When Sharanya asked me to do a guest post for her blog I was too excited reason being this was going to be my first guest post for any one. Writing for my own blog is one thing and writing for someone else is a totally different ball game together, there is a lot of responsibility attached to it. As the initial excitement subdued, I started to become jittery. Now the biggest job was to zero in on a recipe that would be good enough for a guest post. I had a lot of dishes in mind and was finding it difficult to streamline my thoughts.

The first thing that comes to my mind when I think of food is Bengali cuisine...of course it’s the cuisine which is most dear to my heart because I grew up with it. The Bengali's love for food is legendary. The variety of fish and vegetables are so diverse that anything can be combined with everything and a new dish can be created. Bengalis make ambrosial dishes out of the oftentimes rejected peels, stalks and leaves of vegetables.  Ghonto, chorchori, chechki, labra, paturi, bhapa, jhal, jhol, kosha, bhate, chhyanchra, dalna, dolma,kalia, pora, shukto are some of the predominant cooking styles from this cuisine. Every dish gets its unique signature flavor and taste depending on the cooking method.


The eating method is as elaborate as the cooking method. Quoting Wiki "The Bengalis are very particular about the way and the order in which the food should be served. Each dish is to be eaten separately with a little rice so that the individual flavors can be enjoyed. The first item served may be a little ghee which is poured over a small portion of rice and eaten with a pinch of salt. Then come the bitter preparation, shukto, followed by lentils or dals, together with roasted or fried vegetables (bhaja or bharta). Next come the vegetable dishes, the lightly spiced vegetables, chenchki, chokka, followed by the most heavily spiced dalna, ghonto and those cooked with fish. Finally the chicken or mutton, if this being served at all. Chaatni comes to clear the palate together with crisp savory wafers, papor. Dessert is usually sweet yogurt (mishti doi). The meal is finally concluded with the handing out of betel leaf (paan), which is considered to be an aid to digestion and an astringent."

By now you would have a fair enough idea about how religious the Bengalis are about their food. Today I would like to write about a very humble and comforting recipe from Bengal.


I have been food blogging for over a year now. I had a G+ page which I never tried to explore. I used to remain within the frontiers of my blog until recently when one fine day I decided to understand the enigmatic G+. As I started browsing I became aware of "communities" and started adding them. The more time I started spending I became aware of the huge treasure trove of recipes being posted all around the world.  One fine day I was invited by Sharanya to attend her ongoing event "Let's celebrate Halloween" that's how I gradually started interacting with her. A very sweet person whose cakes and pastries are equally sugary, delectable, mouth-watering, ravishing and I could go on and on. As much as I try to keep myself away from all this calorie filled yummies I still love to savor the delicacies with my eyes on Sharanya's blog. Her blog is very warm and inviting...it almost makes me feel like a kid in a candy shop. It's a very proud moment for me to be doing a guest post for a cordon bleu like her.



There are many restaurants claiming to serve "authentic Bengali" cuisine, but be sure the real essence of Bengali food can be only savored at a Bengalis home. Maybe as they say, hotel cooked food  lacks the warmth and love of a home cooked meal. Among all the amazing dishes that are there the one that I am going to write about is just a simpleton in front of the other more famous counterparts. But still this inconspicuous homely dish has a lot of filigrees of memory associated with it and interspersed with the quintessential flavour of Bengali cuisine – warm and near to heart.

Two things are very commonly used in this cuisine – Mustard and Poppy seed. Mustard in the form of oil, paste, powder or as a whole spice and poppy mainly as a paste.  Jinge Posto is one such dish which most of the bengalis are crazy about. The basic Posto preparation is made out of potatoes in a creamy poppy paste base. Variations include using onion, Ridge gourd, pointed gourd (potol/parwal), ladyfinger (bhindi), cauliflower(Fulkopi), yard long bean (borboti) etc along with aloo. Each version has a characteristic taste. My favourite is Jhinge Posto - soft jhinge and mushy potato in a clingy creamy poppy seed paste with a sharp flavor of Kalonji and some slitted green chillies building up the heat. Very personal and comforting.


PS: I am humbled by all the kind words that Sharanya had mentioned about me in her post. Thank you Sharanya once again for giving me this opportunity to write the first guest post for you.

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.

I just love garlic. The raw pungent smell adds an extra kick to any recipe. Usually we always use ginger garlic paste for any conventional Indian curry. But that doesn't really bring out the flavor of garlic separately. Bengalis in general aren't such garlic freaks and in most Bengali preparations ginger has a predominance over garlic. But somehow I had loved garlic from the time I can remember.

