Golden Memories with Resthouser Daal

For everything that we eat in our lifetime, I feel our mind associates one particular taste experience to each one. So while I have had kakori kebab many times I remember the taste of the one in Saheb Sind Sultan in Hyderabad. Among other things phuchka from basu da, egg roll from civic centre in Bhilai, fish fry at my cousin’s wedding. Just the thought of these can help me come out of my mundane existence of cold sandwiches.

Toor or arhar daal is not a favourite lentil variety for Bengalis. In my home it was only cooked when we had non-bengalis over for dinner. In keeping with my antipathy to home food, I did n0t like regular mushurir dal. Toor dal was passable, its infrequent appearance making it tolerable. The first time I remember relishing and actually eating a whole katori (bowl) of it was in a resthouse...hence the name resthouser dal (which 6-7 year old can remember toor or arhar, moong or masur?). We were stuck in panchmari (a small hill station in Madhya Pradesh) forest guesthouse for a couple of days because of unprecedented rains which made the roads non passable. In borrowed sweaters and dog eared playing cards these couple of days of idleness were good for the adults. Maybe. I however, remember being very frustrated, being the only child in the whole group and nowhere or nobody to play. In those bleak days, the vibrant yellow dal was a saviour. I am sure my mom thought I was turning a new leaf. But alas my preference was just like monsoon. It ended with the season.

The warm dal was served with a squeeze of lemon and a helping of freshly melted ghee. And I loved it. The khansama was duly rewarded for extra 2 days effort. When we went back on papa’s next tour I did not like the dal. Maybe the cook left or maybe I needed monsoon and power cut to feel simple magic. Over years the only places which come close to the taste were resthouses. I think it is to do with the scarcity of ingredients deep in the forest combined with the smoke from wood burning chulhas to lend the wonderful taste.

Unfortunately there is no recipe I could search for something as specific as this. Finally I have worked out a combination that satiates my taste buds. It passed the ‘u like it but what abt others’ test when my friend asked me to cook it. This has now become a standard fixture in my ‘cook three things in 45 mins’ menu. AS pretends he likes it as well, though I think he would kill (hopefully someone else) for gujrati dal on couple of evenings. That one, I have discovered is an antithesis of this, as far as ingredients go. My MIL cooked it for us a couple of times. While I gladly gulped down bowlfull of it never felt the urge to make it yet. I might one day, when I tire of rest house concoctions........

Ingredients

Toor dal (non oily) – 1 ½ cup

Water – 4cups

Coriander leaves- 2 tbsp

Cumin seeds – 1 tsp

3 green chillies

3 cloves of garlic (4-5 if small cloves)

½ tsp turmeric

Ghee -3 tbsp

In a pressure cooker take the toor daal, salt and water and soak for 30mins. I generally do not have the time to soak..so I just put it all in the pressure cooker and hope that I don’t have anything more to do..which is generally not true. Another bane of my kitchen existence is the spilling over of the daal. Everytime!!if I figure out a way of having perfectly cooked daal and not have a spilled drop on the base of the gas...I will share it. For now 3 burst of whistles at high flames does the work for me. I don’t let off the steam immediately, but let it prolong the cooking.

After everything else on the menu on cooked, it is time to put the ‘phoron’. Phoron is basically ‘tadka’ or ‘tempering’...but it is also used as a figure of speech if someone wants keep popping into a conversation with their comments, unasked for. Culprits can equally be children or adults. On my last Indian vacation, I acquired a useful item. A tadka spoon. It is a blessing. I do not need to wash a whole kadhai for the tadka.

So in goes the ghee to warm up. Once slightly warm jeera and turmeric is added. The garlic cloves I crush with the pestel and add to this. When I get a fragrance of the garlic, I put in the coriander leaves. Be careful because it sputters, but what a way to end its life. Pour this into the daal and stir in. If the daal has gone cold by now then you can always warm it up.

And that is it really.

P.S. I never managed to take good pictures of this daal. It is so routine thing at home that we forget and just gobble it down. This time however I thought enough is enough. I did not wait to bring out the big guns camera. Just clicked a couple shots on my phone..hence the additional decoration.

