In Matrix we are told the world we live in is not real. Well that was not such news to me. Don’t we all spend a good part of our childhood in the world of make believe? Whether a child is a boy or a girl, they are either soldiers or princess respectively.
In absence of video games or Barbie dolls and cartoon network, Pogo and Nickleodeon and sometimes playmates, I improvised. I favoured myself in the role playing more than any conventional games. I have been a strict teacher writing long questions for tests on the back of doors with chalk and beating the life out of the pillows at times. I have been a farmer planting seeds left over from my breakfast and expecting it to sprout into a glorious apple, lychee or Jamun tree the next month (it was realistic according to me). I have also tried my hand at being a bank clerk. Old passbooks (they are an extinct entity now) and counterfoil of used up chequebooks along with a red, a green and a blue pen formed the essentials of my desk. Add to it some discarded files and I became a knowledgeable number crunching clerk!!To be a street vendor selling pakodas...I used a tasla for the frying pan, an old badminton racket as the ladle, stones as my pakoras, clay to make aloo tikkis. The most innovative (if I may say so) was when I dressed myself as meerabai. It may be because the only saree my mom could spare at that time was dirty orange- close to saffron, the colour of hindu sanyasis and worldly renunciations (probably that is why she didn’t wear it) and I had to memorize some couplets written by Meerabai for school work anyways. So I spent a quite a few hours in a supposed trance, trying to chant back the memorized poems with the end of the saree demurely draped over my head. I would have scored well in my Hindi oral exams that term for sure. I didn’t realize how wonderful the words were, and how troubled her life would have been in renouncing the human marriage bond and claiming a celestial union. All this involved some level of imagination and high degree of conversation which was supplied by me for all the possible characters involved. In my defence against the obvious allegation of ‘this was too much’ all I can say is I did not have a sibling till I was in grade II and that I did have fun!!
I was mostly a harmless kid tucked away in some corner without making my mother’s or grandma’s life any harder. It was my Mom who got me small sarees from Calcutta (I had 2 cotton ones in wonderful colours..though I had a taste for the silks and the chiffons which continue to this day) to play around in when I started demanding more variety in my wardrobe. My granny suggested and organized a cooking picnic more than once for me and my friends. Some of my friends (the precious ones) were invited in the morning and a part of the open courtyard was covered with a bedsheet to create a small alcove for us to light a fire and cook. We were supervised, of course. Heavily. In fact it was just our believe that we cooked the food and not my mom or granny who kept dropping in at just the right time a spice was supposed to be added or the hot vessels needed any tending. The recipe did not vary. Kichuri (a mixture of rice, lentils and select vegetables cooked with barest of spices), tomato-r-chutney and a bhaja. Bhaja means fried in Bengali. Fried vegetables add an oomph to kichuri and make it the star of the show. Anything could be fried. I have heard that you should have five different ones. Big coin shaped potatos, diced okhras, round shaped aubergines, blossoming florets of cauliflower or long curled potol. There can be many more..but these are my favourites. We didn’t fry so many. We just fried one. My Granny gave it a name, bash baganer rannaghor. In her childhood in the village they were would spend an afternoon in the bash bagan (a bamboo thicket interspersed with other wild growths) cooking kichuri in earthen pots set over three big stones, a fire created with dry twigs and leaves coughing up some flames. She had a choda associated with it as well. A choda is a rhyming poem of about 4-6 lines generally sung to kids. I tried ‘googling’ it without any success. I guess it is lost with so many other things of her I would have liked to preserve.
To help you visualize, there is a scene from Satyajit Ray’s Apu’s triology Pather Pachali (song of the road), a recommended viewing even for non Bengalis. In the second or third minute there is a snippet of Durga (one of the protagonist) cooking a picnic with her mates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9wDupzeDc&feature=related
It does look very close to what picture I had in my mind.
To me my Grandma’s variation of cooking under the shadows of the bamboo with the birds chirping felt more adventurous than a corner of a courtyard and adults fussing about. It was difficult even for me to imagine bamboo clumps and conjure up the fragrances of that kichuri. But I have forever wanted to have another picnic of this style.
The recipe is to honour my grandma a wonderful lady who has vision and courage in measures beyond usual in her times. This simple recipe of kichuri tomato chutney and bhaja is me trying to keep the essence of the Bash Banager Rannaghor alive.
