked within minutes hence its added in the end.
8. Whn the palak is cooked add the ginger paste and mix well. Cook for 2-3 minutes so that the smell of ginger is evenly spread.
9. Before turning of the heat add a dash of ghee for flavor

I made rice to go with the dishes. To take care of the non-veg part in the meal, I had boiled eggs, shelled them, mixed turmeric and salt and shallow fried them till they attained the golden glow.

Hubby loved the simple fare and I saw him eating well after an entire week. 

I love cooking - the aroma of the spices,  the chopping, cutting, dicing, the delicious colors and lip smacking flavors - I pretty much love everything about it, minus doing the dishes of course.


My mom is an amazing cook, even my dad can cook fairly well, so it was au natural that I would also inherit the culinary genes from my parents. But till the time I was in school (i.e. 18 years) dad never let me go near the stove; so by then I didn't even know how to cook Maggi by myself. I used to think if someone could cook a dish in two minutes that would automatically qualify them to be excellent chefs.


Then during the engineering years I was put up in a hostel hence it was never required for me to cook anything. When other girls of my age were much capable of cooking up a storm in the kitchen and brag about it as well, I provided the necessary patient audience to their narration.


Work made me relocate to Mumbai and once again due to the blessings of the 'Dabba System' of Amchi Mumbai, I was spared the chance of venturing into the space of my apartment which was supposed to be the kitchen. The empty kitchen space, heavily neglected unless we had to fill water from the aquaguard, at times did make me feel sad for it. But I couldn't do much for it, rather the aunty in the 10th floor of my building didn't let me do anything. She was a fairly good cook and never did I feel the urge to test whether my cooking capability were better than hers.


You don't know whether you are good or bad at a certain thing unless you explore the in and out of it. And by the look of it, I had assumed that might be I will never be required to step into the unknown dungeons of cooking. And I was pretty happy at that.


But finally I had to.


On a fateful night when we moved in to our new apartment in Koperkhairne, I was greeted with the fact that there was no Dabba system available in that part of the town. I saw my room mate set up the kitchen enthusiastically. The first time I stood in front of the stove I was quite amused. The array of ingredients awaited my attention, the pots and pans lay ready to be picked up and the burner waited to be warmed up to the desired temperature to mark the beginning of my cooking journey. 


Minutes passed and the maximum I could do was to recognize some of the spices in front of me and stare blankly at the vegetable basket. Some more minutes passed and I concluded that food could not be cooked by mental vibrations alone, it required a recipe. I did exactly what I do when I need any kind of help - I rang up my mom.


An hour an a half later, I had in front of me a bright yellow mushy lump of food - my first try at making "Khichuri" (Khichdi or rice porridge).  With lot of anticipation I had a spoon of it and was rather surprised to know that it had turned out to be far more palatable than I had expected out of my first dish ever! Might be I was too hungry at that point, or might be it was just that you cannot self criticize your first attempt at anything new much - I was pretty happy at the outcome.


I remember Ma had said that if while cooking the color of the turmeric stays on your palms, it is said that the person can make a great cook. When I looked at my palms I indeed had some turmeric on it. I don't know whether she had told me that just to encourage me, but it did work for me.


While in Mumbai, I pretty much kept my cooking to the basics, never experimented or did any non-veg cooking. The first time I came to onsite,  I truly began exploring the unknown vistas that cooking could offer. I even bettered this on my second onsite trip. From the past one year I have been in Atlanta and the number of new dishes I have cooked far more exceeds the number of dishes I had ever cooked in the four years spent in Mumbai.


I can feel I am evolving as a cook and I wish to continue this journey forever. Creative Cooking can be as much gratifying as taking an amazing landscape picture  with a cokin f/8 filter or writing a novel of 400 odd pages - the fact is when you put your heart into something it can never come out wrong.


By now its very evident that I love to gab and I do tend to deflect from the core topic once I start to do so. So let's come back to the topic. This post was supposed to be about the Saturday brunch I had prepared for us. Good food and a good comics always helps me unwind.


The Food:
You must have heard people saying that one thing you can't go wrong with is Fish. I would like to add to that by saying, one thing you can't go wrong with if you are a amateur cook, is chicken.  Get yourself a packet of cut and cleaned chicken from any Supermarket and you are good to go! Whole chicken are much better taste wise, but if you don't have a good enough meat cutting knife don't got for it, you may land up in more soup than you intend to. You may also go for the organic chicken if you are a health conscious person, but be ready to loosen your pockets a bit, they are expensive than the normal ones. I usually prefer freshly skinned and cut chicken from the local store as they guarantee the 'freshness' of the cut meat.