Pearls of Wisdom with Mangaudi (Lentil Pakoras)

Bank holiday is a term I have come to appreciate in UK. It brings constancy in life. You know the days you are going to have off...same time every year. Holidays in india vary by region, employer and of course, religion. There is a concept of restricted holidays allowed to govt employees. They can decide to take the days off during durga puja rather than guru nanak jayanti. As the year starts I start thinking about the four blocks of holidays. The easter, May , Spring and the august bank holiday. Chirstmas is not counted as it is generally reserved for India visits. For these four, each must be utilized. If there is even a distinct possibility of spending any of these at home, I throw tantrums, call up old promises, threaten with future restrictions..and in the way do anything but stay at home. A look back at the bank holidays over the past four years is a list of our trips. This year it was lake district. The beautiful lush green cumbrian countryside was a pleasure to our senses. We braved the drizzle for bext part of the holiday. We were blessed with one day of beautiful weather.

We stayed at a lovely cottage with nothing but the nature surrounding us. The sheep outnumber humans in the gently sloping landscape. We took lovely scenic drives around passes.

I had a choice of cumbrian sausage to satisfy me over three days, while others over won over by the scones with cream and strawberry.

Back home I had to come to terms with the fact that the next day off is three months away.It was time for comfort food. It was time to go back to kitchen. Strangely enough I did not feel like cooking something good. I decided to deep fry something. In fact I wanted to indulge so badly that I poured oil into the wok before I decided what to fry. A bowl of green moong daal was soaking on the windowsill. They were part of my ever failing effort to try and eat healthy. It was part of the pearls of wisdom a friend of mine shared with me. I was supposed to drain them and let them grow long tails or in other words let them sprout. They were supposed to be my snacks for the 3-5 pm time in office when I feel hungry and naughty enough to eat a whole bar of chocolate. That was what was intended for them. What happened is an entirely different story. It is the process by which I managed to convert a bowlful for wonderful healthy legumes into a plateful of deep fired oily indulgence. I submit no apology for it. My soul needed it.

Ingredients

1 cup whole greem moong daal – soaked overnight

Ground into a grainy paste with water

½ of medium size onion, sliced lengthwise

½ tsp ginger paste

½ tsp garlic paste

½ tsp chat masala

1 green chilli finely chopped

¼ tsp salt

1 tbsp gram flour (besan)

Oil to fry While the oil heats up, I quickly put the soaked moong daal through the rigors of the food processor. After a matter of 5 mins I had lovely grainy paste. Do not make a smooth paste, the mangaudi loses the texture if it is too smooth. Add the onions, paste and powder mentioned above to this. You can add chilli powder if you do not want the heat of green chillies.Add the gram flour bit by bit so that the mixture binds together. With a small spoon scoop up little morsels and drop them into the oil. It would sputter and rage about for a few minutes before accepting the fate as a pakora. One reason to keep the individual mangaudis small is to allow them to cook properly during the frying process. And it makes wonderful portion size as well.

I had never tasted mangaudi, till in one week, I was introduced to it by two different sources. And I loved it. How can you not love a spicy deep fried pakora. How very enticing it looks with the golden crisp cover and how very lovely is the crunch of the friend lentils and the onions.

I skipped dinner...in my enthusiasm I had made more than I could eat.

The wok of oil is still there. If my chain of thoughts is anything to go by...I might be putting up recipes which need frying.

ITS ALL IN THE NAME (Kumro Chechki)

I received an email from a friend about the deadly combination of Bengalis and nicknames. It goes something like this

Some of the bengali names given to the boys when they are born are Chhoton, Bulbul, Khoka, Laltu, Gogol, Babu, Buro, Tutu, Bubu, Ghoton, Bhutan, Chhotka, Shanto, Bubai, Tubul . . . et al. Here is an attempt to alert people to a great injustice that is being perpetrated upon the sons of Bengal.

So you thought they were wimpy to begin with. Far from it!!! Their current state is a result of years of conditioning by the oppressors, namely, the women. By using panoply of psychological weapons, they have reduced these fine men to what you mostly see today. Let us focus on the first weapon in their hands - the nickname.

When a son is born into a Bengali household, he is gifted with a resonant, sonorous name. Bengali names are wonderful things. They convey majesty and power. A man with a name like Shushmito, Shamrat, Samudro, Rudro, Prokash, Indrojeet,Shurojit, Proshenjit, Bishshodip, etcetera, is a man who will walk with his head held high, knowing that the world expects great deeds from him, which was why they bestowed the title that is his name upon him. But it simply will not do for these men to get ahead of themselves. Their swelling confidence needs to be shattered. How can one go about it? This task is left to the mothers of these lads and is accomplished by the simple act of referring to the boy, not by his rather-great-sounding real name, but by a nickname which even Shakti Kapoor would feel ashamed to answer to.

