No hassle Bhindi

The best thing about Bhindi is that it is easy to CUT. Lay several of these side by side, hold them down with one hand and go chop chop chop with a knife.
They look a bit like lizards though...

This is the easiest recipe I can think of
Bhindi
Jeera(cumin) seeds & a bay leaf
Coriander powder
Amchur(mango powder)
Salt turmeric
Green chillies or chilli powder (optional)
Besan (optional)

keep the cut bhindis in the fridge for a couple of days. Somehow older vegetables are easier to cook, don't know why.

Heat oil and drop the cumin seeds into it. Once the seeds crackle, add the bhindi. Stir it well so that the cumin seeds get mixed with the bhindi pieces. Drop some coriander powder, salt and turmeric into this immediately, stir well again so that the bhindi is well coated with spices. Now put the lid on and simmer for ten minutes (or more depending on the quantity you are cooking)
After these ten minutes, come back to the stove, take the lid off, if the bhindi is 3/4 cooked add the aamchur stir and cover it up again..water can be added if necessary. After max 10 more mins of this process, the bhindi should be totally cooked. At this stage, add a miniscule amount of besan, stir it, let it be absorbed and take it off the stove. This dish however seems to taste better if it is kept for some time after cooking.
Don't have pics-due to reasons in last post. Anyway cooked bhindi is nothing great to look at-as mentioned, they look like lizards. Well cooked bhindi should be an unpleasant dark green in colour. To taste, it should be soft and squishy-this is not a deep fried dish.

Roast Chicken in Red Wine

I am short of pics at present, due to my smartphone conking out and me misplacing my camera charger.
In any case, I don't think I COULD upload pictures on this blog without my little Android. The integration is beautiful and seamless- Pictures taken on the phone are auto-uploaded to Picasa Web.. and Blogger allows you to directly add snaps from your Picasa Web Albums. Google is just SO the best.
Anyway, the smartphone should eb up and running again in another 48 hours. It's already been repaired, but I have very un-smartly left the charging equipment in the store. As my friend said, the phone needs to compensate for the user:P


To get to the roast chicken:
I had attended a gourmet cookery workshop recently where they had given me a bottle of red wine. I really don't like red wine very much, even though I have plenty of friends who do, so I decided to try out some nice recipe. I searched for Coq Au Vin.. but the authentic Coq Au Vin requires a load of ingredients which I don't have the patience to go buy- in any case this modified recipe turned out quite well, I think. The recipe below would benefit from caramelised onions.. I forgot to make and add those.




Marinade some chicken in red wine(tiny amount), garlic paste, lemon juice, salt and pepper, and leave it for at least overnight or even longer ( even more than 24 hrs is ok, it doesn't go bad)
The marinade should not be too watery.. that means a very minimal amount of wine.

Heat oil and once it starts bubbling put the marinaded chicken into it. It will start sizzling and let out fat and liquid....and let out an awesome smell that will make you want to stick your head into the pan.
You can add a small stick of cinnamon to the roasting chicken; this apprently makes it brown nicely. I think it also adds to the taste of the gravy

Cover it up and let the chicken dry roast, check on it every five minutes and when one side is nicely browned and looks about to char, take a LONG handled ladle( I find a ladle better than a spatula for this) and turn the pieces around and let the other side brown.

Once both sides have that nice browned look- should be smelling really nice by now-take them out of the vessel and keep them aside. At this point the chicken is ONLY HALF or 3/4s cooked.
Ideally put the chicken in some water-this water will absorb some of the fat and can be used to cook the dish later.

I now added some black peppercorns (Those round crinkly black pepper globules- I think they are called peppercorns) and a bay leaf and lots of chopped garlic( finely chopped) and roasted these in the oil-fat residue in the pan. once they kind of crush and start giving out  smells I added mushrooms and spring onions and fried these.

I did a really lazy thing with the mushrooms- I had ordered a pork dish the previous day which had mushrooms in it-I just fished these mushrooms out and added them after a thorough rinsing :P. As the original pork dish had been very mild, it was as good as using raw mushroom

and once these have browned, mix some red wine, soya sauce and cornflour in a bowl and return the chicken to the cooking vessel, add the red wine soya sauce mix-if you have soaked the half cooked chicken in water, then add this  water, else just take some water from the tap, and let the chicken simmer in this liquid.

Once the water boils off, the chicken should be completely cooked - we can add vinegar at this stage.

