CURRY AND SPICE

This seems to be a distant, sweet, memory to me. I got home "lau shaak", bottle gourd leaves with stems last January. Thereafter, I was not getting it. I am pretty sure if the situation had been normal, I would have got "lau shaak, bel, pat shaak" a couple of times by now. Off course, my not so much of a Bengali men drink "bel er shorbot" if done beautifully adding milk or yogurt, adding ice cubes to it. I play every possible trick, I try hard to keep them stay tuned to homely Bengali Food. The man is not a big concern, he has grown up eating traditional Bengali. Only that, he left home at a very young age, sailed in a ship that housed different nationalities; his food habits got changed but he never refuses Bengali Food. He is not fond of vegetables because his mother is not fond of it, neither she had time to cook variety. She had to go out every day for community service, party with friends , a big bowl of fish & meat & a "panch torkari" worked good for her and the family.

Coming to our son, at his age did I at all take interest in authentic Bengali food or knew how important it is to preserve one's own culture including food? Because mine is a very middle class, traditional family who still stick to being homely Bengali, because I love food and watched the family from close, because the father made me read different Bengali genres since middle school, I eventually started taking interest in everything Bengali. I always try that on the son, he has to take interest too. We never force him; he has something else in his head now; to build a career. Even we will not be happy if he loses focus. A Partha Dey is a Partha Dey not for the amount he has in bank, it's his position where few Indians within India can reach. Not for his intelligence alone, he never lost focus in life. My man so respects his wife, always says Chutu sacrificed her career for Partha.

I owe a lot to this Chutu who is a university rank holder, according to my husband she spends half of her salary in different kinds of charitable works. You will never see them boasting about who they are in public. Off course, they are proud, they will never exhibit it. I am hopeful, very hopeful that one day our son will value what his mother wants from him. Whichever part of the world he be in, he will carry his land of origin in his heart; contribute a little bit towards it's development. Happiness is they do not say a no to a fish or meat curry, peyazkoli bhaja, LAU SHAAK DIYE MOTOR DAL; which is young stems & leaves of bottle gourd cooked with yellow split pea lentil.

Look my breakfast has arrived. Yesterday, for lunch we had chicken & chapati, this is a roti from the left over dough. Yesterday night, I prepared those instant, vegetarian pancakes. They were really heavy. You need no science to know why Southern Indians & Bengalis are largely obese. The idiotic me had two yesterday night, now having half. I shared the same breakfast with Cristine.

The thing is I had got the season's first litchi yesterday, along with it mangoes & 1/4th of a watermelon.

I never buy fruits in bulk, our home or refrigerator cannot accommodate. Now look at this! This morning, the owners visited us and gifted these.

Why? It is because he is happy & surprised that T has repaired the shower taps of the attached toilet like an expert plumber; and saved a lot of the owner's money. Every two months they come to collect their letters, they never come in for a cup of tea. So, I need not get tensed needing to treat them at lunch with this Bengali vegetarian lentil curry with bottle gourd leaves, stems & yellow split pea dal LAU SHAAK DIYE MOTOR DAL.

INGREDIENTS :

MOTOR DAL / YELLOW SPLIT PEA LENTIL : 1 SMALL TEA CUP [alternatively use pigeon pea]
BOTTLE GOURD LEAVES WITH THE YOUNG STEM : A BUNCH
GINGER PASTE : 1TSP
SLITTED GREEN CHILLI : 2-3
HALVED DRY RED CHILLI : 2
CUMIN SEED : 1/4TSP
BAY LEAF : 1
TURMERIC POWDER : 1/2TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
SUGAR : 1/2TSP
OIL : 2TBSP [I usually use Mustard Oil for cooking lentil curry]

PROCEDURE :

Wash the motor er dal / yellow split pea lentils and soak in hot water for an hour. After an hour we will pressure cook it at minimal heat up to 2 whistles adding 2 coffee mugs of water, little of turmeric & salt. {Boiling the dal on stove top takes a lot more time, the result is a tastier dal I feel.}

Meanwhile we will dress the bottle gourd leaves & young stems.

We have chopped the leaves, we have cleaned the fibres from the stem and have cut them finger length.

We have washed them taking in a colander. We have taken them in a microwave proof bowl, added water to it and a little of salt & turmeric.

We have microwaved it at high for 3-4 minutes and strained.

We have tempered the heated oil with cumin seeds, bay leaf and the halved dry red chillies.

We added the partially boiled bottle gourd leaves & stems. We have added the turmeric and stirred for a minute at low heat.

We have added the boiled dal now and 1-2 coffee mugs of water. We will keep the heat level between low & medium, bring it to boil.

We will add the ginger paste, salt to adjust, sugar & the slitted green chillies.

We will boil it at low heat for about 7-8 minutes.

You can have it either with steamed rice or chapati. You can see, we also had "doi potol & peyazkolir torkari" on the side.

Honestly, I am enjoying eggs these days. I will repeat, people like me should better have eggs than explore sea fish & meat varieties. I remember DumDum Bazaar sold "kachim er mangsho", turtle meat that is; the mother got one or two days and cooked following the elder of her two sister's instructions. I so disliked, I so much had problem at it's sight that she never got it again. Mashimoni's in-law's family ate those, she was forced to. I did not tell you 1/10 of the true stories revolving around my life, I may not have the liberty to, I stand witness to many horrendous incidents around! I can recall incidents right from my childhood! I could not ever be adventurous with food may be because I was born in a home & family which was traditional, guided by too many rules & regulations. I doubt if my extended family there yet get packaged milk or not. Even our mother also gets from "Jhumri Mashi r Goyal." Back there in that township in Nadia district too, they might be still getting milk from the diary farm they have been getting since 1960's. What I mean is, my side of the family hardly wanted to walk forward with time, they are against time it feels. How much I try, I cannot change beyond a point; "a goyal ghar, a bagan, a littler me playing there alone wearing a gamcha & sando genji, my 2 year old brother's unclothed self clicked under the mango tree, my painful ear piercing experience at a tender age of 31/2, the Church, My first school, Sister Marilyn, Ghurni, Judge's Court ground, moglai porota,chicken & fish cutlet with kashundi makhano peyaz at High Street er more, visit to Ghurni o Rajbari, mehendi gach at Musholman para, the crying me requesting to let me watch movies at Chitramandir or Sangeeta"; everything comes alive these days; even my joy when the train stopped at the station. Where the railway line went thereafter was not my concern. Way later, when the father got transferred to Jangipur, we knew that line goes to Bahrampur, Murshidabad. If girls had safety on roads, I would have travelled throughout India by now. No, I am not the kind who will take risk and bring in trouble, the mother too well guarded me; yet there were attacks in buses, train. One must tell about both sides of the coin. Women are not not safe alone, the sexiest attitude towards women is what I sincerely dislike! Leave it! The thing is the very rule bound maternal grandmother did allow eggs inside home, never chicken. The paternal grandparents were liberal, never ate eggs or chicken though. Did the mother tell me in the recent years the grandmother was force fed eggs on the doctor's advice? I cannot remember most of the things, more & more forgetful I got. So many food pictures I have deleted for the same reason. Let me blog about this regular egg curry with asafoetida, yogurt, tomato besides the regular spices DOI TOMATO DIM before I forget what I used in it. I think I did not use ginger in it, onion slices & minced garlic alone.

Yesterday, as usual I went for a walk around 11:30 am and was a little late to get them food which I gladly do once in a weekend. I was late because I was inside Guardian failing to decide which hair colour should I buy, then bought at a good offer from Watsons. For the food, I wanted for them chicken stacker burger from Burger King ; they are not taking cash or manual orders. The KFC was just beside and I had got chicken stacker burger for them and a zinger meal for Cristine. I called her to come to the condo gate, so difficult it was to carry the soft drinks. It was 2:15pm and the son was so hungry. I asked him to wait for a click, else my readers would think I did not get for Cristine. What I request, he has to negate; thats fun for him. However, he did let me click him; actually he cannot wait for food after taking shower!

What did I eat? Cristine found her zinger meal heavy too. Fine, I asked her to give me a store bought paratha with the half of the French fries she could not and an omelette. I have to ask my mother if she continues to cook "mumlet" or does omelette now. I say kudos to her capability of cooking in less oil.

These store bought flat bread packets are actually Malaysian Prata, I can have them only one at a time. I get one packet, it goes for months; I do not allow much, I have a help. I had on side the fruits I love. I got angry with Cristine when she forgot to serve me "lau er chokla boti" at night. I served the men and got busy doing social media posts about the milk buns I made. She served me "tok dal & egg drop jhol" and forgot what I love. When I started to eat, I found that what I love is missing. She was already halfway with her dinner, she felt bad when I asked "tui bhuley geli?" She definitely did, she cannot be otherwise, so I do not move mountains! This morning, we all had the me made egg free, milk buns I made yesterday. The man was refusing, I had shown some "senti"; "lokta senti ta khelo shokal shokal; boyosh hocchey bojha gelo." He had it with butter & omelette; the son had it with kaya, watermelon & papaya on the side; Cristine with butter, me with peanut butter.

They were soft & yum, yet not store bought likes. No restaurants can cook light curries with minimal spices as our homes do. Here is one such egg curry from Bengali Homes; DOI TOMATO DIM.

INGREDIENTS :

EGG : 7-8 [FRESH DUCK EGG WORKS WONDER, I FIND CHEW'S EXTRA LARGE HEN EGGS A GOOD ALTERNATIVE]
PLAIN YOGURT : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
TOMATO : 1 LARGE
ONION : 1 STANDARD SIZED
GARLIC : 1 TBSP [MINCED]
GREEN CHILLI : 3-4 [SLITTED]
ASAFOETIDA : 2 PINCH
CUMIN SEED : 1/4 TSP
BAY LEAF : 1
CUMIN POWDER : 1 TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 1/2 TSP
FENNEL POWDER : 1/2 TSP
TURMERIC POWDER : 1 TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1 TSP
CINNAMON POWDER : 1/4 TSP
GREEN CARDAMOM POWDER : 2-3 PINCH
SALT : AS REQUIRED
SUGAR : 1 TSP
OIL : 3-4 TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Wash the eggs gently, take in a vessel having water enough to immerse the eggs. Add some water [this helps peel the boiled eggs easy]. Boil them at low to medium heat for 10-12 minutes. Leave aside to cool normally.