I love to add curd in my non-veg dishes. The richness of flavor and ample creaminess it provides to the gravy can really make your food delectable. A Malyali friend of mine had once mentioned it to me that the combination of curd and meat is not good for health, but I failed to find any suitable evidences in favor of it.  Even if I would have, I definitely couldn't have left curd out of my cooking - that's how much I'm in love with it. 


The Recipe:
This particular preparation is pretty simple, easy on the tummy and yet quite yummy. You can try it out with both chicken or mutton. 


Ingredients:

• 1 kg chicken thigh
• 225 gm/ 1 cup of curd
• 4 tsp Coriander( Dhaniya) powder
• 3 tsp Cumin (Jeera) powder
• 1.5 tsp Black pepper powder
• 1 tsp Fennel Seed Powder(Mauri/ Sauf) powder/Everest meat Masala (The meat masala has fennel seed powder which serves the same purpose)
• 150 gm/ 3/4 cup oil
• 4 Cardamom pieces (Elaichi)
• 4  Clove pieces (Laung)
• 1" stick of cinnamon (Dalchini)
• 250 gm Onion
• 2 tbsp Ginger paste/ grated ginger
• 4-5 Indian Green Chilli
• 1 tsp Red chilli powder/ paprika (Optional)
• Salt as required
• Sugar as per taste (Optional - Bengali's do tend to add a pinch of sugar to their gravy to maintain the tangy balance in the food)

Preparation:
Take out the curd in a bowl and add salt, coriander powder, cumin powder and pepper powder to it. Beat the curd into a fine uniform paste. Add a little water if the paste feels too thick.


Wash and clean the cut chicken thighs properly. Marinate the chicken with the curd paste for about half an hour. 


Slice the onion longitudinally and keep it aside. Grate the ginger finely and keep it aside as well. Always prefer fresh ginger to the bottled ginger paste. Bottled ginger paste contains preservative and the strong smell of vinegar which may result in killing the actual flavor of a dish. Slit the green chilies longitudinally. 


Wipe out the wok with a paper towel before putting it on the oven. Heat oil in the wok. Crush the cardamom, clove and cinnamon coarsely with a pestle beforehand. Crushing the whole spices enhances the flavor. When the oil is heated enough, add the crushed cardamom, clove and cinnamon to it. Once the flavor of the spices starts emanating, add the cut onions to it. Fry the onions until they are soft and assume the nice shade of golden brown.



While frying onions if you sprinkle some salt over it, the onion gets cooked faster  which saves gas and time. You can also add half a spoon of sugar to it. Sugar helps to bring color to the fried onion quickly as it caramelizes in the heat.


Once the onions are done, add the grated ginger and fry it for a few seconds.


Add the chicken marinade and sauté them till they turn a shade of light yellow. Keep the flame on medium-high, it will let the chicken to get cooked slowly infused with all the fragrances of the masala and curd. No need to add extra water while the chicken cooks, the curd will let off enough water for that.  Add red pepper powder for color, don't overdo it as it may render the gravy unnecessarily spicy.


Cover and cook till chicken is done. If you feel the gravy is becoming thicker, you may add water according to required consistency. 


Let the oil float over the gravy, it's an indication that both the meat and the gravy are well cooked. Now add the fennel seed powder/ meat masala to the curry. Let it mix  well before adding the green chilies.  Let the green chilies simmer in the curry for a few minutes. You can also cover the curry after putting the green chillies, so that the sharp flavor of the green chilies gets a chance to infuse evenly into the gravy and add the required jazz.


That's it, your Murg Kacchi Mirch is ready to be savored!


Note: This recipe doesn't contain any turmeric. The fried spices and onion give the necessary color to the gravy.


Side dish:
You may serve rice or roti (indian flatbread / wheat tortillas) with the chicken gravy. My personal favourite is steaming hot Basmati rice to go with it.


Serving:
Arrange the cut salad in the plate. Serve the steaming basmati rice on one side and lay the chicken gravy on the other side.  Garnish with freshly chopped corriender leaf. 

PS: Pardon the bad resolution of the pictures, they were taken under bad light conditions. Will try to take the next recipe pics in better light.




Hope you enjoy your Saturday Brunch. 


Next time I will be back with more recipes and stories to tell. 


Ciao!