"Purano shei diner kotha" is a song written by gurudev RabindraNath which is known by even the most distant of bengalis. It is sung almost like an anthem at farewells and reunions. It is evocative and you cannot but let yourself go down the memory lane as you listen to it. Imagine my surprise when during the my first new year celebration in london, I heard people singing what suspiciously sounded like this song. It turns out that Robert Burns wrote the poem Auld Lang Syne (losely translated as 'for old times sake') and Gurudev was inspired by it to create purano sher diner kotha. It always takes be back to the college and hostel times.
Apart from friends; food figures a lot in my memories of college and hostels. Panipuri from naka (junction), egg roll from sector six, chuski (crushed ice served with coloured sugar syrup) from benarasi thela , chowmein & pav bhaji from civic centre, dosa from Indian coffee house....the list is broodingly long.And this is just the first four years. Recently I remembered one such addition to the list.
There were two canteens in our engineering college. One for students and other called 'Chachaji's canteen' for teachers.The latter was out of bounds and by virture of this was the preferred one, especially for the samosas and kachoris. But there was one item for which the student's canteen was favoured. Soya chilli. It was a dark drab looking preparation. And it cost 12Rs a plate. Any spend in double figures were written with red ink in my monthly ledger.A few rash double digit spends could blow off the monthly budget of 500Rs. But soya chilli had to be had. At the cost of walking from college to hostel instead of tempo, or forgoing the other extras. If lucky, one could find someone ready to share the plate and more importantly the cost. If you could do with only half a plate of it, that is. Time and travel had faded out the memory of the precious plateful of tangy, fiery nuggets of nostalgia.
A recent dinner brought me together with some friends from those times. A last minute addition as remembrance of those days was soya chilli.
I did not have any recipe to refer to, so i made it mostly by instinct, trying to recreate the taste.
Ingredients
2 cups of Soya Nuggets
1 medium onion sliced in rings
2 cloves of garlic finely chopped
2 green chillies sliced lengthwise
1/2 inch ginger sliched into thin lengthwise
3 tbsp tomato ketchup
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1/2 tbsp dark soya sauce
1tsp lime juice
Like with everything else the story here starts with onion and garlic. In 4 tbsp of hot oil add the garlic and follow with the onion almost immediately. If you prefer the fried falvour of garlic more than the pungency than let the garlic cook for 10-15 secs before adding the onion. Save some onions rings for garnishing, if you want.
While that is cooking, soak the soya nuggets in hot water. I put them in the microwave for about 2 mins. I also add some salt to the water so that the soya granules get some of the salt deep inside as they soak up. you can either slice them up and i did or blitz them in a food processor to get smaller granules. The latter is good when you are pressed for time.
Add the chillies, part of the ginger and the soya chunks into the oil. after a minute of mixing them around, add the tomato ketchup and dark soya sauce and the lime juice. Mix well and let it cook covered for 4-5 minutes. Taste and add the light soya sauce. Let it be absorbed for the next 3-4 minutes. Check the salt and add more if required.
The nuggets would already have got the salt from when they were soaked and the light soya sauce would have added to it, so it is best to check if you need any salt at all.
If you prefer you can change the proportions of the sauces to match your taste.
The ginger is an optional. It just adds a bit of zing and bite to the whole dish....and the canteen always had ginger in it.