Salt can be adjusted to this dish any time according to taste. The runniness of the gravy depends on the amount of cornflour added..by mistake I boiled off the whole gravy.. but I think a slightly viscous sauce like gravy would taste awesome!

this dish is neither lengthy nor time consuming in terms of cooking time, but requires one to be present in the kitchen through the process, alert and dexterous..Ingredients have to be added at the right moments, and if the chicken is turned over too late it will char...so I intend to make it when I have the energy.

Lemon garlic butter

Chop some garlic into small pieces Slice a minute sliver of one lemon. Take a good generous dollop of butter and melt it in a pan and put it on a low flame. Add the chopped garlic as SOON as the butter starts bubbling. let it roast for 5 seconds..then take hold of the vessel, and hold it a few inches ABOVE the flames for some time- to make sure the butter does not burn. Let the pan get some heat, till the garlic is completely roasted, ie it should be golden brown and crunchy. Now squeeze the lemon juice from the lemon sliver into this, stir it well and serve. Salt and pepper can be added if desired.

This is a very nice twist on the usual butter. Tastes great on soft bread, and I think would go well with fried fish too. I think it can also be thickened to a sauce using cornflour, though haven't tried it myself. Once could also try marinading prawns in this and grilling them. 
Whole process should not take more than 5 mins, otherwise the butter will burn. the proportion of the three ingredients can be adjusted according to taste.

Pet peeves Or Things I Do NOT like to do in the kitchen

And are therefore things which will never appear here, unless written by a guest
1) Using a pressure cooker. The noise and violence of it scares me.  Plus have heard horror stories of it bursting without enough water. Like all gadgets it must have ben invented by a male. It is a great mystery to me, why men are so chronically incapable of inventing gadgets and tools, which are not NOISY
2) As a corollary to 1 - cook any dish, which cannot be done without a pressure cooker. No, this does NOT mean mutton. Mutton , or indeed any meat, can be cooked as well, if not better, if slow cooked on a low flame in some sort of pot or kadhai. Give it time, cos it will take 90 mins to a couple of hours, but then mutton is the soul of lazy lunches and dinners and is NOT meant to be eaten or cooked in a hurry.
3) Cook Dal. This follows directly from 1. Strangely enough, unlike meat, no matter how much I boil dal, I cannot get it soft and mushy without a cooker. Not much of a loss, because I dislike lentils in any case.
4)Dishes which need to be made piece by piece by piece by piece in loving detail. Ergo, Rotis are OUT. As are the other flatbreads, much to my sorrow. I MIGHT however one day make an exception for fish fries/cutlets
5) Cutting vegetables. Unfortunately there is NO way I can avoid this :(((
Cutting beans in particular, am grateful that I can generally find ways of avoiding it
6) Finding worms inside cauliflowers :((. But I still love to cook and eat cauliflower :)
7) Peeling potatoes. Sacrilege for somebody who is primarily into Bengali cooking...where it is added to every bloody dish, both vegetarian as well as non-vegetarian... but I can and DO avoid it.In the face of criticism, I make pious remarks about counting the carbs and the calories :P

AND THE GREATEST PEEVE OF ALL:

Washing up the dishes, and cleaning the kitchen after cooking :)). I HATE HATE HATE these activities with a vengeance. Is blue collar drudgery in my book, after the skillful artistry of cooking. Feels like a demeaning come-down after actually creating a dish :(

Kadhi Pakode

Am caught up with intensive trainings at work, so even though I am still cooking and eating out with as much gusto as possible, writing takes a back seat.
I made some really nice Kadhi Pakode recently.. I say really nice because at least five-seven people said it was delicious, one of them a Rajasthani, no less!

the best things about Kadhi pakode, apart from its simplicity and guaranteed deliciousness are that a) it can be made in parts- ie, one can fry the pakodas at a much earlier date, and store them in an airtight container
b) Richness can be adjusted according to taste- therefore one can make it for everyday consumption as well as to serve to guests

I was lucky to chance upon this lady's website. She must be really nice, she updates vegetarian recipes which are really simple as well as delicious and is a godsend for the likes of me. Each recipe comes with a video as well, which I find extremely helpful.

