First of all wish all my readers a very Happy New Year! May this new year help all of us become a better version of ourselves.

Even though I was born in the 80s, still there are many Bengali traditional foods which I had not experienced in my lifetime yet. khud bhat is one such traditional preparation which I had heard a lot about but got to experience only recently. 

Khud (broken rice) is a grade of rice consisting of grains broken in the milling process.  In Bengal you will find khud rice in many grocery shops so it not that difficult to get hold of some. 

This type of broken rice is traditionally cooked and had with an assortment of fried sides or bhortas. In Bangladesh sometime I have noticed, khud bhat is made more like a pulao with a lot of onions and aromats in it. This is the version of Khud bhat which is made at my home. It is a very simple preparation and light on the stomach.

Ingredients :

For Rice

• Khud Rice - 100 Gm
• Water - 200 Gm
• Potatoes - 2 (cut in roundels) 
• Broad beans - 4 to 5
• Green Chili - 2 to 3
• Salt - As per taste

For Assorted Fries

• Dried Red Chili - 2
• Green Chili - 3 to 4
• Turmeric - 1/2 tsp
• Brinjal (Medium) - 1 (cut in thick rounds)
• Parwal (Potol) - 5 to 6 ( cut in halves)
• Garlic cloves - 15 to 20 
• Salt - To Taste
• Sugar - to taste
• Mustard Oil - for frying

Video :

Procedure:

1. Wash and drain the rice. Cut the Potatoes in roundels.

2. Take a deep bottom Kadai or Pan and add the washed rice. Add double the amount of water.

3. Place the potato roundels on the rice in a single layer. Place some broad beans or any other seasonal vegetable that you want. Also add two green chilies

4. Add salt and mix in the water

5. Now cover and cook the rice on medium flame.

Note: It is always better to cook Khud Bhat in a kadai, as in pressure cooker you cannot adjust water mid way through and the rice can end up being mushy.

6. While the rice cooks, prepare the vegetables for making the fries. First cut the brinjal in thick roundels and halve the parwals. Now marinate the brinjal and parwal with salt sugar and turmeric. Bengalis add sugar to the brinjals and parwals to enhance the taste of the fries. I have used powdered sugar here which easily melts. leave the marination till the vegetables release water.

7. In another Kadai heat mustard oil. Once the oil is hot fry a couple of red chilis.

8. Now fry the garlic cloves, green chilies, brinjals and parwals in batches. 

9. Check if the rice is done, it should take around 20-30 minutes. The rice should not be mushy. 

Once the rice is done, serve the rice with all the assorted fried vegetables and a dash of the mustard oil left in the kadai and enjoy!

18 June

Its been such a long long gap since I posted. So much has happened in the last couple of months. Work has increased by almost ten folds, I have started going to office a couple of days a week, travelling for various customer visits across India has again resumed and in the middle of all this I even took a week long break for summer vacation. So basically I am back to my old routine in the pre covid times and life has again become hectic. Even if cooking is a love affair to me, but I think given a choice I love travelling more any day. Thus once a trip ends I start looking for the next destination almost immediately. And very naturally Instagram, or blogging has taken a hit. After a long week now I don't feel like burning my midnight oil scrolling food posts on Instagram. Rather keeping up late to watch and read about places I want to visit seems more interesting. 

So my travel last month was to very remote and offbeat places of Kashmir. I hope that I can start penning down that travelogue soon. This was my first time in Kashmir and I simply fell in love with the place. No wonder it is known as the Jannat on earth. I found the cuisine of Kashmir quite interesting. Since we were travelling remote, I got to taste some authentic local cuisine ( not part of wazwan ) which Kashmiris have as their regular food. I kind of collected all the recipes from the chefs and cooks we met at various guest houses where we stayed. And these were not just recipes but there was a lot of stories accompanying them. I am raring to try them out and write more about these foods slowly on my blog.

