Besan chilla or tomato omlette is a very easy snack recipe. In 10 minutes flat you can prepare this dish.

Besan is not very frequently used in Bengali cuisines. Its only used for pakoras or any other fried snacks in Bengal. But besan finds wide usage in North and Western cuisines. Many main course items are also made of Besan in this part of the country.

I came to know about the existence of such a dish only when I came to Bombay the erstwhile Mumbai 9 years ago. On the very first day at office I saw a "Tomato Omlette" listed on the Menu in our canteen. Being a hardcore non-vegetarian, for me Omlette always meant something to do with eggs. So I happily ordered for the "Tomato Omlette". I was pretty puzzled when instead of a lucious egg omlette I was served two yellow pancakes with chopped tomato and a slight hint of chopped onion. My Maharashtrian colleagues laughed at my expression and explained that this is what is known as a vegetarian omlette in this part of the country. With an awkward embarrassed smile I finished the tomato omlette. Though it didn't taste like an egg omlette but it tasted really good. I began liking this new kind of omlette from that day.

But soon I realised I was not the only one caught off guard because of this confusing name. Once I was travelling to Pune via the expressway from Mumbai and we had stopped at a roadside food mall on the highway. I had ordered the usual Vada pav and I heard one of my co-passengers order"tomato omlette" . When I went to the counter to collect the food I heard a heated argument taking place between that co-passenger and the server. He was literally screaming at the top of his voice - " You name it omlete and serve me this besan thing?? Either you give me an egg omlette or change the name of the dish. I demand a refund. blah blah..." The sight was pretty amusing as I could very well related to the persons exact sentiments, reminded me of my first day at the office canteen.

Its kind of a comedy of errors whenever some non-Maharashtrian has their first encounter with this dish. Later on I came to know it was also known as Besan ka Chilla in the Northern states of India.


Preparation Time: 5 minutes  

Cooking Time: 5 minutes

Serves: 1

• Besan or Gram Four - 1 cup
• Hing or Asefotida - a pinch
• Totamto - 1/4th cup chopped
• Onion - 1/4th cup chopped
• Green Chilli - 1 chopped
• Carrot - grated 2 tsp
• Curd - 1 tbsp
• Turmeric powder - a pinch
• Red Chilli Powder - 1/2 tsp
• Sugar as per taste
• Salt as per taste
• Refined Oil for frying
• Water

Procedure:

July - September is the most beautiful time of the year in Maharashtra as it's monsoon season. The emerald greenery all around almost hurts the eye, its so beautiful. This year the monsoon have extended beyond September. So even around the Durga Puja we had rains. Even when we don't have rains the sky is overcast at times with mild breeze. It's on one such day that the idea of visiting the Veer Dam has loosely been discussed. Usually many such plans hatch during the weekday while we ride to the office and by the time its weekend the ideas fade into oblivion. So this time also I didn't take the plan very seriously. On a Friday night we set the alarm early as next day we were going on a ride to Veer Dam.

 So next day we woke up early but got late getting ready. We left home around 8:15 AM.  We got ready to face the morning air and the unknown that lay ahead. From Dhayari to Veer Dam it's 62 KM. From Pune we took the Satara road. About 40 kms from Pune take Pandharpur road on the left for Shirval village. This road goes along the veer dam.

The roads were pretty empty and we breezed through the ghat-like roads, small dark green rocky hills adored both sides of the road. The morning air was very cool and refreshing. Unfortunately I had not taken my helmet and the air was lashing against my face making my eyes teary. I was trying hard to look ahead instead of the strong gusty wind because I didn't want to skip any part of the landscape. 15 minutes into the road we stopped at a roadside restaurant to have breakfast. I had medu vada-chutney which was very crisp and yummy. I always found eating by the highway restaurants or dhabas very intriguing. The panoramic view of the highway, the vehicles zooming past, old movie songs playing in the small TV at the restaurant, the clanging of the utensils as the servers placed the food before the guests - everything makes you feel like you are in a time warp where everything is moving at a fervent pace except you. I enjoy that "you" moment a lot.

We started off after having breakfast. The scenery started to change slowly, green hills gave way to big blue mountains faraway.