Discard the two ends of the onions, peel, wash & slice. Wash & slit the green chillies. Wash & chop the tomato. Peel 4-5 five big cloves of garlic [7-8 in case of smaller sized], wash & mince.

Peel off the boiled eggs, wash again and rub with little salt & turmeric. Heat the oil in a wok and lightly fry the marinated eggs. Take off.

Add the hing / asafoetida, bay leaf & cumin seeds.

Give a stir & add the minced garlic; stir until light brown and then add the sliced onions & slitted green chillies. Stir cook till the onions are golden brown.

Beat the plain yogurt well adding the sugar and pour onto the wok.

Add the cumin powder, coriander powder, fennel powder, red chilli powder, salt & the remaining turmeric powder.

Stir well at low heat for a minute and add 11/2 coffee mugs of water. Cover with a lid and bring it to boil.

Let it boil for 5-6 minutes. Now add the lightly fried eggs & tomato pieces, cinnamon & green cardamom powders. Let cook at medium heat for another 3-4 minutes. We should be done.

Have it with rice or chapati. We also had some "fulkopir kosha o mulo o dhonepata diye bhaja moong er dal" on that day.

Those of you are following my work for a couple of years now may know that my take on home style sweets is the simplest. I do prepare sweets & desserts on a regular basis at home but with fewer ingredients requiring less skills. Basically I lack skill, artistry, just as I lack minimal sense of science, mathematics, good literature. I have less affinity towards learning. What I do is bypass all my shortcomings and take in hand something that suits my ability, that needs less of my sweat, skill, artistry, brain exercise. Take the example of this sweet with bread, instantly made khoya, coconut sugar, green cardamom powder, kewra water; I was so relaxed doing it! Yesterday evening, from 7:40pm to 8:45 pm I engaged myself doing this INSTANT KHOYA O PAURUTIR MISHTI. My moulds lay dormant in the dark corner of a kitchen drawer. One thing is they were not good buys, the second is I lack patience.

Yesterday, back from my old neighbourhood with a fresh Jasmine Plant, I took shower and had food. Yes, I need three good meals a day besides that evening "cha-biskut." Else, the purpose of my life is lost. There is cooking some Thai sticky rice at this moment in a neighbourhood home; I can smell. All of a sudden I am craving for "fyana bhaat." I can do it anytime; it is a family love. The problem is I have limited amount of chinigura / kalijeera rice in stock, I do not wish to run out of it. It is unlikely that I will visit the desi neighbourhood right on 2nd June. I am planning a rice dish tonight with the ponni variety of rice, in retaliation of all those insult on an art called "biryani" [all in good humour]. If it tastes good, I shall share the picture in public, may not blog now. It is a very beautiful, cool, breezy morning. The clouds are inviting me to nowhere; I wish to be with them at this time.

On such a day I wish to go out for a long walk, let me see if I can finish quick with my blog post on this vegetarian sweet.

Yesterday, before starting with this sweet making exercise, I was in deep slumber. Most of the days I try to avoid it but yesterday I was tired walking in the sun, though had to take train way back home. The carriage got heavy; four small bottles of sugar free iced tea that particular 7-Eleven has in offer, a jasmine pot, white bread required for the sweet to be made and it was 3:30pm. I slept till 7pm, had a big "cha er dokan er biskut o cha". My biscuit stock is almost finished, the challenge is to resist myself buying them often. The brother has limited having it, then he prefers biryani after brushing his teeth. "na veg biryani te amader ruchi nei karo." Why I could sleep till late in the evening? Because I was confident that I can prepare the INSTANT KHOYA O PAURUTIR MISHTI without taking any stress. We did the vegetarian sweet with few ingredients like white bread, instant reduced milk, coconut sugar, green cardamom powder, screw pine essence. Cristine had more work after that; she had to prepare Tuna Sandwiches for the three of them. "ami korbo o na , khabo o na."

I was drinking chilled tea at 10pm and had dinner with, with, with; nothing but "badam bata, millet o tomato-shosha kuchi."

This morning, I had a noodle bowl, now feeling bloated. Thinking of going out before having millet with mutton and "shojne, aloo, beguner jhal. Walking helps me feel good, such an atmosphere should not be missed.

Our mother loves such soupy noodles or rice bowls, fond of oriental food; the husband & wife had full fledged differences in all spheres; oriental vs moghlai, hollywood-tollywood vs bollywood-tollywood. Okay, they loved sports & reading in general. Our mother lost Shakespeare in her "shuchi bai spree." I do not allow myself that; Cristine is a necessity because I am not a "doshobhuja."

INGREDIENTS FOR THE INSTANT KHOYA / MAWA / SEMI-SOLIDIFIED MILK :

POWDERED MILK : 4-5 TBSP

FULL CREAM MILK : 1 SMALL TEA CUP

GHEE / CLARIFIED BUTTER : 2TBSP

INGREDIENTS FOR THE SWEET :

THE INSTANT KHOYA / MAWA / SEMI-SOLIDIFIED MILK

BREAD SLICE : 8-10

FULL CREAM MILK : 1/2 SMALL TEA CUP

COCONUT SUGAR : 4TBSP

GREEN CARDAMOM POWDER : 1 TSP

KEWRA WATER / SCREW PINE WATER : 2-3 DROP

DRY FRUITS OR NUTS TO GARNISH!

PROCEDURE :

Cristine did cut and discard the sides of the breads which she threw before I could say anything. I then tore them and took in a blender.

I had then added 1/2 small tea cup of liquid milk to it and blended at low power to get a paste. You must pause in between while doing so.

For the instant khoya; I mixed together the powdered milk, full cream milk and ghee / clarified butter.

I microwaved it at high for 1 minute; paused, stirred and again microwaved it at high for a minute or little less.

I had let it cool a bit and added the bread paste to it. I roughly mixed the two.

I heated a non stick pan on stove top, added the mixture to it. I stirred it at low heat for 2-3 minutes and added the coconut sugar & green cardamom powder.

I folded in well, added the screw pine / kewra water and asked Cristine to stir it until the moisture dried 80%. This may take 7-8 minutes.

Cristine transferred it to a plate, allowed to cool a bit. Then, I kneaded it well for 2-3 minutes.

Then I had washed and dried my hands. I applied a drop of ghee on my palms to grease.

I tore off smaller portions to shape them into simple sweets.

Later, Cristine joined me in the venture. We will garnish the top with a choice of dried fruit or nut.

They always will taste best when eaten fresh but we have to refrigerate. My home is moody, they will have when they wish.

I do not know where to start from; yesterday morning time 6:30 am I could talk for a minute with the brother, thereafter until now I cannot connect anyone of the total of six handphones the family own. I only know they are alive but their trees & floral tubs are gutted down; the garage gate has broken. I believe in the almighty you know! I wanted to ask why He or She or them got so angry with the human kind, the nature's fury on us is still understandable. I was contained after talking to my brother for a while, okay they did not face any physical harm. Thereafter, I am not getting through them. Watching the amount of devastation, I felt broken by night. This morning it feels what might have happened that all of their phones are switched off? The man could talk to his sister yesterday night and his father called sometime back.

All my anxiety got channelised towards the father who is no more. He had always listened to people except his own family. So ardently we told going backwards to Barrackpore would be an absurd idea. What is so wrong living in a flat, back in 1995 the flat culture was in operation. Moreover, in the interiors of DumDum, plots were available; not every neighbourhood had wagon breakers! He paid no heed to our request, he spoilt his hard earned money in all wrong ventures, "buying led machine er karkhana in Kanchrapara to picnic er bagan bari in Hoogly district to investing all of the amount he retired with in chit funds", he did blunders. If the mother or brother told anything; he retorted "amar taka ami ja khushi korbo." He was a good human but that traces of family patriarchy has to work, na. The mother was not too wrong to say, "bongsher dharma jabey kothai; sudhu jhuri jhuri aam aar maacher golpo; na porashonar chol, na bishop shompotti barano." So many times the maternal grandfather told "we are bankers, why should we invest in fraudulent organisations?" T told "you open a consultancy if you so dislike sitting idle after retirement." He listened to none. I am pretty sure what he is saying sitting up there, "Barrackpore e ki keu thakena?""Thakbena keno? Kolkatai ato bochor theke keu pichoi?"

This morning, I woke up to this; they are offered to my God Family whenever they show up. Not in a mental state to share an elaborate recipe, I decide on this easy, Bengali, light chicken curry ROSHUN KANCHALANKA O GONDHORAJ LEBU DIYE MURGI.

I can so feel how our mother must be going through, all her beloved babies lie scattered now. She will almost alone bring them together now and the brother will get angry with her. They will not understand her point of view; what amount of labour one has to give to maintain that amount of cleanliness & hygiene. This part I absolutely agree with her, personal & household hygiene is a necessity. Not that I indulge her, I keep telling " 25 bochor to thakley gaach pala, jhumri mashir goyal, drain porishkar, teler ghanir tel, atta koler atta kheye. Shomoyer sangey pa miliye choltey shekho na ektu; barita bechey amader flat er kachey ekta flat nao; Baguiatir bhetortao to ghoroa poribesh, ekdom DumDum er moto! Na oder odikey living cost onek beshi. Tachara ekta ektola bari holeo jetey pari. Arey ekta bari ekhon kothai pabey, ek kotir nichey hobena dam, bhai oto chap keno nebey? Oder ekta jibon achey, tumi nijer jed ta charo ektu. Na, oder to bolechi tora flat kiney choley ja, ami shiprar maa der niye thakbo. Come on, the brother cannot, he could not all these years; can't you respect the rare quality in him?" Every week, this is our conversation. That you have lived your life, let them live. Then all three of them starts saying "P r smriti jorano barita."