But for now I thought of sharing a quick and easy recipe from the Kitchens of Bengal or Bangladesh. I have written about different bhorta recipes in my blog earlier also. You can check them out in the recipe list. Bhorta is basically any kind of a vegetable mash. But it can be non vegetarian also or a combo of both. The one that I made today was with kochu or taro. 

I had to do a impromptu travel to Hyderabad for 2 days which left me completely drained today. I didn't feel like making anything special even if it was a Saturday. A homely warm meal was all that the heart craved for and some good long sleep. So made this really quick taro mash and paired it with steamed rice and a light radhuni foroner mushur daal with raw papaya.

Check out the other bhorta recipes on my blog:

1. Dim Aloor Bhorta
2. Narkol Chingri Bhorta
3. Macher Bhorta

Ingredients for garnish:

• Mustard Oil - 1 tsp

Equipment:

• Pressure Cooker
• Mixing bowl

Procedure: 

1.  Wash the kochu thoroughly to remove any dirt on the surface. 

Tip : The dirt clings to the skin to you can keep it immersed in water for sometime to loosen them and then gently scrub them off using your fingers.

2. Transfer the washed kochu to a pressure cooker filled with 2 cups of water. Steam it for 2 whistles or as needed. Drain the water. 

3. The kochu needs to be peeled while they are still hot/warm. If its too hot to hold dip the boiled kochu in some water and then peel off the skin. 

4. Take mustard oil in a kadai and heat it. Once the oil is hot add the peeled garlic pods and fry till golden. keep aside.

5. In the same oil fry the dry red chilli, keep aside.

6. Now fry the sliced onion with a pinch of salt. Keep aside.

7. Now break the red chilli with your finders. In a mixing bowl take the boiled kochu, fried garlic, onion, red chilli and the oil left in the kadai. Add salt, chopped green chili, grated fresh coconut and mustard powder. Using your fingers mash everything nicely and mix together. 

8. Add some more mustard oil before serving.

Best served hot with steamed rice and daal.

14 June

The monsoon is here and so is the craving for garma garam fritters with chai. Another good news is that the un-lockdown process has started. Fingers crossed that we do not have to see a third wave.

This time since mom is here with me, I have been trying out different kind of fritters which I always wanted to make - vegetable chop, daler bora, macher chop, chicken popcorn, beguni and the list goes on. It is so much fun to experiment with fritters because they don't usually go wrong even if you miss on a few ingredients. 

Before lockdown I used to buy fresh fish from a place enroute to my home form office. There was a fixed fish vendor from which I usually got my fishes. From the time lockdown started I have been getting my fish supply either from Fresh2Home or from Licious. While I left Licious provides more quality products, Fresh2Home has better variety. And due to which I had tried out all different varieties of fish which I probably had not tried in past decade. Some of the fishes like Koi was really amazing. Having Koi mach sitting in Pune was like an impossible dream before. 

For a couple of days I was seeing Kachki fish on the Fresh2Home seafood section. I deliberated whether I should get them but then parked the idea as I didn't know what to make with them. Then one day I came across this recipe on Sandeepa's (Bong Mom's Cookbook)  Instagram post. She had posted about Kachki Macher bora and I was really piqued. The immediate next step was to order the fishes ( which miraculously I got the very next day in their listing) and gather the ingredients.

These tiny  silver fishes are really delicate. I mean I have never worked with such delicate fishes in my life before. It was a breeze to clean them unlike other fishes. The boras itself got made within 30 minutes and I couldn't stop eating them right off the wok, they turned out that delicious!

While making bora or fritters at times we face a challenge that the ingredients don't bind well. Here is a quick tip for it, if it is a fish fritter especially, add an egg to it. Egg is a wonderful binder and also enhances the taste. This was the main difference in me and Sandeepa's recipe. 

You can also try the other fritter recipes

• Moringa Pakoda|| Drumstick Leaves Fritter
• Macher Dimer Bora || Fish Roe Fritters
• Bok Ful Bhaja || Hummingbird Flower Fritters

Check out a few of the dal recipes you can try this with

• Lau Data Diye Motor Daal
• Moong Daal Kalo Jire Diye
• Tetor Daal
• Aam Daal
• Kolai Daal 
• Masoor Daal
  

Ingredients :

• Wok
• Skillet
• Mixing Bowl

Procedure: 

1.  Clean the fish well in water. Keep in mind that these fishes are very delicate. Keep it in a strainer for all the water to drain off. Or you can also pat them dry gently with a kitchen towel. 