In absence of video games or Barbie dolls and cartoon network, Pogo and Nickleodeon and sometimes playmates, I improvised. I favoured myself in the role playing more than any conventional games. I have been a strict teacher writing long questions for tests on the back of doors with chalk and beating the life out of the pillows at times. I have been a farmer planting seeds left over from my breakfast and expecting it to sprout into a glorious apple, lychee or Jamun tree the next month (it was realistic according to me). I have also tried my hand at being a bank clerk. Old passbooks (they are an extinct entity now) and counterfoil of used up chequebooks along with a red, a green and a blue pen formed the essentials of my desk. Add to it some discarded files and I became a knowledgeable number crunching clerk!!To be a street vendor selling pakodas...I used a tasla for the frying pan, an old badminton racket as the ladle, stones as my pakoras, clay to make aloo tikkis. The most innovative (if I may say so) was when I dressed myself as meerabai. It may be because the only saree my mom could spare at that time was dirty orange- close to saffron, the colour of hindu sanyasis and worldly renunciations (probably that is why she didn’t wear it) and I had to memorize some couplets written by Meerabai for school work anyways. So I spent a quite a few hours in a supposed trance, trying to chant back the memorized poems with the end of the saree demurely draped over my head. I would have scored well in my Hindi oral exams that term for sure. I didn’t realize how wonderful the words were, and how troubled her life would have been in renouncing the human marriage bond and claiming a celestial union. All this involved some level of imagination and high degree of conversation which was supplied by me for all the possible characters involved. In my defence against the obvious allegation of ‘this was too much’ all I can say is I did not have a sibling till I was in grade II and that I did have fun!!
I was mostly a harmless kid tucked away in some corner without making my mother’s or grandma’s life any harder. It was my Mom who got me small sarees from Calcutta (I had 2 cotton ones in wonderful colours..though I had a taste for the silks and the chiffons which continue to this day) to play around in when I started demanding more variety in my wardrobe. My granny suggested and organized a cooking picnic more than once for me and my friends. Some of my friends (the precious ones) were invited in the morning and a part of the open courtyard was covered with a bedsheet to create a small alcove for us to light a fire and cook. We were supervised, of course. Heavily. In fact it was just our believe that we cooked the food and not my mom or granny who kept dropping in at just the right time a spice was supposed to be added or the hot vessels needed any tending. The recipe did not vary. Kichuri (a mixture of rice, lentils and select vegetables cooked with barest of spices), tomato-r-chutney and a bhaja. Bhaja means fried in Bengali. Fried vegetables add an oomph to kichuri and make it the star of the show. Anything could be fried. I have heard that you should have five different ones. Big coin shaped potatos, diced okhras, round shaped aubergines, blossoming florets of cauliflower or long curled potol. There can be many more..but these are my favourites. We didn’t fry so many. We just fried one. My Granny gave it a name, bash baganer rannaghor. In her childhood in the village they were would spend an afternoon in the bash bagan (a bamboo thicket interspersed with other wild growths) cooking kichuri in earthen pots set over three big stones, a fire created with dry twigs and leaves coughing up some flames. She had a choda associated with it as well. A choda is a rhyming poem of about 4-6 lines generally sung to kids. I tried ‘googling’ it without any success. I guess it is lost with so many other things of her I would have liked to preserve.
To help you visualize, there is a scene from Satyajit Ray’s Apu’s triology Pather Pachali (song of the road), a recommended viewing even for non Bengalis. In the second or third minute there is a snippet of Durga (one of the protagonist) cooking a picnic with her mates.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8F9wDupzeDc&feature=related
It does look very close to what picture I had in my mind.
To me my Grandma’s variation of cooking under the shadows of the bamboo with the birds chirping felt more adventurous than a corner of a courtyard and adults fussing about. It was difficult even for me to imagine bamboo clumps and conjure up the fragrances of that kichuri. But I have forever wanted to have another picnic of this style.
The recipe is to honour my grandma a wonderful lady who has vision and courage in measures beyond usual in her times. This simple recipe of kichuri tomato chutney and bhaja is me trying to keep the essence of the Bash Banager Rannaghor alive.
Kichuri Recipe
1 cup rice
1 cup moong daal (proportion of the rice and daal vary. but I have found that equal proportion makes for a good mixed effect ..for me..you could start with 1:2 and then work out which suits you best
1 carrot Diced lengthwise and then breadth wise...as batons
5-6 medium sized florets of cauliflower, I leave them big as I do not like them but A does and keeping them medium sized stops them from dissolving into the kichuri
½ cup peas
2 small-medium potato sliced in quarters ( i like them with skin on)
Spices
2-3 tej patta (bay leaves)
2-3 cloves
1 brown cardamom( badi elaichi)
2 green cardamom
1-2 ½ inch cinnamon sticks
A pinch of turmeric
Salt to taste
Optional
1 tsp Coriander powder
½ tsp jeera powder
1 tsp garam masala
A pinch of sugar
2 tbsp Ghee (I have managed to get the gawa ghee- ghee made from cow’s milk in London.Yes!! it adds the wonderful fragrance with nothing else can. But any other ghee or even oil would also do the work)
Heat 1 Tbsp of the oil/ghee in a pressure cooker. Add the spices to the ghee and fry lightly to release the their flavour into oil. Add the moong daal and fry lightly. When you start getting a slight fragrance from the daal its time to take it out and out aside in a bowl. A healthy alternative is heating the daal in a any other vessel without ghee. Make sure that the daal is not browned, it should turn just a shade or two darker than what it is initially. There is a wonderful variety of moong daal available in Calcutta, it is called shona moong. It looks like tiny gold seedlings. It melts much swiftly. I hoard it and only take it out when I want that special kichuri taste (which is almost always).