I can understand their dilemma; they being skeptical about living in a flat. I fear they are not in the mentality to pay a fat amount as maintenance charge per month, fat amount towards cultural activities or pay high fees to the maids, pay some extra to the maintenance guards. Hence, they want individual home. Even I was exactly like this, the simplistic self. When I earned 1200 rupees giving tuitions, or earned 500 rupees teaching in an school in the early 90's, the father got me a savings account and trust me, I saved a good amount, bought small gifts for the family, T. Marrying T led me to a vision to raise the living standard, yet I could not traverse beyond a point. You will know this if you compare my home with those of our friends. "Amar poribar shoukhinotar mormo bojhena." So, you will get a chicken curry served in the simplest of bowls at this home. This ROSHUN KANCHALANKA O GONDHORAJ LEBU DIYE MURGI is a curry with chicken I saw flooding the Bengali food groups I was part of few years back. They do not share recipes as such, few Bengali speaking food bloggers might have the recipe too, but I did it on my own.

INGREDIENTS :

CHICKEN : 1KG MEDIUM CUT [using fresh, country chicken gives the best result]
LIME LEAF : 4-5 [I used kaffir lime leaves available here]
LEMON RING : 4-5 [I used Bengal special Gondhoraj Lebu available here in the
Bangladeshi shops]
SLICED ONION : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP [of 2 medium sized]
GARLIC PASTE : 11/2TBSP [of 1 normal sized Indian variety]
GREEN CHILLI PASTE : 2TBSP [of 7-8-10]
TURMERIC POWDER : 1/2TSP + 1/2TSP
FRESHLY GROUND BLACK PEPPER POWDER : 1 TSP
LEMON / LIME JUICE : 1/2 SMALL TEA CUP
BAYLEAF : 1
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL - 4TBSP

PROCEDURE :

I prefer country chicken, whilst the men the fleshy, hi-breed ones. Because, I can eat only country chicken, they compromise. They even want the skin on chicken, but I cannot cook it, [shobetei ga ghulai amar.]

Anyway, wash the chicken pieces and marinate with salt, 1/2 tsp turmeric and the lemon juice. Keep aside for 1hour, I even keep it standing for 2 hours in normal temperature.

Meanwhile, we will get in hand everything else required. We will mix together the garlic+green chilli pastes+1/2tsp turmeric+salt.

Heat oil in a wok and temper with a bay leaf. Add the sliced onion and fry till golden brown.

Add the spice paste and stir fry at low heat for 2-3 minutes. Add the marinated chicken and fold in well.

Cover cook at minimal heat for 15-20 minutes. Check in between, we will not let it burn.

We will add the ground black pepper, washed lime or lemon leaves, stir for a minute and add 2 coffee mugs of water.

We will cover cook at low heat for 12-13 minutes, open cover and add the lime / lemon rings.

We will cook uncovered, at low heat for 3-4 minutes. We will switch off gas and discard the lemon / lime rings after 2-3 minutes; else the curry may turn bitter.

We had it with piping hot steamed rice with the freshly cooked chicken curry & the next day with hot chapatis. You can see, we also had "kola shaak begun diye, lau diye choto chingrir jhol, peyaz diye mushurir dal, peyaz shaak o aloo bhaja on that day."

This was the most frequently done salted snacks in my family. The old lady might have lessened the frequency of frying "nimki" these days, but this was the best way to shut our mouths asking for outside food for the next few days. "Nimki" still happens to be an affinity for me. It makes for an interesting snacks for the family too, specially the youngest member enjoys this in the midst of all that alluring fries & fritter packets competing in the market. Yes, I do allow him or rather a little indulgent about having outside food with moderate restrictive measures. Because our parents never allowed us hawker stall food, I can understand a child's wishes, disappointments. We must listen to their wishes too. Can you imagine, we were not allowed any biscuit other than Britannia Marie, Cream Cracker until my 20's. Dadu used to carry so many varieties of biscuits on his weekend trip to that district town in Nadia, I particularly liked Nice. Way later, the parents allowed Priya coconut cookies, Britannia little hearts, Parle krackjack in our home, may be when I started attending college; that too rarely.

I mean it caused me irritation at times when variety food besides rice & chapati meals in our home meant again home cooked "naru, moya, nimki, pithe, shingara, payesh." I cannot remember a single incident in our life when we four dined out until we siblings started earning and treated our parents. The thought is quite irritating that the father only visited restaurants when his friends arranged, he never took initiative. If it was his call, then it was dhabas where he did not take his family much. If he went anywhere for day long, the mother had to pack food in different boxes. We did not have a car then that he would take us to a dhaba in the outskirts of the city. Our DumDum neighbourhood had a couple of Dhabas not suitable for families to sit & eat. They made heavenly dal tarka which either of the parents would pack & get home often, yes they loved it. On any of our tours, we would have such meals because the parents avoided rice meals outside home. Do you think they would ever step into a proper restaurant even while on tours? That is why the brother and me keep eating outside, keep changing brands of cosmetics.

One thing is true & important to note; because our parents are / one is still miser, controlled; they enever had to stoop low in front of anyone, to lay their hands in front of anyone in life. Any wife has to understand the husband's capability; stand strong by him and not let him stoop low in th wish to compete with a well off neighbour. Wrong are those women who instead of earning accuses their husband of not earning enough. So, you know why I so loved potato wafers then but not anymore? Because we were allowed chips once every one or two months may be. When asked for chips, our mother fried jars of nimki single handedly without any help. She would get her kerosene run stove to the bedroom so that she could sit and fry them; simultaneously teach the brother. Our homes use nigella seeds for flavouring nimki; I used golmorich / crushed black pepper this time to prepare this Bengali, salted snack GOLMORICH FLAVOURED NIMKI! Rest, it only requires refined flour, a bit of salt & oil for this yum evening snack to be made.

Believe me I wished to prepare today's share with a healthier gluten free flour. I am not getting any millet flour, not even my favourite brands of wheat flour locally. Pillsbury Atta seems to me too refined to be called what India means by "atta." Even millet packets are scarce, I am getting 250gm from here, 500gm from there whenever they are seen. I cannot live on salads; I do not know what to do if they stop coming at all. Even in the early next month, I am not so keen on visiting the Indian supermarket. South Asians are most likely to flock there in hundreds and I am a diabetic who wishes to see her daughter-in-law or even the live-in partner. The husband does not stop me from doing anything; if I go there he would get angry.

Okay, Sunday is not the day I would want to chat with my readers. My fungus affected plants are waiting for me to spray a detergent solution, I will go out to get lunch for the family. If I ask the man to order online, he gives the responsibility to the son whose orders are weird; mumma thinks it is not value for money. She has to go, this way she exercises control on the finances alloted to her. No, I do not let the man go out at all. There is hardly any romance, love in this. He is the prime who has to feed six stomachs. If anything happens to him, I can still feed the family, how to bear the huge medical expenses? How to bear the expenses of my child's education. That is prime to me / us; we cannot shatter his dreams. We keep discussing these while watching movies & web series. When I say my job is done concerning the son, he needs you more now; he gets upset perhaps, starts shouting at me which other girls may consider abuse; I do not. There is nothing more truth than this to this fear monger. I go out or may be at an hour like 7pm I ask Cristine to get the flour tin, we together start doing a Bengali evening snacks, GOLMORICH FLAVOURED NIMKI. If you are doing it alone, it takes time. How could the grandmother, mother, most of the elderly Bengali ladies used to do it in bulk during Bijoya Doshomi, others for Diwali I wonder.

INGREDIENTS :

REFINED FLOUR : 11/2 COFFEE MUG
CRUSHED BLACK PEPPER : 11/2 TSP
SALT : 3-4 PINCH
OIL : 2 TBSP + 1 TBSP + 150 ML approximately to fry
You can use ghee for kneading the dough instead of oil.

PROCEDURE :

Take the refined flour, salt, black pepper in a wide mouthed bigger bowl & mix well.

Add 2 tbsp oil to it and fold in well. Then rub well for 3-4 minutes.

Add water little by little and knead to form a firm dough. Add 1 tbsp oil again to the dough.

Knead it again for 2-3 minutes.

Cover it with a moistened, clean piece of cloth and refrigerate for an hour. Take it out.

Knead it again for 2-3 minutes. Tear off smaller portions and smoothen between palms.

Now we have to roll them round as we do for chapati; not too thin, neither too thick.

Now with a blade or knife, cut lengthwise strips keeping a gap. Cut into smaller pieces further. My diamond shapes do not get perfect.

Dust a plate with flour to store.

The most important part of this snack is the frying aspect. I have learnt it after several mistakes. We will not fry them in hot oil, they will burn & soggy.

We have to fry them for a longer period at a very low heat to get them crisp; always we are to adjust the heat & even switch off the gas oven at times and again switch on after a minute.

What we get are crisp, salted evening snacks that will remain crisp in an airtight container for a week. You should not refrigerate it.

I was willing to share this Bengali, combination dishes for years now. This keeps happening every alternating week. I did a photo feature two years back, was not willing to share that. Last month again I clicked them both and felt they are ready to be shared; there can be nothing better than simplicity. We eat different kinds, like last night we had some potato & cheese croquettes I made from scratch and grilled fish, my CHEESY POTATO CROQUETTES recipe had to be updated.

These are hassle free cooking, the men are happier with such vegetarian stuffs but I have a mental block, I must stay true to my roots. Honestly, anyway I would prefer a spicy "mocha ba echorer chop" over this. Now that I have learnt the trick to fry a cutlet without breakage, all these should happen often. We are actually to prepare the cutlets, refrigerate them for few hours before frying. These days my routine is to serve the family a lunch with stuffs I cook on a Saturday and cook something fresh for our dinner. Because I mostly serve vegetarian food for dinner, I have to be a bit extra cautious about what to cook. The men cannot have an all vegetarian rice meal. There has to be a meat, fish or egg curry along side. There obviously had a non vegetarian curry besides this RADHUNI PHORON TOMATO DIYE MUSHURIR DAL O LAU ER CHOKLA BOTI. It is a vegetarian combination; a lentil curry with red lentil & tomato and a vegetable dish with bottle gourd peels & sliced onion. Our families do not use onion in the dish but I do. I have seen use of onion enhances the taste of the dish. Moreover, the amount also increases using onion which however results into this little after cooking.