When I was staying in San Diego I visited a senior of mine and she was one person who reciprocated my love for garlic. I believe she was an even staunch garlic freak because she declared that none of her dishes are without garlic. She is an amazing cook as well. I picked up a few tips of cooking with garlic from her. The day had ended with a yummy meal of hot chicken steaks marinated with garlic and olive oil, penne pasta and a glass of fine red wine.

Today while I was weighing my options for preparing fish curry, I thought of preparing something different. My mother used to prepare this simple garlic fish curry occasionally when I was small. It involves very less effort and yet the end result is quite delectable.

You can prepare this amazingly easy fish curry when you run out of options for fish curry or you simply want to treat your taste buds to something simple and light. If you love garlic then you will surely love this preparation.The garlic combined with spices and  mustard blends nicely with these mild flavors of the light and flaky catfish. It is simple but the flavors are amazing.



Preparation Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves:2


Ingredients:

• Asian Catfish (Magur) - 6 medium pieces  (the fish can be tilapia, catfish, bass, shad, carp)
• Garlic cloves - 15-20  
• Nigella Seeds (Kalonji) - 1 tsp
• Sunrise Mustard Powder/ Fresh Mustard Paste/ Kasundi - 2 tsp
• Green Chilli - 4
• Potato - 1 big
• Sugar - 1/2 tsp  
• Turmeric powder - a small pinch
• Salt to taste
• Mustard oil - 3/4 cup
  
  

  

This is the first fish recipe in my blog which is pretty unusual considering the fact that Bengalis and fish are almost inseparable entities. But for some or the other reason it took me so long to post the first fish recipe in my blog, hope will post many more soon. Keeping my finger crossed.

Malai Gobi

A lazy Saturday once again. But I was a woman on a mission today. I had to study for Advanced Software Testing Exam. I sat focused for half an hour then I I felt I had studied a lot and need to take a short break. I though maybe I will just log on to the net for 10-15 mins and take a look at the options available for a North Bengal Trip that we were planning and then back to studies. So I did a wee bit of searching here and there read a travelogue on Lava and then thought maybe I will just take a look at what was going on in my blog any new comments, visitors or anything else. And then I thought while I the blog page loads why don't I just in parallel load the last weekend trip to Lonavala pics on Facebook. Thus soon I found myself working on two browser windows and 10 opened tabs. It was also an important task you see, I mean I hardly get time to upload pics, checkout whats happening in the blog forums, say hi to my friends on FB and so on.

So I kept nudging the fat text book to one corner of the bed as I settled myself comfortably with my laptop and a packet of Aliva Milk Minis Apple Delight biscuits. Let me tell you here that I am totally in love with this little goodies that I accidentally found in the supermarket last weekend. They are yum and crispy sweet little things. Almost takes me back to the days when Little hearts Biscuit made its appearance into the market and stirred up a storm. Every time dad went to the market I would tell him to get me a packet of those sugar drizzled heart shaped biscuits that would actually melt in the mouth leaving behind a sweet trail and more longing. Somehow I felt in the later days the biscuit lost its charm, it no longer melted in the mouth and was a bit hard. Maybe my conception but it felt that way or maybe the initial euphoria had died down. But when I chanced upon these milk minis they made me very nostalgic. Today I gorged on the last packet and was wondering why I didn't get more of it. Anyway I will pick it up sometime next week again. All this time while I was at the net I had forgotten about time. When I looked at the clock it was already 12 pm. I had decided to have Maggi in lunch hence there was no hurry. I only had to take a shower and cook Maggi and laze around for the rest of the day. But then I started thinking of what I will be making for dinner. Something easy and quick of course. I thought why not make the vegetable right now, so that I will have a free evening as well. I looked into the freezer and a nice white cauliflower and a few capsicums stared back. Oops I had totally forgotten Saturday is my vegetable shopping day! Okay, so it was already late and I only had a lone cauliflower at my disposal. I took out the milk, curd and the cauliflower out of the fridge and prepared the easiest dish possible with them. Have a look at the recipe I'm sure you are going to love it.

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.

Consciously or unconsciously our mind preserves certain images or memories which we gather on the path of life. The remain submerged in the ocean of our thoughts only to surface when we come across anything that  bears resemblance to it.

When we are small we always grumble about how lucky the adults are who can do anything they want. We can't wait to grow up to "enjoy" the benefits of adulthood. But the irony is that finally when we grow up and become an adult we start missing the "good-old-days" - our childhood. The sight, smell and sound of anything that takes us down the memory lane become so very special. We miss the innocent "us" and wish that if we could only go back to what we had left behind years ago.