My Kadhi Pakode is a take on hers- the changes I made were:
a) I left out the hing (asafoetida) as I seem to be allergic to it.
b)I added a LOT of coriander powder, which she has not done here
An additional suggestion:
Mix some salt and green chillies/chilli powder to the pakoda batter
The richness of the Kadhi depends on the amount of besan one adds, and also the quantity of water one pours in/boils off

I rather like the idea of adding a little bit of tadka roasted in ghee at the end:)
My pakodas turned out flat rather than spherical, but didn't taste too bad all the same.

Lemon butter garlic rice

Or funny fried rice :)

I made some lemon butter sauce, as i had said, but unfortunately there was nothing to eat it with, so I had to throw it away.. luckily, it's not very precious, and there was too much lemon in it anyway, so didn't feel too bad about it.

I made it in a saucepan.. which became naturally buttery. I returned the garlic pieces to it, and ws windering what to  do with it.... when inspiration struck.
I usually make myself a certain quantity of rice on a daily basis.. usually in a saucepan.. out of sheer laziness and a disinlination to do any extra washing up, I decied to make rice in the same pan.. kind of like kore dehi naa.. koto khaaraap hobe? So i just boile dosme water in the selfsame pan, and put the uncooked rice in.

Result.. ooh.. a dollop of heaven..:) Double the amount of water that I normally use was needed though.. so I don't know if it is due to the presence of the fat.. or just something to do with the rice itself..Either way, it was olfactory heaven :))

Uchhe chocchori or Bitter Gourd our way

and now for a nice light dish, to compensate for the decadence of the previous one...and to escape from the cholesterol police of course.

Karela has been a favourite of mine since I was a child. I used to happily eat boiled Karela, and Karela crisply fried with salt was heaven...(We bengalis like eating a lot of  vegetables, just fried in oil). As discussed before, I was much reviled amongst my cousins, since I was the model kid who not only refused to eat chocolates , but also had second and third helpings of karelas :P
In Bengal, one generaly gets two to three varieities of the karela.. the genteel, small uchhe, which is the most commonly eaten..I used to love ucchhe bhaaja, the korola ( the common karela) which I think is regarded as kind of plebian.. the large fleshy kaankrol..which at our house at least, would only be served fried)

Now I maintain that the secret of cooking gourds, is that they should be cooked very very light, with MINIMAL oil and spice. None of this ginger garlic nonsense thank you, and woe betide any person who says that gourds have no taste of their own. Whenever I hear this, my automatic reaction is, "sure, that's because only bengalis know how to cook them" As a result, I eat loads of gourds of different kinds, and if people must share my tiffin, they can take it or leave it.

the recipe I follow for karela chenchki/ uchhe chochhori.

Bitter gourds, as many as you like
A table spoonful of paanchphorn
turmeric
Salt
sugar
and my concession to letting my purist snobbery drop- a dash of amchur.

Cut up the bitter gourd into thin round slices. If  enthu, dice them into cmalleer slices after this.
Heat some oil in a kadai, and roast the paanchphoron. Revel in the fragrance. take a small small teaspoon-ish amount of the paanchphoron and keep aside
Add the bitter gourd, the turmeric and the salt. stir , stir stir like mad.

The bitter gourds will become slightly translucent after a while.Cover it up and let it be.
Four Karelas take about 30 mins to cook. After 30 mins, come back, if the vegetables, still need some more cooking ( bitter gourds should be COMPLETELY soft when they are ready) ie if they are still what we call kochkoche.. as in need some effort to bite, add some more water and cover for another fifteen minutes.Check if it is properly cooked
Take the paanchphoron that you had kept aside, and stir it in with the amchur and the sugar, mix thoroughly and turn of flame after two minutes
Once karela is properly cooked, the colour should change to a dirty-ish green from a nice dark green...
the reason why you add some paanchphoron later is that often whole spices lose their smell, once they have been boiled alongside the vegetable.

there is an even easier way to cook this
Boil the bitter gourd pieces . Drain and drink the water ( don't wrinkle your nose, it's good for you)
Heat the oil in a pan or a kadai, and fry the paanchphoron. Put in the drained bitter gourd, and add the turmeric salt and sugar, mix well, and let it roast for about ten minutes..this dish should be completely dry

Edit : Cooking time of course depends on the qty of the vegetable, as well as the size of the pieces they are cut into. I cook huge quantities at one go-hence the 30 mins!

Note: Re-reading this note- I realised at that time a) I cooked unnecessarily super-huge quantities for one  b) I cooked on really low heat. Therefore the 30 minutes. I cook on high or medium heat nowadays- though I have heard low heat is the best for health.