It is again a very cloudy morning and I think I should finish off my outdoor workout before a late lunch. Again, I have just asked Cristine to take out banana, yeast etc. from the refrigerator; have some plans. Night time too I have to cook. I have to manage 11/2 hours for the outdoor activity. I think I am planning for years now to start with few rounds of "Surya Namaskar" every morning; that is also not happening. What a lazy brat I am my readers have no idea. Yoga definitely have long term benefits and it is the best form of exercise; I just do not enjoy it. I was a teen when the first yoga teacher was deployed for me. My parents were too worried about my lazy, obese self but they failed to be strict with my diet. Weight loss is 70% of proper diet and 30% of exercise, I believe in it. Those who strive for a slimmer self do not eat RADHUNI PHORON TOMATO DIYE MUSHURIR DAL O LAU ER CHOKLA BOTI with a plateful of rice but I am helpless. Okay, I eat it with millet these days but our son so wastes even the little amount of rice served in his main meals that I have to eat his leftovers unable to let it waste. If someone have piled up biscuit and snacks in the room, if someone orders fries & fritters at 6:30pm in the evening, how can the one have proper meals? Yes, I am indulgent and stuff his room with food; may because the thought that tomorrow he will venture out and fetch for himself worries me. BTW, he and his father do eat these two Bengali dishes. The bottle gourd peel is cooked in many Bengali homes but I am not really sure if the wild celery tempered dal is the mother's invention or where she got the idea from.

INGREDIENTS FOR THE VEGETARIAN DISH WITH BOTTLE GOURD PEEL :

LAU ER KHOSHA / BOTTLE GOURD PEEL : OF ONE STANDARD SIZED BOTTLE GOURD
ONION : 1 STANDARD SIZED
DRY RED CHILLI : 1 HALVED
GREEN CHILLI : 2 SLITTED
NIGELLA SEED / KALOJEEREY : 1/4 TSP
BAY LEAF : 1
TURMERIC POWDER : 1/4 TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 3 TBSP

INGREDIENTS FOR THE RED LENTIL CURRY WITH TOMATO :

RED LENTIL : A SMALL TEA CUP
TOMATO : 2 MEDIUM SIZED
WILD CELERY SEED / RADHUNI : 1/4 TSP
BAYLEAF : 1
DRY RED CHILLI : 2 HALVED
GREEN CHILLI : 2 SLITTED
SALT : AS REQUIRED
TURMERIC POWDER : 1/4 TSP

PROCEDURE :

We will cut the bottle gourd peel in fine strips; Cristine does her best with a knife. It is not possible for her or me to cut as finer as our mothers do with a "bothi".

We will wash it. We will discard the two ends and peel the onion. We will wash it and slice it thin.

What I do is I take together both the washed & cut bottle gourd peels & onions in a bowl and marinate with salt & turmeric, keep it aside for about 10-12 minutes. Our homes boil the cut peels in water before cooking it. I did not feel the need to do it, may be the island's bottle gourds' peels are softer?

We have heated the oil in a pan or wok and tempered it with a bay leaf, halved dry red chillies and nigella seeds / kalojeerey / kalonji.

We will give a stir and add the bottle gourd & onion pieces. We will give a stir and cover cook at minimal heat now.

We will uncover every 3-4 minutes; sprinkle some water and stir. It may take some 15-16 minutes or more to be done.

We have to be very careful to save the dish from burning. The reason why I add more oil than required. It helps avoid burning. Once done I take them out carefully leaving the excess oil. Okay, I admit one cannot be totally successful doing so!

For the dal; we will wash and soak the red lentil for an hour. If you boil it in pressure cooker, you do not need to soak it. I prefer to boil red lentil in a normal vessel.

So, we will take the soaked dal in a vessel, add two big cups of water, a little of turmeric & salt. We will boil it on stove top at minimal to low heat until done.

Meanwhile, we have washed the tomatoes and chopped them, washed & slitted the green chillies.

We will heat the oil in a wok, temper it with the wild celery seeds / radhuni, a bay leaf & halved dry red chillies.

We will add the tomatoes now and rest of the turmeric powder. We will stir for a minute and add the boiled red lentil.

We will add 2 coffee mugs of water and let the entire thing boil covered at low to medium heat for 8-10 minutes.

We will open the cover, adjust the salt and add the slitted green chillies. We will let it boil for a minute or two, we should be done.

At any point of cooking, if we find the dal to be too thick, we can add some more water.

We usually have it with steamed rice, I believe both will go well with chapati!

"Should not I concentrate on sharing easy, rustic, simpler recipes suitable for singles; students, working who live away from home; want to cook simple food back from college or office?" I ask to myself often these days. I have an intuition the weirdest member at this home makes secret visits to my blog. This is a day dreamer who sits and thinks sometime next year onwards may be there will be visits to my blog from new quarters, who will cook "curry-turry" from it. Coming back to the reality, I sit to think; how is it possible? My Blog has not travelled with time, who of this generation would at all take interest in "begun-aloo diye maacher jhol ba shojne datar chocchori?" People want quick recipes. I do not understand what is there to blog about cutting a packet of pasta, boiling it, straining and then cooking it in a sauce last week I had got from the super mart. If you are preparing a pasta from scratch following an Italian grandmother, preparing the sauce from fresh ingredients; the experience should be satisfying. I do not think I can ever make it, I am going more towards simpler cooking in my kitchen whose essence would remain "deshi" always. I will not switch over to anything else; never can.

Egg plant is a favourite ingredient in my kitchen; it comes home every week. If I had a little bit of sunny, green patch; I would have grown few vegetables. I do not blame our mother; she has cross passed 70, she works more than what her body permits; then she is too unwilling to take up any new interest after the father's death. I so wished if the brother had grown some interest in planting some fruits & vegetables in their property. I am thankful enough that he knows how easy their life is just because our mother works all day. If he is a good son, his mother too is an extremely hardworking woman. None in that home until now has to spend any amount of energy for our mother. Even when she fractured her wrist to palm; no one had to do anything for her; she managed herself alone; okay with a cook for few months. I sincerely hope our mother leave this earth without giving any trouble to anyone or any chance to anyone to say "ami to eei sheba korechi. Aaj obdi karor gaye khete kichu kortey hoyni, shey akai shamley nei. Dosh thaktei parey kintu korey jai chupchap, kaukey byatibyasto korena; boshey sheba neoar kopal korey to asheni." Coming to egg plant, I do not know about it's health advantages, what I know is we just love it. The senior cannot have it fried; I have noticed he has a mental block at the sight of it's seeds actually. Never mind; I will make it edible for everyone in the family. I keep roasting eggplants / begun / brinjal and then combine it with different ingredients; give it a pate like look so that the man does not understand what it is. One such dish is this vegetarian paste / pate TIL NARKOL BEGUN BATA. It is done roasting the egg plant; then blending it with coconut, roasted sesame, onion, green chilli. Finishing it off adding salt and mustard oil makes it a superbly tasty vegetarian side to go with steamed rice and different variety of breads. If you wish to spread it on toasted bread, use olive oil instead of mustard oil.

I am waiting for my breakfast to arrive. No, a 12 hours of intermittent fasting does not help. Then a 14hrs span is so impossible for me. I mostly do my cooking experiments after 7pm. Yesterday, cooked a "mangshor ghoogni", shall blog about it later. I have many a recipes to be shared; just too hesitant to share something people may find trouble to get. Okay, I am having me made soda bread & tea stall peanut cookie with fine Darjeeling tea now.

What I do is I buy these biscuits loose, not in packets these days. Like I did not buy peanut butter this week; it has sugar man. I am scared having it regular, I will prepare it at home without sugar. I have to find out a good, easy recipe for peanut butter. That can happen later. At this time our most important job seems to be facing an uncertainty. I can be at peace only after I settle the most important aspect of our life as of now. Many around can completely understand my agony. The only relief is when I am in the kitchen playing with ingredients. This easy vegetarian pate with eggplant TIL NARKOL BEGUN BATA is one such food venture that you would love doing and having with steamed rice, a variety of breads. Since childhood, I have been eating "bata, pora, sheddo makha" with different variety of vegetables. I need to ask the mother why she made them mostly in the night time. May be I know it now; for dinner I enjoy "etar bata, otar bharta" more than non-vegetarian food; I am totally in the family shoes. Will my baby come back to the roots? Anyway, I made it on a Saturday afternoon; so the plating was done with store bought parathas. Make your own, nothing better than it.

INGREDIENTS :

EGGPLANT : 1 BIG [ I DID NOT HAVE THE GIANT PURPLE ONES, SO USED TWO MEDIUM]
WHITE SESAME SEED : 1 TBSP
SHREDDED COCONUT : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
ONION : 1 MEDIUM SIZED
GREEN CHILLI : 2
GARLIC CLOVE : 1 BIG SIZED OR 2-3 SMALL INDIAN VARIETY
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 1-2 TBSP TO GARNISH, I USED MUSTARD OIL, YOU CAN USE OLIVE OIL

PROCEDURE :

Wash the eggplants and wipe dry. Rub it's body with few drops of oil.

Take it on a manual roaster and roast at minimal heat on stove top.

Take it down on a plate and let cool.

Meanwhile; discard the two ends, peel and wash the onion, roughly chop. Wash the green chillies. Peel off the garlic clove and wash.

Take off the skin of the roasted egg plants.

Take all the ingredients except the oil in a blender and blend at medium pace for 3-4 minutes with a pause in between.

Reserve it in a bowl and garnish it with your choice of oil. I added mustard oil and mixed it all to be able to have it with piping hot steamed rice one day and roti-paratha on the other.

It is always recommended not to store anything made with coconut for long. It spoils even if you are refrigerating it.

I am dilly-dallying since morning when to sit with my blog. I do not put myself into a fixed routine anymore, not possible if you are living with two weird stuffs at home. I do not remain what I was pre-marriage; neither our mother could remain that much of a disciplinarian. To be so, the rest of the people around have to be co-operative. It is not so in either of the cases. So, most of the days; I go out for a walk at 2 pm; come back and have a late lunch around 4 pm. All these I can do only because I have a full time help. Else, I would have got stuck at home. Had I been in Kolkata; I would not have been able to exercise this amount of freedom. Going out anytime is out of question there; I was not this free when I had a full time chauffeur too; okay our baby was tiny then. Now too if I go back; my life would again undergo a sea change.