2. In a wok take the cleaned fish, 1 tsp of ginger paste, 1 tsp of garlic paste, 1 tsp of coriander powder and 1 tsp of red chili powder. Add about 1-2 cups of water, enough for the fish to get cooked. The fish will take about 10 minutes to cook covered. Open the lid and dry off any excess water. Now let the fish cool down a bit. 

Note: Do not add too much water. We only need to add enough water for the fish to get cooked in 10 minutes and dry off excess. 

3. Boil 1 potato and keep aside.

4. Take a mixing bowl. Take the boiled potato and mash it up completely. To the mashed potato add the minced garlic, chopped onion, spring onion, coriander, chopped green chili, red chili powder and give it a mix. 

5. Now add the cooked fish. Add rice flour, salt and break in one egg. Now with gently hands bring everything together. These fishes are very tender hence they would break easily so do not knead with force. Just press with the tip of your fingers to break them up while there are still some big pieces.

Tip: The rice flour would give it a crunch and the egg acts as a wonderful binder as well as taste enhancer. 

Note: Spring onions is optional here but very much recommended. I have seen Spring onion goes nicely with any kind of fish bhortas ( fish mash) or fish pakodas. 

6. Now with your hands make small balls or flat discs.

7. Heat Oil in a skillet and shallow fry the discs for about 3-4 minutes on each side or until they are done.

Serve it with rice and daal or have it like snacks with tea.

30th May

Yesterday I made a fancy chicken tart and my whole Saturday morning went towards preparation of the tart. That's how my usual weekends go. When I start with Monday, I promise myself that the next weekend is going to be a no-fancy-dish-weekend but by the time it is Thursday, I am already planning out what new thing to cook over the weekend. Which eventually translates to slogging all day long in the kitchen on the only two days I get off. I guess my love of food outweighs my love of loafing. 

But with much resolve form past two weeks I have started practicing no-fancy-food Sundays. This approach actually worked better than the resolution for no-fancy-food-weekends. Now I slog only on Saturdays to make a lavish spread, and Sundays are meant for rustic, easy peasy and healthy homely affair. Things which can be made in 30 minutes to maximum 1 hour. We have been having different khichudis or seddho bhat or maggi tossed with assorted vegetables and so on. I wanted to aimlessly look at the monsoonish sky and smell the flowers in the remaining time. Not to mention clearing the backlogs of photo editing, blogging, instagramming, reading, working on a novel, watching series and a gazillion stuffs which does make me feel like I need another weekend just to recuperate from all that!

The point is, that weekends do not look like weekends we used to have as kids. Now we are doing 'something' 24x7. Pure unwinding is never possible. So at least on a cooking front I managed to save some time. Since today is a Sunday, I woke up leisurely, had a cup of tea, leafed through the newspaper, fed the stray pigeons and then only I stepped into the kitchen. I had my plan straight - its going to be the super easy and super delicious Aloo Bhorta and Kolai Daal with Ilish Mach Bhaja. Hasselfree fare which everyone would relish. 

But once in kitchen I kept feeling guilty of just cooking something as simple as a aloor bhorta, so I decided to add a couple of hard boiled eggs to it. Why not glam up the regular bhorta a little? The doctors are anyway recommending everyone to consume eggs for natural zinc intake. 

I have mentioned earlier as well, that bhorta is a quintessential accompaniment in the Bangladeshi cuisine, but in the western side of bengal (in India) not so much. But still folks who have their roots in east Bengal love making bhortas even if they might not be as varied as their counterparts. Aloor bhorta is the most basic bhorta. In plain english, it is mashed potato sans the butter and cream. The mashed potato we have is a zesty counterpart with spiciness from chili and zing from mustard oil. 