Kosha Mangsho( Mutton in onion tomato semi-gravy)

This is my piece de resistance, my signature dish. You cannot go wrong with it :) and it takes a lot of time to cook, but is surprisingly not at all labour intensive.

This can be made both with or without tomatoes, tastes good without, tastes even better with. As I said, you cannot go wrong with this dish.
Warning;
The faint hearted and the calorie conscious better move on to the next recipe, which is uchhe chochhori. (Karela stir fry) . This dish simply EXUDES fat.. god knows, mutton is fatty enough in itself , and on top of that the oil used for frying onions and tomatoes...I am not surprised that as kids we only ate mutton about twice a year at home...
Even now, when I cook it, it's generally for other people, ..I can never manage to eat more than two pieces myself..but I am not very good at digesting red meat . If I can get a tip on how to make tit less fatty, I will put it up. Then again, as my cousin said, Meat was meant to be decadent ! Here goes,

Take:
500  gm of GOAT meat (NOT lamb!)
Four onions.. you can reduce the number if you want a less rich gravy
A tomato or maybe two
Two tablespoons of curd
Ginger paste or whole ginger
Garlic paste
Bay leaf(optional)
Green chilli (optional)
Turmeric
Red chilli powder or bettr still, Kashmiri mirch
Salt and sugar.

Marinade the mutton in the curd, turmeric, ginger and garlic pastes, chilly powder, a little salt. A small dash of pepper can also e added hre- this is purely a matter of taste. A small amount of lemon juice adds to taste and tenderness.

If whole ginger (sliced) and green chilies are used, heat some oil in a kadai till it bubbles, and then fry them in this(Lower flame once you have put the spice in)
Slice the onion and let them caramelise. What I do is heat the oil, dump the onions in it and turn down the flame I stir it a bit and let it sit. Meanwhile start slicing tomatoes. The onion should be nice and soft and brown after ten minutes.. they need to be brown and on the way to mushy, just translucent will not do. At this stage add the tomatoes..stir them in nicely with the onion. The tomato will imeddiately start releasing juices.Pay attention to this process, because it's ncie to watch and benefits from stirring as well. Once a fair amount of juice has been released, start pressing the tomatoes down with the ladle... this kind of smashes them and helps the process.
Let the juice evaporate and the tomatoes fry till the oil separate, as in the liquid will disappear and the oil will appear at the side. THIS is the glorious moment when you add the mutton!
Once you lift the mutton out of the marinade and add it, stir it such that it mixes well with the onion-tomato mush. at this point of time, the onions and tomato, though mushy should be distinctly visible. As you stir it, gradually a good amount of water will be released...Once the mutton is nicely mixed, cover it up, and let it boil in it's own water. Leave it for at least twenty minutes like this on a low heat (basically don't raise the heat once you have started frying the masalas) and go and do something else. Come back after the stipulated time, and you will fine the water almost evaporated. Let the mutton play in the concoction fora while, stir it, let the water boil off, let it roast in the dryish mix for five minutes. After which add more water, cover it up and repeat the process, at least twice, till the mutton is tender. Since in this method a pressure cooker is not used ( I am scared of them), it will take 90 minutes at least for the meat to be ready, HOWEVER, you should not have to spend more than 20 minutes to half an hour in the kitchen+ of course 20 more minutes for slicing onions
I suggest cooking this dish by parts. the first time I made it, I sliced the onions and tomatoes and fried them one night, made the actual dish two days later. I find.. splitting up kitchen work like this, makes it less exhausting and adds to the pleasure..I can play around in the kitchen without having to make an entire dish.. and when I do make the actual dish.. it becomes more of an assembly ...

The first one is the dish with the tomatoes, and the second one is the version without.

I made lemon butter sauce today....it made me so happy.. the soft lemony buttery goodness of it. I fried some garlic in the butter before putting in the lemon juice. I dipped my fingers into the velvety sauce when I thought it was complete. I let the butter drip onto my tongue.
I floated away on the flavour, the fragrance.....
Cooking is sensuous.

I have been going through highs and lows, dips and surges, physically and emotionally recently, and I love the way cooking can soothe me, calm me down, make me feel secure..... almost as much as reading.
Cooking is my pleasure, my passion, my addiction, my emotional analgesic. Does not need to be elaborate, most of the recipes here are very easy. I can't stay in the kitchen for too many hours on end..I get very physically exhausted...I feel peeved with the people who did away with traditional Indian floor arrangements in the kitchen and brought in stupid western countertops

I wish I could stay home for a period of time .. go home for a period of time. But since I can't... flavours and aromas of home will have to suffice.