Leave that; listen to this story of the two frozen minced mutton packets that were lying in the freezer; each weighing 400 gm. Having them, I continued buying fresh mutton; portions from the front leg of the sheep meat does taste good. Last week I felt I must use up the frozen stuffs first. So, I prepared this MUTTON KEEMA DIYE SHOBUJ MOTOR ER GHUGNI with dried green peas and half of one packet of the minced mutton. The rest of the one and half packet was used to make SHAMI KEBAB. I have updated the blog post with new pictures. I had served them with cheese, tomato & cucumber sandwiches to the men & Cristine. All of a sudden, I wanted to have rice and had really with kebabs, kancha lanka and the scrambled eggs I made from the leftover beaten eggs used to make the kebabs.

The man as usual left one sandwich & one kebab on his plate post dinner. Actually, when I decided to have rice, I added one more sandwich to their plates. I had that Cristine made sandwich and me made oats cake this morning with tea.

The kebab the man has to eat for lunch. I think we will have "magur maach er jhol, mochar ghonto, tok dal" for lunch and "ruti o fulkopi, gajor, motorshutir torkari" for dinner. I work extra time on a Saturday just for this; a relaxed week. Our mother could not learn this from me. "Mani no one cares, no one will value what you do in today's world; our skills are worthless; you are doing a thankless job! You must be in motion; I will hate to see you sitting idle all day; but execute it like a normal human." Yesterday night only I gave a vocal tonic for 11/2 hours. She wants to do irrelevant talks with me but does not use the WhatsApp call facility. I do not know why I gifted her a smart phone. "Mani, tomai amai dekhley keu bolbey na amra lekhapora shikhechilam konodin; tumi phone chalatey janona, ami computer." Yes, I curse her, I curse myself for not been able to be at par with the rest; not having a voice. "jar golar jor joto, prithibi tar haath er muthoi tototai; eei shar kathata ami onekdin agei bujhechi."

Anyway, dried green peas or yellow peas curry had been very regular in my parental home; perhaps the grandmother too used to do it. Our mother either did a vegetarian version or with minced chicken or with minced mutton like this MUTTON KEEMA DIYE SHOBUJ MOTOR ER GHUGNI. She never did let us eat ghugni from the vendors visiting our neighbourhood or from the stalls in a fair. I could have them when I was there in the maternal grandparents' home during vacations. I have so many memories associated with that place. Just early morning, the place visited my dreams; me and T caught a rickshaw from the station and on the way saw our friends Saubhik & Mousumi; they had also come there with their theatre group to perform. I insisted them to visit the grandparent's home as used to happen 30-40 years back during the grandmother's era; even our daddy's friends used to visit that home. My weird dream ends watching dadu having his evening tea in their dilapidated "baithak khana ghar" alone; Tommy, the Alsheshan sitting near his feet. We were too young when Tommy died; I still remember how he was loved; how ferocious he was for the strangers, how indulgent our rules & ritual bound grandmother was when it came to Tommy who ate vegetable & mutton rice stew for his meals.

Gradually things changed, it is really hard to be together as a big family under one roof. Today, I will also not be able to welcome a guest visiting without a notice; both the maternal grandmother; the paternal grandparents handled guests with a smile every day. Things will change; what I expect from my own is harmony; live your life but harmonise your own. I have my own reasons not visiting a place that I considered my prime once; so much so that our father had to slap me when I was in class 7. I got out of control hating Kolkata life; I wished to go back to Mary Immaculate School even if Sister Marylyn died, watch Soumitra Chottopadhyay's "abritti" in an open ground, visit to Ghurni. After that "Thappad", I gradually grew up; understood people there have their own life now; grandparents were aging and I am a guest there, not a part of that family; my home is my parents and brother; in Kolkata! I cannot discriminate, determine who of my maternal uncles or aunts are nearer to me; they all contributed to who I am today. Particularly; I am absolutely not in the habit of gathering news on what is going on in other homes. It is their turn now to visit us here; we will do our utmost to make their visit memorable. I owe them; when our mother was busy with her college; they cleaned up my waste; yes true.

BTW, the Filipino Cristine does not know that the eggplant that is to be eaten with bread need not be coated with rice flour before frying. The fries look horrible, I wanted them in the picture however, I missed instructing her the right thing to do.

INGREDIENTS :

MINCED MUTTON : 250-300GM
DRIED GREEN PEA : 100-150GM
SLICED ONION : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
SLITTED GREEN CHILLI : 3-4
GARLIC PASTE : 1TBSP
GINGER PASTE : 1TBSP
TURMERIC POWDER : 1TSP
CINNAMON POWDER : 1/4TSP
GREEN CARDAMOM POWDER : 1/4TSP
CUMIN SEED : 1/4TSP + 1TSP
CORIANDER SEED : 1TSP
DRY RED CHILLI : 2
CINNAMON STICK : 2-3 TWO INCH STICK
GREEN CARDAMOM : 2-3
CLOVE : 3-4
BAYLEAF : 1
TAMARIND JUICE : 1/2 SMALL TEA CUP
LEMON JUICE : 4-5TBSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 4TBSP
CHOPPED ONION & GREEN CHILLI TO GARNISH!

PROCEDURE :

I had washed the green dried peas, soaked them in water for 6-8 hours. I had then drained the water and taken them in a heavy bottomed vessel, filled it with 5-6 coffee mugs of water, added little salt and turmeric and put it for boil.

We will boil covering about 80% of it, else the water overflows. Pressure cooking does not give me the right consistency of the matar. The boiling part may take 45-50 minutes.

You can see, I have marinated the minced mutton with the lemon juice, salt and turmeric at least 2 hours before starting to cook it.

When the dried green peas get boiled, they look like this.

We will dry roast 1tsp of cumin & coriander seeds, 2 dry red chillies in a pan and blend them to a dry, coarse powder.

In the same pan, we will heat the oil; temper it with 1/4tsp of the cumin seeds + cinnamon sticks + green cardamoms + cloves + a bay leaf.

Then, it is time to add the washed & sliced onion, use two medium sized onions.

Once the onions get brown, we will add the ginger + garlic pastes + the remaining turmeric powder.

We will stir fry it for 2 minutes and add the minced mutton keema. We will fold in well.

We will cover cook it at low heat for 20-25 minutes. We will check in between so that it does not dry & burn. Usually it releases water, if not keep sprinkling water every 5 minutes.

After 20-25 minutes; add half of the ground spices to the wok and fold in well. Stir for 3-4 minutes.

We will add the boiled dried green peas now and along with it 2 coffee mugs of water. Give a stir and cover cook for 12-15 minutes.

We will open the cover and add the washed and slitted green chillies. We will cover cook again for 5-6 minutes.

We will open the cover and add the cinnamon & cardamom powders. We will fold in well and cook uncovered for about 3-4 minutes.

We will now add the tamarind juice, give a stir and switch off the gas. For the juice; we will soak 2tsp of tamarind pulp in a medium tea cup of water, squeeze it and strain.

We will transfer the content to a serving bowl. We will garnish it with the remaining coarsely ground spice powder, chopped onion & green chillies.

We can have it with luchi, porota, pao; feels heavenly!

What a whirlwind morning it had been; at this time I am one angry bird; totally! I am angry since last night. Post dinner, he sat with his beer instead of having this dessert I made. Okay fine, it was not ready to eat as I wished to serve it chilled. This morning I felt I must pack it in his bag carefully; what if today night too he starts drinking beer? Else, I do not like packing any liquid stuffs. Those mini rasgullas / roshogollas / cottage cheese balls are dunked in a sugar and coconut milk syrup; anything with coconut milk spoils very fast. His snacks box has a piece of cake our neighbour had sent yesterday and this dessert which I wanted him to sit and eat in the comfort of his home. Now what to go in his lunch box? Last night, I informed Cristine that we would cook millet khichuri and pack sir's lunch box along with an omelette. For the past many months, he was leaving for office around 8:30-8:40am. We had no fault starting off late with the lunch making process. Without notifying us anything last night, we saw him running to the toilet around 7:15 am today. Cristine was still saying that he went to release and would come back and lie down again. No, he was in a hurry to leave without informing us anything last night. I have told him several time, I can get everything ready at any time, please inform me. I am not in the habit of cooking anything in high heat, in a cooker too I slow cook at minimal heat and it does not require many whistles. Following our mother & grandmother, I absolutely dislike burning food; I consider it a bad omen. I could pack his lunch box; but had to cook it in high heat. You can see little burns on the side of the cooker, the khichdi will dry too when he eats. I had a fight, he got on my nerves. He is not the kind who will say a sorry, "I can have bread omelette every day.""But I cannot serve you that; our mother did not teach me so. You know what bossy? You should appreciate my effort a bit. I see women who does less for the family are more at win." He goes off with his torn, leather stroller bag which needs an immediate change; I sit to write panting, stressed out.

I have to whatsapp continuously today about the Bengali Fusion Dessert; "COCONUT MILK E POWDER DUDH ER MINI ROSHOGOLLA er mishti ta kheye niyo bikeler modhya, noshto hoye jabey."

He loves desserts but in his own time & mood. Our boy eats everything I serve, I try not to serve something they totally would dislike. Our father was absolutely like this; in fact something of a much higher degree. All of a sudden around 8:15 am in the morning, he would tell our mother that he would go out at 9am on some work for the entire day. He was not the kind to eat outside. I have seen it how our mother kept her cool; cooked at least a "shaak bhaja o maacher jhol" / a fried greens & fish curry for him to eat and roti / paratha and a shobzi to pack his lunch box within 45 minutes. He absolutely did not mind if the curry was made just with turmeric, salt and slitted green chillies or the potatoes in the sabzi remained a little undercooked; but he would not buy his food a single day. He was an Uncle Podger, he forgot where he kept what most of the time and got on our mother's nerves; our mother kept her cool and found it; a file or cash whatever. I inherited his habit of a forgetful mind; T is really cool in these matters. A mother who contributed so much in the family does not have her name in the family relation section of our father's Fb Profile; so strange! Our mother does not have a fb profile; then our son also did not have. All of us got a place in his relationship section, only his wife did not. In the first place, he did not require to have a social media profile; I am pretty sure he did not sign up for his own account and not for a single day he signed in. I have sent whatsapp message to my brother to delete his account or request fb to do so. Our mother has given a lot to the family what her successors cannot think of. She had / has "baaper bari mania" but not at the cost of her husband, kids. She always took good care of us.