The route from Dhayari to Veer Dam

As the city limits slowly faded away we were greeted by miles of golden orange carpet of Cosmos lazily placed over the rolling green terrain interspersed with sudden burst of bold fuchsia bougainvillea , shy white creepers and violet unknown flowers. Post monsoon many parts of Maharashtra  witnesses a heavy bloom of Cosmos, especially away from the city limits on the highways or some distant places which are not having much human habitation. I had never the faintest idea that Cosmos blossoms can look so pretty in a bunch. The Pune Satara road looked as beautiful as our drive to Panshet a few weeks before due to the presence of these Cosmos. Mostly orange at times we saw yellow smaller ones as well. The orange and yellow marigolds also gave a tough competition to the Cosmos throughout the entire stretch but then at the end the Cosmos won hands down due to their petite frame and the cascading effect that was created by ripples of wind along the mountains.


We took a left from the main highway at one point to go towards the Veer dam. As we proceeded the landscape became dotted with farm lands and farmers working in the fields. We  saw some small hut type houses which were probably some village. Soon we crossed the Nira river and from then on our left side the backwaters of Veer Dam started accompanying us. We could see the water through the thick foliage and the villages, but the distance from the road was much. As we drove further the condition of the road deteriorated and at one point of time there was no road but pebbles and dirt. Got to know that the government had tried to construct good roads here but due to the local political influence on the villagers dispute happened and they never let the government complete the roads. We even saw unfinished bridges and worn out “men at work” signs all along the road indicating the truth of the fact. As we moved on the distance between the road and the backwaters decreased and slowly we were riding very next to it. The water was very calm and peaceful. The aquamarine waters had dark and light alternate ribbons of color due to the difference in depths at places.

Marine trees were seen in the water. We saw many birds on way – some of them very very beautiful and not the ones which are usually seen in city. Veer dam is known for migratory birds visiting it during the winters. A large number of birds are seen in this region every year and many bird watchers are present to witness them.

Such a beautiful place and yet it seemed unexplored and virgin. Maybe that’s one reason why the water of the dam was so clean. A couple of cars stopped for a quick snap but no one stayed for long. We moved further on till the gates of the dam. Few Eucalyptus trees were there along the bank, the minty pine scent with a touch of honey lingered in the air. A couple of village women sat under them washing clothes. We parked the bike outside the gate and walked inside. The lake looked very serene and deep. Veer is one of the largest dams of Maharastra. The slope of the dam was rocky and had tiny violet blossoms all over. We did not walk ahead but spent some quite time by the entry and took snaps. The sun was getting hotter and we decided to backtrack.

There are a couple of hotels by the side of the Veer dam, one of them Sai International was operational. As we were very thirsty from all the driving in the sun we decided to unwind for some time at the hotel. The property is strategically located overlooking the backwaters. It has a nice lawn with wrought iron tables. It has both lodging and fooding. The bar area is separate. We sat at the family restaurant and ordered some mixed bhajiyas and vanilla milkshake. The restaurant was clean enough though we were the only two people there. The bar had more people. The milkshakes arrived first in tall glasses and was one of the best vanilla milkshake I have ever tasted – creamy , frothy and delicately sweetened not more or less. The bhajiyas also arrived and we were left speechless by the sheer mountain sized quantity of it. Somehow we managed to finish half plate.



Well fed and happy we left the hotel and began our journey back. We stopped for an occasional picture or two. The return ride was more pleasant as by that time the sky had become overcast which brought down the temperature a bit. Also the flowers looked brighter against the green backdrop in the shade. The Pune Satara highway has a very large tunnel. This was the first time I was crossing a tunnel on a bike. The air rush with all the light and shadow play on the walls made me feel like we were in some Harry Potter video game navigating a dungeon on a broomstick :D.


We were home by 2.30 PM. We were tired but happy. After a year almost we did a long ride.

During the ride we discussed a lot about the Maharashtrian cuisine and spicy Kolhapuri chicken was also discussed.  The bold and super spicy dish from Kolhapur is well known for its heat content. If it's not spicy its not authentic Kolhapuri chicken. The next day being a Sunday was our usual day for Chicken. Since so much had been discussed about spicy chicken curry I decided to make something on similar lines. But didnt want it overpowered with spiciness, so it had to be something with the rich flavours of regional chicken but at the same time be low on the heat. I had heard one of my colleagues at office who is from Rajasthan, talk about a particular dish famous in Rajasthan - Laal Maas or Fiery Red Mutton curry. The colour itself is something to talk about - mutton pieces cooked in a rich deep red coloured spicy sauce. What Kolhapuri Chicken is to Maharashtra , Laal Maas is to Rajasthan. I didn't have mutton in the pantry so it had to be tweaked to accommodate chicken in the same recipe.