How I usually cook meat

Since I spoke yesterday about my "usual way" of cooking chicken, I might as well elaborate.

This is NOT meant to be a joke. This blog is written for people who do not know how to cook; which reminds me, I'd better start editing the posts to put in exact proportions of ingredients :(

I usually cook meat ( mutton and chicken, have not graduated as yet to pork, and not very fond of beef)  as follows (this is the basic cooking procedure, and not a recipe of any kind)
Meat is usually marinaded-makes it much easier to cook and tastier to eat-and left in the fridge or outside.
Onions and tomato are fried till they form a mush like substance (a separate post on this) first onion , then tomato. This step is optional. One can skip either onion or tomato, or both ( as in the chicken 65)
The meat is now dumped into this mess.( If not using onion or tomato, dump the meat in after frying the spices, if not using any whole spices, just heat some oil in the wok, and dump the meat in)

the meat will release a lot of  water...cover and simmer this till it starts bubbling and boiling. Let the water evaporate.
Kind of stir fry the meat, or just let it roast. when the oil starts to appear (called oil separating) throw in some more water(3/4 of a coffee mug is good for 500gm-1kg of meat). Repeat the process.
Repeat the process as many times as you like till the meat is tender.
Cover while simmering...and don't wait inside the kitchen. I usually watch stuff on Youtube while preparing meat of any kind. The segments are just the right length for letting water simmer and boil off. Stirring the meat during simmers should not be for more than 5-10 minutes each.

How to make Chicken 65

Parents, during the usual Saturday night call : So, what did you eat today
Me: Oh, I made myself some Chicken 65.
Parents (thoroughly impressed, and also pleased at this level of cultural assimilation) : Wow, now how do you make Chicken 65 ?
Me: Oh, you go to the spices section in Total Mall, pick up a packet of Chicken 65 powder. Mix four five tablespoonfuls of this with some curd, marinade some chicken in it for quite a period of time. Then fry a bit of the curry patta-shorshe phoron(black mustard seed), cos of course you cannot have a southie dish without it, dump the chicken into the korai,and cook it in the usual way.
LoL.

And that is the recipe for the day :)

These were the mid-overs- ie, I remembered to click a snap halfway through the meal. Looks a bit pinched here, but tasted really nice, don't worry
By the "usual way " I mean my standard format for cooking any kind of meat. Will do a post on it later, and then all meat posts will just refer to that.

P.S. Please use BONELESS chicken for this recipe. I have tried it both with boneless chicken as well as with chicken on the bone ( miserliness) and the boneless variety tastes way better. At the very least, get it cut into tiny pieces (not all cold storage/butchers will do this, you need to find a specific place)

Apple Crumble at Boca Grande

A lazy post today

This is apple crumble with a dollop of cream and vanilla ice cream at Boca Grande:), a pretty coffee shop, the usual kind, where you get fancy coffees, shakes, the usual burger-sandwich-pizza-pasta, and some continental entrees selection... but their real forte are their deserts.. they make cheesecakes to die for as well as several other extremely seductive looking items. It's alovely , leafy place, with a balcony up top, where you can sit comfortably with a book for hours, their service is a bit strange- they take ages to take your order, but then bring your food in a jiffy, but then take another aeon to bring the bill...so it's all to the good.

Isn't it nice :) ? I had it after a plate of crisp, succulent, prawn tempura:). The tempura batter was as tasty as usual, - so much more fun than besan- and the prawns were fresh and juicy-just right..The apple crumble was totally sensuous-soft, mildly sweet, had enough pastry to lay the foundations of a house..

Now, even though I am not generally fond of sweets, and have a bad reputation amongst my cousins for being the kid who preferred having Karela (bitter gourd) to chocolate, I DO love pastries and deserts and ice cream (I once invoked the wrath of my cousin by polishing off an entire Death by Chocolate, which she had thought would go to HER share, since of course, I was the cousin Who Was Known Not to Like Sweets)


Now I know I started this as a recipe blog, but the (not so) fine print says that this is err .. a recipe blog for people who do not like to cook. So I am sure I can also talk about restaurants, as eating out is an essential recipe for people who do not like to cook.