Both my parents loved / love roshogolla, it was the most coveted sweet in the family when I craved for the other varieties of fried sweets. Bhai too eats I guess, if not often. Our mother still loves her roshogolla with "ruti or muri" / chapati or puffed rice. The father too had more with "dudh-muri" in the evenings. I have started loving it now. In the in-law's side too they love and they had made our son taste roshogolla when he was just six months old. The son still loves it. In his childhood; he had to have roshogolla everyday. Nowadays, I do not like getting them from the sweet shops here; never get the tinned ones. I do them at home but not so often. I must do it once a week, given the son's stay at home might get extended. When I do, I get experimental with roshogolla a bit. Like in this one, I used powdered milk to prepare the Indian cottage cheese required and dunked the prepared sweet in coconut milk instead of cow milk. Here is a lighter version of a roshomalai / rasmalai COCONUT MILK E POWDER DUDH ER MINI ROSHOGOLLA. Okay, my breakfast has arrived, I am loving it.

The recipe idea for the powdered milk roshogolla are sourced from few you tube videos! I will specially mention Reshma of RB KITCHEN & the wonder boy of COOKING SHOOKING. They are very famous for their work. However, I personally believe in supporting more the lesser knowns like myself, the problem is we are so less seen around.

INGREDIENTS :

POWDERED MILK : 5TBSP
WATER : AS REQUIRED
LEMON JUICE : 5-6 TBSP
SUGAR : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
DRIED COCONUT POWDER : 1TBSP
CORN FLOUR : 1/2TSP
COCONUT MILK : 200 ML
GREEN CARDAMOM : 3-4
KEWRA WATER : 2-3 DROP
A CLEAN PIECE OF CLOTH
A STRAINER

PROCEDURE :

Take the required amount of powdered milk in a deep bottomed vessel and add 2 coffee mugs of water. Stir to mix.

Put it for boil.

When it is cooking at minimal heat, add 4-5 tbsp of water to 5-6 tbsp lemon juice and mix.

Once the milk comes to boil, add a total of 5-6 tbsp of the lemon water; 1tbsp at a time and keep stirring the milk.

Once the milk gets curdled, immediately pass it through a clean piece of cloth placed on a strainer.

Wash the curdled milk / made at home cottage cheese with regular water. Tie the cloth on the kitchen tap and leave for an hour. Squeeze the excess water.

I powdered some dried coconut flakes.

When the paneer got ready to be kneaded, I took the powdered coconut, cornflour and paneer on a plate.

I kneaded the mixture for 10-12 minutes and it was ready.

I had put for boil 1 small cup of sugar and 3 coffee mugs of water. The syrup for rasgullas should always be light. Later you can use more warm water, not too much.

The credit for shaping the perfect paneer balls goes to Cristine, she shapes way better than me.

When the syrup starts boiling hard, tear the green cardamoms a bit and add to the syrup and the chanar balls too.

Cover immediately with a lid.

I boiled them at medium heat, full covered for 20 minutes. After switching off the gas, they looked as below.

Once cool a bit, I had poured the syrup, about a coffee mug to a bowl and added 200ml of coconut milk to it. I had beaten it well.

I wished to boil and reduce the mixture to half but it did not happen, the oil content in the coconut milk did not let it happen.

Once cool, I added the kewra water to the mixture, stirred and pour it over the mini roshogollas.

We will refrigerate them after cooling completely and serve it chilled as a dessert.

This was our last night's dinner; the Oriental inspired rice with few vegetables, minced mutton shami kebabs done in grill mode without the egg coat, sunny side ups. You bet, it was a good way to feed the men some vegetables without overcooking. Had I served them a salad bowl of shredded cabbage, cherry tomatoes, spring onions tossed in different sauces; they would not have eaten. If they assured me with the comforting words; "give us meat and we will eat salads"; I would have happily complied, cooked meat everyday for them. I also do not like salads; I force myself to else my system won't work. There is no word like force in their dictionary.

There were two bowls of left over rice from Wednesday night. This will keep happening if the senior's office is open. He goes for sudden official lunches; brings back his lunch box intact. He comes as late as 11pm without a single message that he will be late. Wednesday night, I was so hungry yet I waited. I served the son dinner around 10pm, asked Cristine to eat; they retired to their rooms and I was still waiting. My calls were not answered. In this situation, I do not feel like eating; a fear grips in and I expect a call from the police or hospital, even from an unknown woman. I show temper once he is back, more when he says he does not want to eat dinner. Then, I never skip my meal out of anger or whatever. Why would I? Can I live without it for ever? Instead, I make him eat the same food with a little makeover. He cannot waste food. Yesterday night, I prepared this vegetarian, Oriental style SESAME OIL & SOY SAUCE RICE adding vegetables like shredded cabbage, cherry tomatoes, spring onion.

Our father and the man's mother had this habit; throwing away the food in anger is the last thing I will do. I am never in the habit of creating trouble for others. The mother-in-law tried a lot of these tactics to keep me under control, I never gave in; I have a life and I have to get out of this situation is what I knew. Our father was definitely a good human but did he ever think the trauma our mother had to go through each time he created such ruckus? She had to lose so much of her self respect wanting him get back in track. People who entered our family way later need not be judgemental about who is good and who is bad. I would ask them to do 1/20th of what our mother has done for the family and then give judgements. Because our father was not in the habit of supporting our mother in every matter; so he was so popular with some. Had the things be opposite; let me see what people had to say. Whoever gives you absolute freedom is always good.

The above is what I never allowed my mother-in-law to exercise on me. On days she had shown attitude, which was regular when we stayed together; I would knock her door few times; no answer fine; I ate my food. Her loving big sissy and brothers' wives came; fell on her feet and made her eat. People who gather news about me from here & there should know all these. Our mother works all day, cooks, serves and eats her food. She is unhappy now that she has lost the liberty to go out often due to Covid19. If people find our mother troublesome, they had to live with my mother-in-law. What is my brother's complain against his mother? "See didibhai, it's raining so hard and mani is in the terrace cleaning the fallen leaves. If she catches fever, the neighbours will complain and she will be taken to the quarantine centre, I cannot do anything!" It is a different thing man! However, I never say our mother is flawless, neither the rest are!

When people stay in honeymoon mood for years after marriage; I was going through all these with the husband sailing for months away from the home. Visiting my parents six days in a week was beyond my dream. Happiness, freedom did I taste in April, 2001 when we bought a 550 sq.ft.flat in Ashokgarh, Dunlop More! Oh! my God! Only in the recent years I came to know that my long time friend from college Nishi Pulugurtha lived just in the opposite house. For six years, I did not know my friends' family stays there. I have always liked her being one of the few students serious about academics in an institution where everyone were relaxed except the economics, physics & chemistry departments, may be mathematics too. The Botany department faired well but was not really serious, I fell for a boy there, never felt the urge to talk; now cannot find him in FB. Anyway, for the same reason as Nishi, I liked the sweet, thin framed boy coming from Ishapore; who knew he will become such a rebel; anti establishment? Jaydip Sengupta's wife is one author Amrita Mukherjee; a journalist turned author! The journalist couple were in Dubai, now settled in Kolkata with a young boy; Nishi will know better as they were from the same department, did university too together.

You can understand how engrossed I was bringing up our son in those years. In our six years of stay there; I have talked to my neighbours regularly, even to Nishi's landlords' family standing in my balcony; they all knew I stayed with a tiny being alone. I knew there were two tenants downstairs; I even talked to the one Punjabi family, never met Nishi. I asked "Shoroshoti" about the residents living in the other side, she only could say "chout indian boudi ora." Many would know the entire Dunlop area has good number of Punjabis and I got my salwar suits sewed by the bhabis. I never wished to leave that area; never wished to admit our son to that new age school. I wanted to put him either in St. James or DBPC but the husband wished to shift to the new sensation Rajarhaat / New Town area and put him in a new age school I did not want to. You see, none of these franchises would ever be like their main in RKPuram or even like the one in Vasant Kunj.

At that time, I was crazy about putting our son in one of the best schools of Kolkata. Till date I believe, if I had studied in Auxilium Convent or Loreto Sealdah, not even the one at Middleton Row, I would have done something in life. Please ask our Sourav Ganguly da why he shifted his daughter from the Heritage school to the Loreto, Middleton Row. Listen, we have heard Sourav never allowed his wife Dona to wear anything except saree, salwar suits. Does it mean he did not respect her wishes? Did not he defy this business tycoon family to marry Dona when he was not even a star cricketer? Coming to schooling; the good will always win in life, for us mediocre the school really matters. Till date my school does excellent result but students do not learn life skills there, they only study and score. The basic problem is with the teaching fraternity and the school management; they only take into consideration the first 7 to a maximum of 10 students in the class; the rest are like "porey paoa choddo ana." A teacher who discriminates violates the prime rule of being a good teacher. Oh Mani! how she sweated alone to put us in Auxilium Convent, Loreto Sealdah, St.James, Calcutta Boys; ran from pillars to post. We should have made her happy with academics; so I want the son to take himself up there; money comes second to me. Bhai did not fulfil my wish, the son has to. Come, let us share a family friendly recipe, an Oriental style vegetarian SESAME OIL & SOY SAUCE RICE.

The father & brother are not fond of Oriental food. The father is no more, anyway I only serve chocolates to his photo on a regular basis, back home they serve everything he loved from fruits to fish; the brother will be happy to see the mutton shami kebab on the plate. I am waiting to see his favourite political party invading his kitchen one day and asking him to switch to vegetarian food; it will be a fun to see his broken self then. He will understand that the fascist, right wings never can get any good to the society, neither can a mad woman's poor, faulty administration & vote oriented politics; then who?

INGREDIENTS :

COOKED RICE : 2-3 COFFEE MUG
SHREDDED CABBAGE : 2 COFFEE MUG
CHERRY TOMATO : 6-7
CHOPPED SPRING ONION : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP
CHOPPED GREEN CHILLI : 1TBSP
MINCED GARLIC : 2TSP
MINCED GINGER : 1TSP
LIGHT SOY SAUCE : 3-4TBSP
CRUSHED BLACK PEPPER : 11/2TSP
SESAME OIL : 4TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Heat the oil in a wok.

We had some cooked rice from the last night. You can cook it fresh.