After taking the daal out, add the remaining tbsp of ghee.oil to the same pressure cooker. If you want to add the coriander, cumin power and the garam masala now is the good time. Then first add carrot batons. Saute for couple of minutes before you add the cauliflower florets. Another couple of minutes later add the potato and in the end the peas. You do not need to fry the peas for long. That is why we are adding it in the end. In the end add a bit of turmeric. Salt. Add the rice and mix well so that it gets coated with the colours and spices. Add the fried daal and water to this. I am not very good at understanding the water requirements in a pressure cooker. I generally make my rice in microwave, that way I have more control. Fortunately in kichuri a little extra waters would not do any harm. I generally add so much water that the water covers the vegetables etc and is about 2 cm above the rice line.
With about 4 whistles the aroma of kichuri starts filling the house and it is time to add the bhaja and stir the tomato chutney (recipes would be shared shortly).
If you feel the kichuri is runny, then let it simmer for a bit to reduce the water. Remember that kichuri does soak in some of the water if allowed to cool down. So if you are hoping to make it work for your lunch as well as dinner (which I invariably do) then keep it a bit runny than what you would have.
Ladle it into a plate and add any accompaniments that you want, bhaja, chutney, achar, papad.
I sometimes like mine with more spice. For that I add a twist I learned from a maharashtrian friend of mine. In about 2 tbsp of warm (not hot) vegetable oil (any oil other than mustard would do ), add a pinch of cumin seeds, finely chopped garlic (I add lotssss)and sliced green chillis. Just keep it on heat for 10 secs or so and then take off the gas. Add salt, red chilli powder and chopped coriander. Add this over the kichuri to get the added zing, not that it needs ones.
The bengali kichuri is different from that made in other parts mainly because it is richer in spices and heavier in content. It is something to have and then do nothing for rest of the day.
Happy eating!
1 cup rice
1 cup moong daal (proportion of the rice and daal vary. but I have found that equal proportion makes for a good mixed effect ..for me..you could start with 1:2 and then work out which suits you best
1 carrot Diced lengthwise and then breadth wise...as batons
5-6 medium sized florets of cauliflower, I leave them big as I do not like them but A does and keeping them medium sized stops them from dissolving into the kichuri
½ cup peas
2 small-medium potato sliced in quarters ( i like them with skin on)
Spices
2-3 tej patta (bay leaves)
2-3 cloves
1 brown cardamom( badi elaichi)
2 green cardamom
1-2 ½ inch cinnamon sticks
A pinch of turmeric
Salt to taste
Optional
1 tsp Coriander powder
½ tsp jeera powder
1 tsp garam masala
A pinch of sugar
2 tbsp Ghee (I have managed to get the gawa ghee- ghee made from cow’s milk in London.Yes!! it adds the wonderful fragrance with nothing else can. But any other ghee or even oil would also do the work)
Heat 1 Tbsp of the oil/ghee in a pressure cooker. Add the spices to the ghee and fry lightly to release the their flavour into oil. Add the moong daal and fry lightly. When you start getting a slight fragrance from the daal its time to take it out and out aside in a bowl. A healthy alternative is heating the daal in a any other vessel without ghee. Make sure that the daal is not browned, it should turn just a shade or two darker than what it is initially. There is a wonderful variety of moong daal available in Calcutta, it is called shona moong. It looks like tiny gold seedlings. It melts much swiftly. I hoard it and only take it out when I want that special kichuri taste (which is almost always).
After taking the daal out, add the remaining tbsp of ghee.oil to the same pressure cooker. If you want to add the coriander, cumin power and the garam masala now is the good time. Then first add carrot batons. Saute for couple of minutes before you add the cauliflower florets. Another couple of minutes later add the potato and in the end the peas. You do not need to fry the peas for long. That is why we are adding it in the end. In the end add a bit of turmeric. Salt. Add the rice and mix well so that it gets coated with the colours and spices. Add the fried daal and water to this. I am not very good at understanding the water requirements in a pressure cooker. I generally make my rice in microwave, that way I have more control. Fortunately in kichuri a little extra waters would not do any harm. I generally add so much water that the water covers the vegetables etc and is about 2 cm above the rice line.
With about 4 whistles the aroma of kichuri starts filling the house and it is time to add the bhaja and stir the tomato chutney (recipes would be shared shortly).
If you feel the kichuri is runny, then let it simmer for a bit to reduce the water. Remember that kichuri does soak in some of the water if allowed to cool down. So if you are hoping to make it work for your lunch as well as dinner (which I invariably do) then keep it a bit runny than what you would have.
Ladle it into a plate and add any accompaniments that you want, bhaja, chutney, achar, papad.
I sometimes like mine with more spice. For that I add a twist I learned from a maharashtrian friend of mine. In about 2 tbsp of warm (not hot) vegetable oil (any oil other than mustard would do ), add a pinch of cumin seeds, finely chopped garlic (I add lotssss)and sliced green chillis. Just keep it on heat for 10 secs or so and then take off the gas. Add salt, red chilli powder and chopped coriander. Add this over the kichuri to get the added zing, not that it needs ones.
The bengali kichuri is different from that made in other parts mainly because it is richer in spices and heavier in content. It is something to have and then do nothing for rest of the day.
Happy eating!
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