Lau Ghonto

Laaau Ghonto ( gourd )


This is a TYPICAL bengali dish, and a HUGE favourite.. though most other communities don't like this vegetable. I maintain benglalis are the only people who know how to really bring out the full flavour of gourds


The devil here is in cutting up the gourds, so I don't really recommend it if you are impatient in the kitchen, or don't like cutting vegetables.. but really the end result is worth it. There is a variant of this dish with shrimps as well, will post that later once I am a bit more practised :)




Ingredients: 


Gourds (try and get nice young ones :( ) 
Bay leaf(optional), ginger ( powder or paste) cumin seeds, coriander leaves, green chillies(last two again optional) 
Turmeric, cumin powder, salt and sugar


 Cut the gourds ( this is a HORRID activity) One can make it easier in this way:
a) Use a nice big meat cleaver.
b)Cut the gourd, which is basically cylindircal into smaller cylinders. Now cut each cylinder  into quarters. 
c) Take a smaller knife- those onion paring knives are fine- and scoop out the flesh. Cut each strips of flesh into small pieces
I think.. one could try using a grater as ell, once the quartering is done.. might try coarse grating next time


an AWFUL activity, but honestly I love the vegetable.


Process:
1) Heat some oil, and then do the standard bong method, of frying cumin seed and bay laf, one done throw in the green chillies.
2)put in the gourd, then the ginger paste or powder, the turmeric, cumin seed salt and sugar. stir this in QUICKLY
The problem with gourd is , it releases a lot of water of its own and gets cooked super fast, so keep the spices handy.


Once the spices are stirred in, put the lid on and leave it for ten minutes (MAX), take the lid off, pour in some milk (this is optional) stir it again, boil off the water and turn off the heat.


Is awful , awful awful to cut gourds, but the cooking is really really easy

Sprinkle coriander leaf over it if you like


this can also be made with green peas or with boris. One then has to incorporate the additional step of cooking these extra ingredients before the gourd. As a result, my lau ghonto is always plain :)- anyway, I don't know where to get bori in Bangalore

Kopi Posto, Lau Ghonto

I will write about two dishes tonight, with similar cooking methods and ingredients, both of which are easy to make, and very popular as everyday lunches with us.


Kopi Posto :


This is a very simple everyday recipe for Bengali lunches, so one tends to take it pretty much for granted till one moves out of Bengal :(, when one begins to miss it like crazy and get all nostaligic about the poppy seed :(

I found two ways of cooking it, one with nigella seeds ( kalo jeere) and a second, more common method with cumin seeds


This can be made with potato, ridge gourd or cauliflower. I DISLIKE peeling potatoes, am scared of the look the of the whole ridge gourd, so that only leaves cauliflower out :).. which also happens to be my favourite vegetable:)

Ingredients:
Main: Cauliflower, poppy seeds( posto)
The phoron : either jeere (cumin) or nigella seeds ( kalo jeere), bay leaf(optional)
Green chilli (optional)
Salt, cumin powder, sugar.
a pinch of mustard powder (optional)

The traditional way to cook is to fry the vegetable , as in lightly saute it , and for dry things, keep doing it , till it cooks, however I find that a bit tiresome, so I boil the cauliflower. Boil it is a nice big  saucepan till the water turns green, the cauliflower should become soft but not mushy ( unless you specifically want them crunchy). Just throw the cauliflower into a saucepan of water, wait till the water boils, lower the heat to a simmer (lowest point) and leave it for 20 mins,. unless a pressure cooker is used.Throw away the water once the cauliflower is cooked. ( you can even boil the vegetable, and leave it in the fridge and make the dish at a later date)
In the ,meantime, put two -thre tablespoons of poppy seed, per cauliflower used in the mixie with some water (enough to soak the seed, but not enough to sink them) , a bit of salt, as well as a pinch of mustard powder ( mustard is optional and not really canconical, just a personal peference). Let it rotate fr a couple of minutes.

Once you are ready to cook the dish:
 take a little bit of oil or ghee( if using ghee use a tiny amount) and put in the bay leaf and the cumin or nigella seeds, whichever you prefer,as well as green chilli, if used, when the oil starts bubbling( heat to be lowered before seeds are put in) . Once the seeds stop crackling, put in the boiled vegetable, fold in the posto mix, some salt, sugar and cumin powder. stir till the cauliflowers are nice coated, leave it to roast for about 5-6 minutes, stir it a bit more for fun, turn off the heat.