It's been more like a decade that I had stepped out of my home. But still I feel that the 18 years spent in the lap of nature in IIT kharagpur (my father was a professor at IIT) was the best time of my life. My life mainly revolved around my ma and my pet cats. Life was simple yet cherishable. Never felt the absence or need of a sibling because my fleet of cats kept me company.

Might be since I was a single child, I had all the time in the world to be myself. To see and know things around me with uninterrupted attention. To perceive a "bit more" of everything. We had a madhabilata tree in our old quarter - C1-21. There were many other trees as well but that particular tree was my favourite. Every evening when the tree was heavy with fresh blossom, I would wander about it. The flowers had an enchanting smell - refreshing,subtle, blissful. One has to experience it to know why I am referring it as 'enchanting'. A surreal feeling of purity would overpower me everytime I was in its proximity.

Apart from the madhabilata, the other thing that I clearly remember from my childhood days is the Kokil or Cuckoo. IIT was infamous for the Kokils. These feathered souls would wake up before 4 am and make sure the entire campus was awake with its calls as well. Any visiting relative would always complain about this "nuisance". But we had got so used to them that without their morning calls something would seem amiss. Kokil & Madhabilata together announced the arrival of spring. The would set the backdrop for one of the most beautiful seasons to walk in with grandeur.

When I left, with it everything that constituted of my childhood was left behind. The room where I would sit near the window holding my ring in such a manner so that the sun rays would fall on the stone and create a kaleidoscope of colors on the opposite wall. The leather black board hung on the door which had witnessed me in the role of a teacher teaching her imaginary students maths, physics and biology. My red Hero cycle, the orange old sofa, my huge collection of story books, the smell of cooking when ma was in the kitchen, the innumerable hours spent with my cats and the life size posters of Rahul Dravid adoring the walls of my room - I had left them all behind when I moved out. The more the distance grew between me and my childhood days, the more attached  I became to my memories of the bygone days.

Life in the fast lane was never the same. An era had passed and now I was running like all other people in the mad rat race to achieve something in life. Fulfilling short term goals, setting new ones and planning how to achieve them - the perspective of life changed altogether. Stopping by to smell  a flower was the "mission impossible".

After returning from the US I relocated to Pune. During all these years I had almost forgotten about the madhabilata and the kolkil. I landed in Pune on a warm December afternoon. Months have passed but the place where we stayed remained the same. I took the same by-lane everyday to reach the main road and take a six-seater (shared auto) to my destination. Among all the noisy environs, I prefer to take this particular by-lane because it has two-storied old fashioned houses rather than multi-storied buildings on either side of the road. One day while returning back from office a very faint yet familiar smell wafted in the air. Like under a spell I began moving in the direction of the smell and what did I find? A bunch of powdery pink madhabilatas swaying in the breeze. The first reaction was that of surprise and awe. I had never expected to see the flower in Pune out of all the place.It was almost 15 years after that I was face to face with this old friend. The moment was overwhelming as somewhere faraway I heard the call of the kolkil as well. A few moments passed like that after which I took the bunch in my palms and inhaled the fragrance deeply till the smell infused into each and every cell of my body and mind. It was an Eureka moment. 

On weekend early mornings I walk down to the local vegetable market I smell the madhabilatas. The early morning air and the fresh fragrance, makes me feel rejuvenated. Today also I had gone for a walk and carried back home some of the fallen madhabilatas from the ground. I placed them inside my diary carefully and closed it. Sometime 10 years down the lane when I revisit the pages of my diary whether there would be a madhabilata tree nearby or not I would remember the memories of today.

The fresh morning setup the mood for a light and healthy breakfast. While sipping the early morning raw ginger tea, I toasted the brown bread and made poached eggs.  A creamy cheese garlic spread was perfect for the bread and I sprinkled some pepper powder and Ching's Miracle masala over the poached eggs to make them a bit spicy and a lot tasty. Served the bread and poached eggs sunny side up along with freshly sprouted brown chickpeas. We enjoyed the breakfast lazily while talking about all the relevant and irrelevant in our lives which at times just go unnoticed. Today there was no hurry, it was just us and the bright and beautiful morning promising us many more such mornings throughout our life.


Now everyday I travel by the same by-lane, look at the flowers and feel rejuvenated after a long day. The ever smiling flowers kind of assures me that life maybe a combination of ups and downs but somehow I will make through it. The kokil also coons in unison somewhere faraway. I just smile back and keep walking.