This Saturday, I was faced with two small onions and a kilo of frozen chicken. Onion always bring do piaza to mind. The dish has a nice historic tale of its own – it is traceable to Mulla, one of Akbar’s Navratnas, a commoner who had worked his way through the imperial poultry farm to... Continue Reading →
Though I’m Bengali with a sweet tooth that would put an elephant to shame, I don't cook desserts that often. One of my early attempts at making shujir halwa – a simple matter of combining semolina, milk and sugar (or so I thought) – had led to much embarrassment. Blissfully ignorant of the semolina-milk ratio... Continue Reading →
Ferran Adria made foams famous, but Indians may have beaten him to it by a few hundred years. Many years ago, my cousin was posted in Agra, and she used to buy something called Makhan from a sweet shop nearby. It was one of the most wonderful things I'd ever had - essentially an almost... Continue Reading →
The one thing that signals good food time in Kolkata is the luchi. Not to be confused with the non-bong poori, the luchi signals a special treat in this primarily rice-eating part of the world. The differences are subtle but important - a true luchi should be a feather-light, puffed roundel that retains its shape... Continue Reading →
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 →
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 →
Steaming is a time-honored way of cooking fishes, mostly because the results are so good. Microwaves aren't exactly time-honored, but they seem to be a great way to steam fishes without ...well... steaming them. The exotic Bengali word for steam is bhapa, and the most famous of the bhapa varieties are undoubtedly the one where... Continue Reading →
While Masoor starts life as pink, a little persuasion by hot water quickly converts it to a pale yellow. It's color makes it the easiest dal to recognise but people usually see the prepared version and go looking for a yellow dal. Bengalis use it a lot by itself while most other communities mix it... Continue Reading →
I found a good place to post formal recipes - RecipeGullet. They have a nice editor for entering recipes; it even comes out looking pretty (on the web page, at least). And, they have a fancy-shmancy search engine. Here, for instance, is my super-quick recipe for Aloo Golki.
Dal pretty much the core of Indian food. One could argue that it is more imporant that even rice, since many areas of India are wheat-centered. Dal is eaten everyday by pretty much all of India in some form or the other. Dals are pulses (dried food crops of of the legume family), and come... Continue Reading →
The Well Fed Bong 