I looked up on the net and found many recipes of Laal Maas. Among them one of my favorite blogger  Soma of eCurry's Rajasthani red chicken curry looked very delicious. She had a lot of garlic seasoning in her recipe but I tweaked the ingredient list according to my taste - I am not very fond of strong garlic smell in my Indian chicken curry. So I reduced the quantity of garlic and other masalas to keep the curry light on the stomach while keeping the color intact. I was a bit doubtful about the color that Soma had produced in her dish but finally I also managed the same hue. The recipe turned out soooo very good that I got compliment that it was tasting just like "Biyebarir Mangsho" or Mutton prepared during wedding dinners in Bengal.

Biryani forms an integral part of of the menu for any special occasion in this subcontinent. Among Bengalis Pulao also is almost of the same stature but Biryani still takes the cake always. The basic difference between the two is the cooking technique applicable to each. Pulao or Pilaf(also known as pilau and plov) is delicately flavoured rice, sautéed in ghee and flavoured with whole spices like cumin, cloves etc and sometimes poultry, meat and shellfish are added as per choice. 

Biryani derived from the Persian word Beryan meaning fried or roasted is made from fragrant par boiled rice, which is then assembled with with variety of meat, seafood or assorted vegetables sealed and put on "dum" (cooking on very low flame, allowing the meats to cook, as much as possible, in their own juices and bone-marrow and the flavours of the spices are infused well) for an hour or so till the meat and rice is cooked to perfection. Biryani can again be categorised as Pakki and Kacchi Biryani. In Pakki Biryani you cook the marinated chicken, layer it with fragrant rice and cook it in dum. Kacchi biryani or ‘Kacchi Yeqni’ is a more enticing form of Biryani in which one puts the marinated chicken at the bottom of the pot,  cover it well with par boiled fragrant rice, layer the masalas on top of it and cook it in dum. Personally I always felt that Kacchi Biryani is more flavourful and succulent than Pakki.

I tried Biryani at many places, but got more and more disappointed so much so that I began to detest it. Since I am so choosy in the taste  I always shied off from preparing it at home thinking I will never be able to make what Dida  used to make. My Ma is also not a connoisseur of Biryani hence I could never learn how to cook it. This weekend while watching a chef prepare Biryani on a food Channel  I thought lets give this a try.

The Biryani they showed on TV had mint (!!!) and no way that was going to be a part of Biryani cooked in my Kitchen.So I customised the Biryani as per my taste. Finally after much anticipations and apprehensions that the chicken would remain uncooked when we tasted the Biryani at 11 pm, it tasted like heaven. It was beyond my imagination that the first try would yield such a superlative result, hence couldn't wait to share it with my readers.

We prepared the Kacchi Biryani. The list of ingredients may look as never ending but do not get intimidated by it, believe me each plays a big role into making the perfect-est Biryani. Also precision and patience is the key to get it right. When I say 45 min of dum it means exactly 45 min- not more not less. I used 1:1 ratio of rice and chicken, you can alter the ratio depending on your choice.

Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Marination Time: 4 hours
Cooking Time: 45 minutes

Serves:2

Cuisine: Bengali

Ingredients:

Marination:
Procedure :

Marination:
1. Wash and cut the chicken and lay them out in a mixing bowl.
2. Beat the yoghurt into a uniform paste and add it to the chicken
3. Take 1/2 a Nutmeg and pound it coarsely.
4. Add the rest of the ingredients mentioned under Marination and the pounded Nutmeg into the mixing bowl. Mix well.
5. Cover the bowl and keep it in the refrigerator for 4 hours or more.
Note: If you don't have that much time to spare even an hour of marination is fine. But I like the chicken to be marinated for longer hours as it soaks up the flavour better.

Barista (Deep fried onion):
1. Slice the onions longitudinally with a sharp knife. Separate all the layers with your finger so that they are not in cluster.
2. Julienne the fresh ginger piece in thin slices. The deep fried onion is usually known as Barista but I have added the ginger to it as well
3. Heat oil in a wok and add the onion slices. Fry it in medium heat and keep stirring it so that all the slices are evenly browned.
4. Once all the onions are even in colour add the ginger juliennes and fry for a while
5. Take out the fried onions and ginger from the oil and spread it on a Tissue paper. The extra oil will be soaked up by the paper and the onions will become crispy as they cool down

Kesar Milk:
1. Take the milk and add the Saffron strands to it. The milk will take on a yellow hue.