To sum up:
1) boil the vegetables and keep it aside
2)Make the posto mix
3) Roast the spices, put in the vegetablesa and posto, stir, mix and done

Cooking time:
The time you need to boil the cauliflower, depends on quantity and wheterh you are using a pressure cooker or not. If not using a pressure cooker, I recommend a nice deep saucepan over any other utensil.
Actual-presence-in kitchen-time:(apart from cutting)
well.. about five minutes to put the cauliflowers in and bring water to boil, at the outside, if one is really slow..another two after it has boiled..there is relaly no need to watch over it while boiling.. one can do other things
Once you are cooking the dish.. maybe two to three minutes for the spices to roast, then another five six minutes to finish the dish....

Really not more than ten minutes at a stretch, if you are using the boiling method, if frying then maybe longer

The image is much mixed up with rice.. I forgot all about the blog till I started eating the Posto Chocchori

Shorshe Chingri

I invited a young friend to dinner last night-and made Kosha Maangsho (mutton semi dry semi gravy bengali style), Kopi posto ( cauliflower in poppy seeds) and shorshe chingri ( prawns in mustard sauce).

This menu has 3 plus points:
Is as Bengali as Ma Durga or Mohan Bagan or maachher jhhol or even... the phuchka...and therefore completely appropriate for the two people who were probably going to spend a fair part of the conversation being smugly superior about the subtleties of our cuisine:) plus, jokes apart...I am at my most comfortable cooking reasonably traditional bengali meals. I guess we all have different ways of holding on to our roots- NRIs become weirdly conservative, I cook.
It consists of two delicacies, and a third dish( Posto) that is everyday Bengali fare-IF YOU HAPPEN TO LIVE IN CALCUTTA :P- so NATURALLY the first thing that every Bengali does once he hits non-bong land is to start sighing for Posto( a dish he had probably ignored or even turned up his nose at during the time he WAS at home! )One CANNOT go wrong if one serves posto to a Probashi Bangali:P
Looks ridiculously elaborate, but is ridiculously simple, and for a meal of THIS quality, requires a disproportionately small amount of kitchen time.

So here goes with the recipes one by one
Shorshe Chingri:

dry spices: I used jeere phoron and shorshe phoron ( whole cumin and mustard seeds)
main ingredient: Prawn( I use frozen, shelled and deveined ones from IFB, sumeru also sells (nominally) deveined prawns, but I find Sumeru prawns disastrous, they still have veins, and honestly that's icky for me, cos I keep thinking of the fact that I am cleaning up the prawn's poop- I mean doing it for a human kid is probably bad enough but an adult PRAWN....
Other spices : a combo of coconut powder ( Maggi coconut powder widely available at grocery stores), Posto( Poppy seeds ground in a mixie) and Kashundi- but mustard paste is fine as well.. I have both in my kitchen, and use either as the mood takes me. these things were thrown into water, to make a kind of thin sauce...but I am sure one could use less water to get a more paste like consistency as well
other components
Onions and green chilies

Cooking
Stage 1
Make the watery/paste misture I described-mustard, coconut powder, poppy seeds. Of these the latter two are dispensable,  but add body and flavour to the dish if used.
Stage 2
Heat some oil- i used a flat bottomed frying pan for this, as I was using a small qty of prawns-and throw in some cumin and mustard seeds.Once they stop spluttering, throw in slashed (chera) green chillies and grated onions- grated onions are easier to cook, and anyway this dish should not havea strong oniony taste. For the Kosha mangsho I had sat and peeled and sliced and fried four onions two nights back, and that's enough slicing for an entire month!

after about 2-3 minutes ( if you fine grate the onions, they don't need much frying)
put in the prawns, throw liquid mix on top, cover it and let it cook, according to my grandmother for about 5-7 minutes if you are using small prawns- NOT MORE THAN THAT.