We have peeled, washed and minced some ginger, garlic; washed and chopped the green chillies. They are ready on the kitchen counter; also the salt, light soy sauce and black pepper pot.

We have added the minced garlic & ginger to the oil and stirred at medium heat for a minute or until brown. We have added the chopped green chillies now and given a stir.

Then, we have added the shredded, washed cabbage and stirred at high heat for 3-4 minutes.

Next, we added the salt as required, the light soy sauce and crushed black pepper. We stir cooked at high heat for another minute and added the halved cherry tomatoes.

We gave it half a minute of stir and added the cooked rice. We folded in well and stirred in high heat for 2-3 minutes. We may not require to add salt at this stage; if required, add little. I forgot to click this stage.

We enjoyed the Oriental styled rice with oven cooked shami kebab & sunny side ups.

You know a kind of nostalgia caught hold of me while I was watching the associated videos related to preparing this tehari style mutton biryani made popular as they claim in an Old Dhaka Market Place eatery "Hajir Biryani." Why? I was born in India but! Roots has a major role to play in our lives I guess. The natives call the original outlet "Nazira Bazaar er Hazir Biryani." I see it is an old establishment of above eighty years. I went through few videos to get the feel of the place which resembled Kolkata's Boro Bazaar or Bagri Market or Sealdah Baithak Khana Bazaar area; if you are not regular to such places, you just get lost. I follow a page in FaceBook, "Dine Out With Adnan" just to stay put with the kind of a place & food my forefathers were associated to. I have found similarity in mentions done by this gentleman to what our father and maternal grandfather used to say. I did not meet my paternal grandparents often; else would have heard their version too.

Though a resident of Comilla, our father was regular to Dhaka; in fact when he visited Bangladesh in 2000; he mostly stayed in Dhaka more than in Comilla. Can you imagine our father left Bangladesh after his 12th boards, thereafter he visited in 2000 and lived there in his friends' home; both muslim & hindu. The muslim homes were so careful about cooking his food in utensils not used for beef. For my men or the brother, it is not a problem. The father fulfilled all his wishes before leaving this earth. How communicative he was that his childhood buddies there kept him in their homes? Though the father is there in Kolkata since the start of his college, he remained that "raw, warm" like his original place, in fact all in his family. Because the maternal grandfather was in India on job, our mother was born here and dadu got transferred to different places in Eastern India; she or her siblings do not have any such interest in Bangladesh or may be they did not inherit their mother's warmth & hospitality? Our grandmother was one of the kind when it came to gifting, feeding people. My mother did but as a duty, not from the heart.

Only two years back, when mashimoni & meshomoni visited Bangladesh and met all the relatives; I heard the mother expressing her wish to go. Mashimoni & Meshomoni are not my father that they would stay put with Muslim families; for that you need a bigger space within which our father had. Only that he did not know the way to his wife's heart; the wife too tended to compare him to the men around and her father who did gardening, sweep the main gate every morning at 5am, took shower and picked up flowers for the grandmother to use during the morning prayer. Anyway, she admits that our father was a very good human any woman can trust. If our father had been alive, I definitely would have asked if he had eaten "Nazira Bazaar er Hazir Biryani"; that his daughter has attempted to replicate it in her kitchen as CHINIGURA CHAL O MUTTON ER ONE POT MEAL. He was not really fond of Biryani; just ate if served the way he ate pizza too; his heart was set in "maach er jhol bhaat, muri-chirey-aam-kola-dudh-kathal-lichu, pithe, payesh, naru, moya."

I think the Bangladeshi chain that sells a similar biryani with the small grain Chinigura or Kalijeera variety of rice in this island bears a similar look and taste. Because their mutton smells, I have stopped getting it for long now. Both the youtube videos I followed heavily for the recipe admits that they recreated the dish depending on their experience and taste bud; the owner or the successors of any famous dish would never give every details of the recipe to the mass. There will always be some secret ingredients they use which is handed over to the cooks alone. The two videos I followed doing this Rice & Mutton dish are "COOKING STUDIO BY UMME" and "RECIPES BY SHEZA'S MOM." They have lots of cooking videos in youtube and I think I will watch more of those.

Doing this plate of rice & mutton CHINIGURA CHAL O MUTTON ER ONE POT MEAL following the owners of the above mentioned video channels; I subtracted few of their ingredients, provided my inputs. Like Sheza's mom prescribed using MSG as a finishing touch, ever since India called it unsafe when we were young, I stopped having it. Our mother continued to use a little bit in noodles, I made her stop I guess. I do not know if the island's eateries use it, I do not. The speciality of "Puran Dhakar Nazira Bazaar er Hajir Biryani" is the use of mustard oil alone and a short grained fragrant local variety of rice. I have used a bit of ghee towards the end. They have directly added the meat to the wok which I never can, I marinated it overnight; moreover I used sheep meat. One used red chilli powder, I did not.

The video channels I consulted for the recipe and to have a look of the original eatery, how it packs the Biryani in dried jackfruit leaves are :

RECIPES BY SHEZA'S MOM
COOKING STUDIO BY UMME
ADNAN FARUQUE

I am pretty sure the Bengalis in the island will find this recipe worthy rather than queueing up for that "rice with smelly mutton."

INGREDIENTS :

SHORTGRAINED FRAGARANT RICE / CHINIGURA CHAL / KALIJEERA CHAL / GOBINDOBHOG CHAL : 1 COFFEE MUG
MUTTON : 500 GM [SMALL CUT, BONE ON]
SLICED ONION : 2 SMALL TEA CUP
SLITTED GREEN CHILLI : 6-7
WHOLE GREEN CHILLI : 4-5
GINGER PASTE : 2TSP
GARLIC PASTE : 2TSP
WHITE PEPPER : 15-16
CINNAMON STICK : 2-3 ONE TO 2INCH
NUTMEG : 1/2 OF A SMALLER SIZED
GREEN CARDAMOM : 4-5
BLACK CARDAMOM : 1
MACE : 1
CLOVE : 6-7
STAR ANISE : 1
BAY LEAF : 2-3
TURMERIC POWDER : 1/2TSP
LEMON JUICE : 5-6TBSP
WATER : 3 COFFEE MUG
MILK : 1COFFEE MUG
SALT : AS REQUIRED
SUGAR : 2TSP
GHEE : 2TBSP
MUSTARD OIL : 1 SMALL TEA CUP [ YOU CAN USE ANY]

PROCEDURE :

I washed the mutton well and marinated it well with some salt, the lemon juice & turmeric powder. I refrigerated it overnight, say for 12-13 hours and took it out 1hour before cooking. 5-6 hours of marination should be fine.

We have the sliced onion & slitted green chillies ready, washed.

We have ground the spices too as fine as possible.

The rice has to be washed and soaked for 1/2 and hour and then strained and kept for another 45 minutes.

Heat the mustard oil in a heavy bottomed vessel and temper with the bay leaves.

Then add the sliced onion and fry until golden brown.

Add the ginger+garlic pastes and some salt. Stir fry at low heat for 2 minutes.

Add the meat with the marination, the slitted green chillies and half of the freshly ground spices.

Fold in well, stir at medium heat for 3-4 minutes and reduce heat to the minimal. We will now cover it with a lid with no hole. I closed it with a clove as learnt.

The meat will release water. Refuting the instructions, I did open the lid and gave a stir every five minutes. I fear burns.

The released water will dry after 30-35 minutes. We will then open the lid and add 2 coffee mugs of water.

We will cover cook again at minimal heat until the water dries up again, so 40-45 minutes it may take.

Once done, we will take off the meat pieces leaving the remaining oil and spices in the vessel.

We will add the rice now and mix well. I was not so particular about frying the rice grains till they sounded or adding it totally dried. I am never too particular in my kitchen. I can never take cooking classes, I do not understand ounces, lbs.

I just mixed and stirred the rice & meat for 3-4 minutes adding a few whole, green chillies to it.

I had prepared a mixture with 1 coffee mug of water + 1 coffee mug of milk. I added it to the vessel and gave a stir.

We will cook it uncovered at low heat. When the rice can be seen, add the rest of the spice mix, the cooked meat pieces and a little bit of salt. Gently mix and continue cooking uncovered.

Once the water dries 85%, add the ghee & sugar; gently fold in.

Now place a frying pan under the vessel and cover it with the lid. Reduce the heat to the minimal. Let it cook in "dum" for another 20 minutes. We are done. Keep standing for 7-8 minutes after switching off the gas oven. Thereafter serve it.

I served it with plain raita & "shosha-peyaz kuchi" / cucumber-onion salad!

I was scrolling through my phone memory yesterday and came across this fish curry / maach er jhol. I did the photo feature just a year back when my side of the family visited us. This is a curry with Bengal Carp we had been eating since childhood. Throughout the entire summer; a light fish curry with the summer vegetables, a lemon wedge, a green chilli was what I needed for my lunch and dinners. A meal without fish was beyond my imagination. I really feel very bad at times thinking of my behaviour on vegetarian Thursdays, on days when the mother took extra load of works like washing the bed sheets or the mosquito nets. On those days, she would get very tired in the afternoons. Back from the school, even whilst in college I would create a scene if she did not make me "ruti or porota" for a tiffin. How mercilessly I negated her request to have puffed rice or beaten rice or popped rice with milk & bananas. You see, now I love having them all including vegetables of my choice.

Today, I realise that at some point she had to say "no" for our own good. Had she been little stricter, we would have been independent. Because she pampered me / us to the core, I could not adjust to the environment in the in-law's place. It was a totally different environment. All of a sudden, I found myself in a very harsh atmosphere given the parents pampered me to the core. The brother sacrificed the best fish pieces for me, at times I did not allow him the chicken leg pieces either; he in fact hated food then. The father had never hit me after that class seven incident, I was gradually settling down with the Kolkata life; he took me to the Eden Gardens, later Salt Lake Stadium too, to movies and took subscriptions of a lot of book series and the monthly Desh, Anondomela, Shuktara kept coming. Dining out never happened; the mother had to cook, eat and pack tiffin boxes on days we went for shopping or to Victoria Memorial, Museum or anywhere for a day, on road we could have only sweets & ice creams. Later, both me and the brother tried to treat them often outside; the brother more. They ate but their heart was more into a humble, homely fish curry as this POTOL ALOO DIYE RUI KATLAR JHOL.