Kewra & Rose water( To be done before Assembling the Biryani):
1. Take the Kewra Essence and Rose water in a bowl and mix well.

Readying the Rice and Spices:
1. Wash and dry the Basmati rice. The better dried the rice is the lesser chances are that teh Biryani will turn out to be mushy. So take care to dry the rice.
2. Halve the medium sized potatoes so that you have 4 pieces of halved potatoes.
3. Shallow fry the potatoes for about 3-4 minutes and then keep them aside.
4. Pound the spices mentioned under "Spice Bag" coarsely. Take a muslin cloth of the size of a ladies hankie and place the pounded spices on the cloth and tie it in a pouch.

If you don't have a muslin cloth you can use a normal cotton ladies hankie just like me which shall yield the same result. 

7. Take a deep bottomed wok. The water measurement for cooking the Basmati rice will be given at the back of the packet. I used 600 ml of water. Put the water in the wok and turn on the heat. When the water becomes warm place two medium sized Bay leaves at the bottom.
8. Add the washed and dried Basmati rice to the warm water .
9. Add 2 tsp of salt and 1 tsp of sugar in the wok and mix well.

The taste of this water will be the taste of the rice. Hence add salt according to the taste you want. I also added sugar to balance the saltiness.

10. Immerse the Spice Bag into the water in the wok. Cover the lid and boil it on high flame for about 7-7 minutes.
11. Par cook the rice (3/4 cooked). Avoid overboiling.
12. Drain the water and remove the "Spice Bag"
13. Take out all the spices from the Spice Bag and keep it aside in a bowl.
14. Take 1 tsp of ghee in a skillet and when the ghee is hot add all the dry fruits along with cashew and raisins. Fry for a couple of minutes and keep it aside.


Assembling the Kacchi Biryani:
1. Take a deep bottomed wok with a lid, preferably those glass lids from which you can see what's going on inside the wok.
2. Spread 2 tsp of ghee on the bottom of the wok.
3. Place the chicken marinade as a uniform layer over it.
4. Sprinkle half of the fried dry fruits over it.
5. Arrange the Partially fried Potato halves on it.
6. Sprinkle the punded Spice from The Spice Bag that you had kept aside.
7. Layer the parboiled basmati rice on top of it.
8. Sprinkle rest of the dry fruits and Barista over it
9. Pour the Kesar milk and Kewra-Rose water evenly covering the entire area
10. Take 1 tsp of yellow food colouring and spread it with a spoon in one particular area of the rice (1/5 rice)
11.Pour the ghee on top of all the layers generously and evenly.
12. Repeat the layers if you are left with chicken marinade and rice. For me only two layers were sufficient as I was cooking only 600gm of Biryani.
13. Roll the dough into a long strip. Cover the lid and seal the rim of the lid with the dough strip half on the lid and half on the wok . If you are using a glass lid it will also have a opening on top. Cover it with dough as well. Do not be a miser with the dough sealing as if you use less dough it may come off once the dough starts to get hard from the steam.

An alternate to the dough strip sealing : Cover the wok with a silver foil and place the lid on top. Though the dough strip sealing is more full proof.

14. Cook on high flame for 5 minutes and then lower the flame to minimum.
15. Place a tawa under the wok and cook the biryani for 45 minutes.

It's bad news if during the 45 minutes of cooking at any point you happen to get the awesome aroma of the Biryani. It simply means that your sealing has given away and it's time for damage control. Quickly prepare some more dough, let it be slightly watery, and stick it over the portion you see steam coming out. Since the wok would already be too hot hence the dough will immediately stick and become hard.

Serving:
Cut open the dough along the rim and you will be greeted with an aroma to die for!
Carefully mix all the layers so as to not break the chicken pieces. It will be a nice combination of yellow and white rice.
Arrange the piping hot biryani on a plate and garnish it with 3-4 slices of cucumber and top it off with the halved boiled agg.
The Biryani is a bit moist due to the presence of a generous amount of ghee and can be eaten alone. But if you want you can serve it with raita.


Vegetarians can also relish this Biryani. Substitute the meat or chicken with vegetables like cauliflowers, carrots, peas,potatoes or paneer. Just adjust the "Dum" time accordingly keeping the rest of the procedure same.

This Biryani is unique because it has the goodness of two cuisines : the perfect Bengali blend of sweet and spicy flavours and traditional Hyderabadi cooking technique. Try if and I bet you wont be disappointed.

This post is an entry for the "Awesome Cuisine's 2012 Favorite Recipe Contest" event.