The dish itself can be customized based on personal tastes—with or without the egg, raw or roasted onions, fresh chilies in place of dried, more or less garlic and so on. But one ingredient that remains a constant in any Bhorta recipe is the mustard oil. Its like the core taste profile of a bhorta and has no other substitute whatsoever.   

Check out a few of the dal recipes you can try this with

• Lau Data Diye Motor Daal
• Moong Daal Kalo Jire Diye
• Tetor Daal
• Aam Daal
• Kolai Daal 
• Masoor Daal

You can also try the other bhorta recipe

• Chingri Bhorta

Ingredients :

• Fork
• Boiling pot / pressure cooker
• Mixing bowl
• Knife

Procedure: 

1.  Boil the eggs. I used a pressure cooker for the same. Fill some water in the cooker. Keep a bowl in between and place the eggs inside the bowl. Pressure cook for 2 whistles. Let it rest till the pressure dies out. Open the cooker and place the egg in an ice bath. 

Tip: Coat the raw eggs in mustard oil before placing in the cooker. This prevents the egg from cracking while boiling. The ice water will help in easy removal of the egg shell.

2. Now prepare the seasoning . Chop the onions in thin slices, halve the garlic cloves. In a non stick pan, on medium heat dry roast the garlic. Keep aside. Then dry roast the onion slices. When they start browning and you get a charring smell, add 1/4 tsp of oil and sauté the onions. Keep them aside.

Note: Instead of dry roasting the onions you can use raw onions in this bhorta as well. It will give a different flavor which also tastes lovely.

3. On medium flame roast the dried red chilies, till the skin is charred. This gives a nice smoky flavor to the bhorta.

4. Wash the potato well to remove any dirt from the skin. Make wide slits in the potato (like hasselback potato). Boil for about 2-3 whistles in a pressure cooker.

Tip: You can keep the skin on or off as per your liking. I like both ways.

Tip: To prevent getting extra moisture into the potato there are 2 simple tricks. Either boil the potato with skin on. Or in the pressure cooker take water and then place a bowl in the middle with the peeled potato. Both the techniques prevent excess moisture in the potato.

5. The key to having a buttery smooth bhorta is mashing the potato when they are still hot. Take out the potato from the pressure cooker once cooked and with a fork mash them up quickly. Once its nearly mash, use your hands to give it the final smooth texture by kneading it.

6. Now add the charred chillies, roasted garlic, onions, mustard oil and salt. Give it a good knead with hands, breaking down all the big pieces of garlic or chilli.

Note: Vary all these ingredients as per your taste.

Note: Don't substitute Mustard oil with refined oil or olive oil. Mustard Oil gives the much needed zing to the bhorta which cannot be recreated by any oil Oil or substitute.

7. Cut the boiled egg into quarters and now add it to the mixing bowl. Mash everything together. 

Tip: If you want some texture of the egg, then don't mash the white portion of the egg too much, so you get a little bite when you eat.

To add a little freshness, you can add about 1/2 tsp of chopped coriander leaves. This is completely optional.

Serve hot with rice and Kolai Daal (Urad daal).

February  7

After a very few tepid winter months, we finally are getting some cold days that too when we are now into February already. Days still don't feel cold but nights and early morning are sort of nippy. It feels lovely to wrap your palms around a steaming cuppa of chai in the morning.

Saraswati Puja  or Basant Panchami is just around the corner. When I think of it, as a kid I do remember my mom forcing me to wear warm clothes on top of the saree or suit which I would have meticulously chosen for this day. My vehement protests would fall on deaf ears, and eventually I would end up walking down the street with a pretty saree and a not so matching sweater on top. We weren't allowed to take shawls, because they weren't warm enough for children unlike it was for adults! I could never fathom why back then. And the simple standard reply to all our doubts would be - " when you grow up and have a kid of your own then you will know (jokhon nije boro hobi ar nijer baccha hobe tokhon bujhbi). Which essentially meant, that to understand the rationale behind this we had to wait for like 10-15 years. It didn't sound too promising, hence giving up protest was the only option. And thus, it means, we did have cold days even during the time of Saraswati Pujas. So when the days feel chilly now, it shouldn't be much of a surprise. But still I am surprised, because staying away from Kolkata for a very long period sometimes makes these memories.  