HERE , I, the permanent sceptic, made my fatal error. Refusing to believe that anything could be cooked in the same time span as a maggi packet ( otherwise why not eat prawns as a convenience food rather than Maggi? )I kept the prawns on the flame ( luckily low heat) for 10-15 minutes. As a result the sauce was delicious, but prawns were toughened as my grandmother had warned. Sadder and wiser, I took an on the spot oath, to forever listen to the grandmothers henceforth, as any nice well brought up woman should :)
So to sum up:
Oil content: Very minimal. In fact next time I am going to try steaming this dish and make it zero oil, and see how it turns out
Cooking time: well.. as you see, it should have been much shorter, than this particular effort. Go by what Thamma said and try five to seven minutes. One can always seethe it for a bit more if it is underdone. So five to seven, add one more minute for frying the spices- well the whole dish should not take more than 10 minutes MAX, and that too its so delicious
Actual presence required in kitchen time: I would say , you can leave the kitchen after covering up the prawns, so really it's only the preparation time plus the few seconds you need to fry the spices. but what the hell are you going to DO outside the kitchen if you have to return in 5 minutes? Get ahead with some other preparations/washing up.
Extra ingredients: I marinaded the shrimps in lemon juice and salt. Or you can add aamchur. The sourness adds a nice tart flavour. My roommate and guest flipped over the gravy


Will add the other dishes tomorrow. Just hope I can keep this blog going:( Have started two book blogs before this, but never got beyond the first posts
I will add pictures later.

Some basics I follow

I spent two years cooking on a microwave, so I have a very process oriented approach to cooking- I also find that when one standardises any activity in the framework of a process, it leads to neatness, efficiency and consistency.
To me basically, any dish consists of 3 components:
a) the dry, whole spices ( if any)-these are roasted absolutely at the beginning
b) the main ingredient-ie the vegetable, meat fish etc
c) the powdered or wet spices and pastes, and turmeric and salt

However, once I started cooking on a stove, I found it a much more creative and instinctive as well as continuous process, so I really don't think I will be putting all my recipes in this framework. For a beginner however, it was a good way of sorting things out in one's head.

Heat: High or Low?
I ALWAYS use low heat for cooking, except when I need to fry something/ boil water:

This increases the cooking time, but REDUCES the time YOU need to spend in the kitchen!something which is simmered over a long time on a low flame, is not very likely to burn and stick ( Tola lege jaaoa), that too on a non stick, hence can be left to look after itself, while you just put it on and then go do your own thing, but earn the kudos at the end :P
A HIGH flame on the other hand, will require your continuous presence and continued stirring to ensure that food does not get charred
also according to Ma, food is better cooked through and through if slow done over a low flame.. apparently high heat sometimes leaves the inside of the food uncooked

Cookware:
SPEND if you can afford it and buy some high quality non-stick cookware. SPECIALLY if you dislike cooking. In fact the more you dislike cooking, the more you need to spend on your cookware;
This is because good quality, specially non-stick cookware will actually aid the cooking process, and will ALLOW YOU TO SPEND A GOOD PART OF THE TIME OUTSIDE THE KITCHEN! there is not that much need to continuously stir, once the ingredients are well coated with spices. because there is very little chance that the food will stick to the utensil.

Use graters mixies etc, whenever you feel like. Please DO NOT use ready to eats. Order in instead!

the title of my blog

is a rant against one of my favourite pet peeves ( I have MANY :P)

Bachelor cooking:
To wilfully misquote a favourite author, IT is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man (not in possession of a wife) must be in want of dumbed down cooking instructions :P.
So what about single women? How come nobody has published simplified cookbooks for unmarried girls?  Anatomical difference automatically equips you with cooking skills? Unscientific ,much?


I am beginning to get annoyed by the GENDERING of these household debates.Like all gender stereotypes the term is unscientific and derogatory to BOTH men and women. While men are allowed be retarded creatures who can't feed themselves unless given really simplified instructions, a woman MUST by default be a kitchen goddess, regardless of her inclinations or any other responsibilities or claims on her time.
Thus depriving men of an essential survival skill, and women the choice of individual likes and dislikes.

There are PEOPLE who like cooking and find it relaxing and there are others who find it a chore and a bore, regardless of what they are equipped with down there.
This blog is mainly to record my own learning curve in the kitchen while simultaneously helping the latter to have reasonably good, healthy and TASTY food and drop out of the office-canteen/punjabi dhaba/andhra mess/ dependent population(why I started cooking in the first place). The goal is optimise and ultimately reduce kitchen time, through experimentations, using various cooking techniques, shortcuts and forgetting orthodoxy. Of course, one could also hire a cook, like a lot of good Bengalis do :) .. but you know.. in case you can't find one or they don't work out to be worth the expense.Which means cut down recipes(give or take a few exceptions) simplified menus,  because while I enjoy cooking, at the end of the day(literally) there are so many other things I would rather do.