On Saturday, I made a dessert as part of my multi-course extravaganza. The Bengali sweet tooth is legendary, so dessert is simply unavoidable. I made shujir payesh - a version of the famed bong payesh that is considerably easier to make than the rice variety. Shujir payesh, or polenta milk pudding, is actually one of... Continue Reading →
Food of the Earth
Prithvi Cafe has always been one of my favorite places to sit around and read books. In addition to uncomfortable seats and a steady supply of cheap tea, Prhtivi provided a continous stream of peoplewatching that was difficult to equal. It helped that the cafe, owned by Bengalis and kitchened by a chef who could... Continue Reading →
Feeding the Masses
I finally got around to cooking a full, multi-course vegetarian meal for my friends. Here's what finally came out... Kumro bhate - Steamed pumpkin mash with coconut and raw mustard oil, and ricePosto bhate - poppyseed paste with raw mustard oil, and rice. This was actually the surplus poppyseed paste from the aloo posto, but... Continue Reading →
Searching for Rezala
When hunting for great food in the bylanes of Kolkata in my teenage years, one thing that we would often go looking for was the famed mutton rezala. Aminia, Nizam and many other places did good rezalas, but the most famous one was Shabir in Kolkata's Chandi Chowk area. I've been back to Shabir a... Continue Reading →
Treading Gingerly on Garlic
In the last two years, I've really learned to make use of ginger-garlic paste. Though books repeatedly tell you of the wonderful properties of ginger, specially the use of its thickening effects in Indian cooking, its only recently that I practically stumbled upon what exactly they mean. Ginger-garlic paste, added to hot oil or ghee... Continue Reading →
The Prodigious Returns
Ok, so I've ignored this blog for a long time. Just over two years since my last post. 1-Jan-2008 is probably a good time to restart. A lot happened in the two years. I changed jobs, came back to Mumbai, stayed in two different places and did lots more cooking and eating. Coming back to... Continue Reading →
Too Simple
Sometimes, simplicity can be amazing. Sometimes a chef can combine just a couple of very basic ingredients in a way that you cannot have enough of. Not all the time; sometimes a simple combination can be just that tad too simple to be considered seriously. Unless you're paying generously for it. Mario Batali has made... Continue Reading →
More Frigid Tales
I've just learned about more things that you can freeze. Freezing, of course extends shelf-life by weeks over normal refrigeration, which is specially useful for someone like me who's always cooking more than can be eaten. Bongs love multi-course meals, and its really tough to cook small helpings of each of the courses. The most... Continue Reading →
Going green
Everyone already knows this, but India is truly the place for vegetarian food. The thing about veggie food in India is, its not the meatless version of something. This is a true, first class treatement of vegetables that one would find difficult to introduce meat into. This is specially true of veggie dishes from people... Continue Reading →
Freshly Frozen
My fridge is full of rotting vegetables. These are usually invaluable leftovers from my shopping trips; unique veggies that are essential to one recipe or the other, but not available at Jubilee Market next door. Or the next three hundred doors for that matter.Hence lies a problem with cooking Indian in New York - how... Continue Reading →
The Well Fed Bong 