There are five rules for creating nicknames, which need to be followed. They are:

1. Nicknames must have no connection to the real name. Orunabho cannot be called Orun. No, for that would be logical, and such things are anathema in the world of women. Instead he shall be called BHOMBOL. If possible, the nickname and real name must have no letters in common, but an ancient alphabet proves to be the constraining factor there.

2. Nicknames must be humiliating to the power infinity. If you are a tall strapping boy, with a flair for soccer, an easy charm and an endearing personality, then you shall be nicknamed - Khoka. And everytime, you have set your sights on a girl, and are on the verge of having the aforementioned lass eat out of your hand - your mother will arrive and pronounce loudly - "Khokon, cholo". The ensuing sea of giggles will drown out whatever confidence you had earned from that last winning free-kick.

3. A nickname must refer in some way to a suitably embarrassing incident in your childhood that you would give your arm and leg to forget. If it took you a little too long to shed your baby fat, then years of gymming will not rid you of the nomenclature Motka. If your face turned crimson when you cried as a toddler, you will be called Laltu. When you turn 40, your friends' children will call you Laltu Uncle. Even age will not earn you the right to be taken seriously thereafter.

4. Different members of the family will make up different nicknames each more embarrassing than the preceding one. If one member of the family calls you Piklu, then another will call you Pocha, and another will call you Ghoton. The humiliation multiplies.

5. You will always be introduced by your nickname until people forget you had a real name. Ranajoy might have taken on a gang of armed men single-handedly, but Tatai really didn't have a chance. After a point, Tatai will completely take over the beaten body of Ranajoy, weighed down by the pressure of a thousand taunts.

This strategy is surprisingly effective. Ask yourself - would you take Professor Boltu seriously? Or put much weight by the opinion of Dr Bubai? Or march into battle under the command of General Topa? The power of the nickname has scarred the psyche of Bengali men everywhere. It follows them like a monkey on their backs. That too, a monkey that was imposed on them by their own mothers, aunts and grandmothers

P.s. This was a fwd email and I do not know who can claim the rights as the author.

I could not agree with it more. I do differ in saying that I quite like it. I have a 22 character bhalo naam(good name) which is what gets put on passport and official documents and professional like. Then the retinue of nicknames starts and goes on. My mamar badi (mother’s side of the family) specializes in inventing weird nicknames. A beautiful mashi (aunt) is called jonglee (juglee), another one boka(dumb) which she certainly is not. I can at least trace the roots of Lokai, my nick name from that house to a distortion of word Lokkhi (godess laxmi). Namesake, Jhumpa Lahiri’s book barely scratches the surface of a life led with so many identities. It is a wonder all Bengali kids do no grow up with Multiple personality disorders. It is however the prefect way to quell dissatisfaction among the immediate family...whose suggestion you did not consider important enough to tag to your child. All mashi, pishi, dadu, didun get a chance to stake claim to have given a name. Who cares for the child anyways? In fact I did not even realize anything was wrong with all this, till AS mentioned he has just one nickname. AS did not take kindly to this type of malarkey. He was not even familiar with the word daak naam. He felt the full force of it with my cousins. Kid of four pishis and a mama and kaku adds up to a quiet a lot of cousins. Add to that the fact that each one can stake claim to at least 3 daak naam. In the first few hours all was good. AS was introduced to everyone by their bhalo naam. Things started to muddying up for him when bhojo was called and indrajeet answered. Or gutu tried the do the work which was assigned to gola and babun. I am quite tempted to create a family tree to put him out of misery at family gatherings. If it is any consolation the weird name calling doesn’t stop at innocent kids. When you listen to Bengali food names like chenchra, chechki,dalna, kalia, ghonto, jhol, jhal, bhate crop up with regularity. Rather than being straight-laced into specific ingredients these are basically templates which can be extended. Something similar to best practices templates I keep hearing about in every other meeting at work! When I cooked kumro chechki this weekend, I realized it was a good recipe on cry out hearts out about all the names we have been called till date. I remember kumro checkhi as a breakfast item accompanied with porotha or ruti. I hated it. Well that was then. We all learn worth of various things as we go through life. Mine would be to appreciate the distinct aroma and taste of bangali food. It is a simple enough thing to make and can easily be fitted on for a weekday dinner or a weekend brunch.

Kumro chechki

Ingredients

500 gms - Yellow pumpkin

2tbsp – kalonji(onion seeds)

2-3 Green cillies

Coriander (for garnish)

Oil

Salt

Yes that is it..to believe it ..cook it Cut the pumpkin into thick matchstick shapes. The best and easiest way to do that is to have ½ inch (don’t get your ruler out!!) thick slices. Pile all the slices together and then cut then lengthwise.