Today I am going to talk about Bhorta. Bengalis pronounce it bhorta, but for the non-Bengali population, it’s called as bharta. Bhorta or Bharta as it is known across many Indian states is just a mishmash of vegetables, herbs, pulses, seafood, meats or eggs or even a combination of these. Baigan Bharta is possibly the most famous of Bhartas which is equally popular in both India and our neighboring country Bangladesh. 

Bhortas (ভর্তা) are the simplest and ultimate comfort food in the Bangladeshi cuisine. Although they were invented among the Bengali Muslims, bhortas have become an indispensable part of national Bangladesh cuisine. It was mostly a rural or poor man's comfort food to begin with and the purpose was a no-waste meal out of things which were leftovers or excess. Thus bhorta became the default choice in the households, because it required minimum fuel, very little oil and no expensive spices.

They are served with rice or rotis (flatbreads). The standard elements in all kinds of bhortas are crunchy fresh onions or caramelized onions , green or red chillies and mustard oil.  To that, the other ingredients, may be boiled, roasted, steamed, even charred, are added to make a specific kind of Bhorta. As the saying goes- if you really want to relish a bhorta, never skimp on the mustard oil! Some of the most famous bhortas of Bangladesh include - aloo (potato), begun (brinjal), kacha aam ( raw mango), dal (pulses), chingri (prawn), lau er khosha ( bottle gourd skin), mach (fish) , murgir mangsh (chicken), tomato, ucche ( bitter gourd), shapla (water lily) and many many more. 

Just like bhorta, makhas are the comfort food of West Bengal. They are the quintessential, staple thing you would find on the menus in Bengali homes. It also gives us an excuse to be lazy at times and yet spin up something absolutely finger licking good. The makha involves a range of methods like mashing, muddling, mixing and macerating,  mainly by hand, to bring together a range of ingredients, flavours and textures and create a composite dish. Just like Bhortas, makhas are not usually served on special occasions or festivals. It was meant to be a homely food for day to day consumption. Now a days, you would find most Bangalis using the word Bhorta and makha reversibly. 

But slowly, the erstwhile rural food is now finding its way to the gourmet meal platter across the world because of its uniqueness in taste. Especially outside of Bengal and India, I have witnessed many fine dining Bengali restaurants serving an assortment of Bhortas  or makhas at the starting of the meal and non-bengalis enjoying it as much as we do. While doing some research about Bhortas, I came across an article which even talked about Avocado bhorta made by a lady from North Dakota. That itself talks about how adaptable this dish is and how far and wide it has now spread across the world. To quote cultural historian and writer Niaz Zaman from her cookbook Bosha Bhat To Biryani: The Legacy Of Bangladeshi Cuisine: 

"The liberation of Bangladesh led to a search for its indigenous cultural roots as well as its indigenous foods. Bhajis (simple sautéed vegetables) and bhortas had always been part of the Bengali diet…not something offered to guests or served at hotels. After liberation, however, Bengali foods were, so to say, rediscovered."

In addition to the standard ingredients that are added to the Bhorta, I love my bhortas with a hint of garlic and loads of fresh coconut. The character and taste it adds feels phenomenal to me. So the next time you have prawns and don't want to make an elaborate curry out of it, just bring together a few elements and spin up a droolicious bhorta to go with rice.

Now a days you would see me cooking many non-Indian dishes in my blog. But then after a while when I start writing about something from the Bengali cuisine, I feel this is the reason for which I had started this blog. To talk about my heritage recipes which might get lost in the folds of time and to keep them alive in these pages on the internet for someday someone to stumble upon and enjoy. Nothing gives me more pleasure than to talk about what is truly close to my heart and my legacy. 

Preparation Time : 10 minutes