Add 3 tbsp of oil in a wok. I had tried with mustard oil, that gave a pungent smell, so this time I tried with vegetable oil. Add the kalonji seeds when the oil warms up. Let them sputter along with a couple of sliced chillies to lend a bit of heat. Add the pumpkin pieces. Lightly mix the oil into the pieces. Cover and cook. Try to contain your enthusiasm when you are turning the pumpkin over. It will cook quickly enough. In the meanwhile we want it to keep its shape and not turn into a mash. It took me 15-20 mins at medium flame to get the whole lot cooked. Sprinkle salt. My granny used to say everything needs its opposite to enhance the taste. I use this advice with caution. Bengalis as mistakenly known for having a sweet tooth and there is a misplaced belief that all courses should follow suit. A pinch of sugar (mind you a pinch) to round it off then. The coriander is my addition to the dish. You can skip it altogether. This goes best with porotha as already mentioned. But you can go for rice, daal or roti.

Better Late Than NEVER

I have been lazy..and that too for so many-many months. There are about 4-5 pages worth of stuff I want to bore anyone who cares to visit these pages with. But somehow the recipes and the ramblings never came together. It is probably because it has been mad at work. I actually didn’t have enough time to even check my emails at times, which is saying a lot. I also felt guilt at starting something and abandoning it midway. I thought I need to cook something absolutely smashing to compensate for my absence (not that anybody missed me!). Finally after a month and half into a new year I have decided something is better than nothing. So I am better off at least start the ball rolling.
This time it is dhone pata boda. Coriander or cilantro is mostly used as garnish or at best holds fort as main ingredient of a chutney. You would not have heard something cooked entirely of coriander. And that is what this is. I am heavy handed with my use of coriander at the best of times. To have an opportunity to actually use it as the main ingredient is temptation difficult to resist. I have not heard of anything like this beyond Bengal to I will claim dhone pata boda as ours.
Dhone pata means coriander leaves, while dhone by itself means coriander seeds. I have a couple of times in the early days of telephonic support of cooking from my mom learnt this difference the hard way. My mom would say...ebar dhone jeere tel e de (now put coriander seeds and cumin seeds into the oil) and I would add coriander leaves and cumin seeds. The taste never came out the way I recollected from my childhood. Suffice to say when my mom finally saw me doing this, she managed to hide her astonishment at my ignorance quite well.
Well this dish done not have dhone but has dhone pata.
Bengali cuisine has a horde of ‘bhajas’- fried stuff to be eaten in the second course with dal. Boda basically means something of a dumpling shape fried up. While other bodas need a good dip in the oil, this one has less oil requirement to recommend it.
I cook this often on Sunday lunches when the Monday morning blues have started to set in and you don’t want to spend the rest of the remaining time in the kitchen. With rice revolving in the microwave and dal gurgling in the pressure cooker it takes a total of 10 mins to prep the boda. And that includes searching out the chaler atta (rice flour) and posto (poppy seeds).

Ingredients

250 gms of Dhone pata (coriander leaves)
3 tbsp rice flour (2 is you use gram flour)
1 tbsp gram flour (besan) [optional]
2 tsp poppy seeds [optional]
1 tsp white sesame seeds [optional]
2 green chillies
Salt to taste
Oil to fry

I like to use the stalks of the coriander as well for any purpose, but if you have time or the stalks are not good then pluck the leaves. Make sure you increase the amount of coriander leaves if you do not intend to use the stalks
Coarsely chop up the coriander and the green chilles. Mix all the other ingredients and add enough water to bind all together. The optional ingredients (apart from besan) lend a crunchiness to the boda. If you don’t have them, don’t worry it would still taste unlike anything you have had before. In case you do not have rice flour , you can use plain flour (maida) or corn flour. Do not increase the amount of besan if at all you are using it. That converts this from a boda to a bhajiya. Make the mixture into flat round shaped(approx) discs, about the size that can fit into the palm of your hand.
In a frying pan drizzle some oil and put the boda for more of a toast rather than fry. Keep pressing and changing the sides it from time to time. Soon enough the rustic fragrance of fried leaves would waft off. You know they are done when you get a dark green bordering on black colour on them. The reason to make them flat discs rather than balls is to allow the insides to be cooked without the use of a lot of oil. Be warned that it does take some time. Mine took about 10 mins on each side.
A perfect accompaniment to mushurir daal and bhaat. A complete meal without a fuss.