I treated the visiting family last year with other kinds too but not too much, the brother is not so open to a variety in food; he is quite rigid who did not want to taste Southern Indian style Biryani calling it spicy after tasting it only once in Kolkata. There is a greenery too beside the orange hues; I mean the Indian flag too has a place for the both. Coming to me, I have done a photo feature with a chicken curry cooked in microwave two times, then did not like the taste. I will cook the same in a vessel and the mother & brother would have the ultimate smile, "koshiye ranna korer alada shad bujhli?" I really wanted the brother to get out of that house a decade back and experience the real, tough life. Okay, I have no right either; did the man at this home ever let me experience hardship? The brother at least earns for the family; what do I do? Yes, it feels bad unable to be friends with his mother till date. I knew we will never gel, we belong to different worlds, we share no common interest or temperament. Then why did I step into their home? I should not have. Post marriage I discovered she does not at all respect boundaries and I am very particular about it. Okay, their family too used to do this maacher jhol / Bengali fish curry with pointed gourd, potato and Bengal Carp at times I guess. The man however is not so fond of vegetables in fish curry. These days I see he eats everything I serve unless it is too much against his tastebud. Yes, that includes "lutlutey beulir dal" too I so love. I told you I am not much into the "Bangal-adeshio" fight.

I know some mother-in-laws who do not mind cooking their daughter-in-laws' favourites till date. Just like me, they are not in the habit of discussing people or their daughter-in-laws. In any family, there cannot be everything rosy, their will be complaints from both sides but who I am talking about has the mind, decency of not complaining about anything to an outsider like me. Who does not enjoy the company of like minded people? I aspire to become one such mother-in-law who would have the guts to live alone if life requires me to, who will not claim mountains as the perks of a life time sacrifice done for the cubs, who does not stop living even if it is to live alone and keep complaining calling every other person. Had I been in Kolkata, I would have want to carry a bowlful of this Bengali fish curry POTOL ALOO DIYE RUI KATLAR JHOL for such a person. It is very unfortunate if people try to find out worms in such associations, keep suspecting if I intent to sour the relationship within the family. I have more to do in life, no time for nonsensical activities.Why did not I meet my friend Indranil's mother all these years and decided to days before she died? What is loyalty? It cannot be more important than being human, dutiful. I will regret all my life not meeting her, this guy too remained too secretive & unwilling to discuss his mother with us! The story of Indranil & Subho, the two brothers is one of a kind I do not have the liberty to talk about!

INGREDIENTS :

RUI / KATLA / BENGAL CARP : 7-8 PIECE
POTATO : 1BIG
POTOL / POINTED GOURD : 4-5
GINGER PASTE : 1TBSP
GREEN CHILLI PASTE : 2TSP
CUMIN POWDER : 1TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 1/2TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1TSP
TURMERIC POWDER : 1TSP
CUMIN SEED : 2PINCH
BAY LEAF : 1
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 4-5TBSP [WE USE MUSTARD OIL]

PROCEDURE :

Wash the fish steaks properly and drain the water completely. 500gms cut portion from larger carps of 5 to 10 kg sized gives you 8 standard pieces. Here, the bigger ones come as frozen. So, I buy a whole fish which is usually 2-3 kg of weight. I prefer even smaller but the men fear smaller bones.

We will then rub a little of the turmeric and salt on the fish pieces and keep aside for 10 minutes.

We will peel the potato, cut half and then further lengthwise preferably We will peel the potatoes thinly keeping a gap or do not peel the vegetables at all. Wash them and rub with little salt & turmeric.

My family uses spice pastes of cumin, coriander too. I cannot, so what I do is mix together the ginger paste, green chilli paste, cumin powder, coriander powder, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, salt taking in a bowl. I add a tbsp of water to it to get a paste like consistency. Fresh fish does not require anymore spices in a Bengali household.

We will heat the oil in a wok and fry the fish pieces lightly if they are fresh, in case of frozen fish we need to deep fry.

We will take out the fried fish pieces and keep aside. My family or Bengali families in general fry lightly the potato & pointed gourd pieces too but I try not to these days.

We will temper the oil with cumin seeds and a bay leaf. We will add the spice paste and stir at low heat for 2 minutes.

We will add the potato & pointed gourd pieces to it and stir cook at low heat for a minute.

We will reduce the heat to minimal and add 2 coffee mugs of water. When it comes to boil, we will increase the heat to low.

After the curry has boiled for 4-5 minutes, we will add the fried fish pieces, give a stir and boil it further for 3-4 minutes. We can add few slitted green chillies and cook further for a minute. Done.

We have it with rice, you can try with chapati. We also had bottle gourd & fried moong sabzi & fried bottle gourd peels on that day for our lunch.

This was a decision made yesterday afternoon and the mission was completed by 5:30 pm. You can see, I got the pictures clicked by 6 pm in natural light and did not require any filter. I know photography or not, this makes me happy. Ever since I learnt doing steamed cake falling in love with the typical South East Asian snacks, I do them at home the simplest way. I do them with whatever is available at home without spending few dollars to buy ingredients for the cake or the snack to be made. I made this steamed cake with everything I had at home; rice flour, baking powder, coconut milk, dried coconut flakes, honey, lemon juice, lemon jest, sunflower seeds. What we get is a super soft, fluffy, vegan, gluten-free, steamed rice cake with a refreshing touch of lemon. I named it HONEY LEMON STEAMED RICE CAKE.

Thursday mornings are usually busy. I visit the wet market to get the weekly produce of raw materials. If you say so, Saturday & Sunday mornings are the best time to buy fish, meat, vegetables. I do not avail that opportunity. I find myself very awkward in the crowd. Back in Kolkata, I used to avoid the weekend wet markets specifically for two reasons; one was the exorbitant price hike over the weekends; second was the fear of some who consider the female body as taken for granted to practice their touch therapy. With two bags in two hands and the hand purse tightly clipped in one of the underarm, I could not even kick tight at the back of these rascals; I am pretty sure such kinds have a full fledged family back home.

A private tutor in my teens who was trying to make my body a safe medium for his hand practises has a beautiful daughter now and a highly qualified wife who I have heard is a good souled woman. Ahh! how my mother saved me from these predators each time. Each time I was in distress, I found a friend in her who I could complain freely and get justice. As a chubby child too, I was not spared in trains, buses. I did not understand anything, I could not protect myself complaining about the touch to the accompanying father. Once in college, I learnt how to retaliate; some of my friends know how I kicked out people from a moving bus, beaten people with an umbrella at the DumDum station. I pity the families of such predators; they do not know who they live with; even if they know, they perhaps are forced to and the wrong continues.

We are having breakfast with a cheese-macaroni bake and the lovely, fluffy steamed cake; if not you, I will thank myself.

What I keep trying to convey to the son is that he never should disrespect a woman touching her inappropriately, neither should he be too friendly with outwardly smart girls; make friendship online with unknown people. As a boy's mother, I have both kinds of fear. Before leaving home, I will tell him that for any personal need, there are certified places; he need not get into nasty acts, need not get trapped in wrong plans; he must meticulously choose his friends; learn to avoid any complication to remain safe. Mumma will be at far is the problem. Anyway, here in this island, I am spared of touch therapy; I will not hesitate to say I do not find the eyes of the men here uncomfortable. I can wear body hugging clothes and go for sweaty walks, no one is bothered. So, the problem is not with the male fraternity; it is with the society. A society that cannot educate properly it's members will continue to breed predators.

A majority of the women folks in the roads of India have to handle this big problem. "ichhey holo ektu ghete dilam" has to stop. I urge the mothers to be a little careful who they are letting in to their kids' lives. Our mother was very careful. When my son started going to school, I asked him everyday if anyone touched his specific body parts. This mumma used to touch all day and the daddy stopped her after coming to this island. Listen folks, while talking to anyone, refrain from touching; even if your intents are not wrong, it may seem uncomfortable to the other person.

All of a sudden the above thoughts popped on my mind. I feel so secured and safe in this island in few ways that I do not have to think much on certain matters. I do not show my love as often to this island as I should. The problem is one has to do a vivid study of the culture one is not part of before attempting an entry into it. I always admit I am too lethargic to do any research study. Moreover, I am against buying a couple of ingredients for one single dish. Mine is not a boutique blog, may be because keeping a track of every details is so difficult for me. Let my blog flow my way and I keep gifting you such simple, rustic ideas as this egg free, oil free, sugar free HONEY LEMON STEAMED RICE CAKE. Okay, I had a satisfying lunch yesterday with Bhola Maach er Jhol, Beulir Dal, Bhangachora Shukto with half & half Millet & Rice; you can see Indian Jew fish curry, urad dal, fish head veggie on my yesterday's lunch platter. Thereafter, some sweet, fleshy litchi made a blissful ending.

INGREDIENTS :

RICE FLOUR : 1 COFFEE MUG
BAKING POWDER : 1/2 TSP
COCONUT MILK : 200 ML
COCONUT FLAKE : 1/2 MEDIUM SIZED TEA CUP
HONEY : 1/2 MEDIUM SIZED TEA CUP
LEMON JUICE : 4-5 TBSP
LEMON ZEST : 1/2 TSP
SUNFLOWER SEED : 2 TSP
SALT : 2-3 PINCH

PROCEDURE :

I have used the following to prepare the egg free, oil free, steamed rice cake. Okay, I forgot to take in the salt pot.

I have taken the rice flour, salt, baking powder, coconut flakes in a bowl and mixed together well.

I added the coconut milk and roughly folded in.

I added the honey and mixed well.

Then, I added the lemon zest and thereafter the lemon juice.

The batter has to be beaten well with a hand beater.

I added the sunflower seeds now and mixed well.

I had greased a cake tin with few drops of oil and dusted it with rice flour.

I had poured the rice flour batter into it and tapped it lightly on the kitchen counter. We have to keep it at rest for about 20 minutes.

You can top it with more of dried coconut flakes & sunflower seeds.

We need to half fill a standard sized vessel with water and put for boil on gas top. We have to cover it.

When the water boils, we have to place a steel colander atop and on top of it the batter filled bowl.

I have tied a heavy lid with a towel and covered the entire thing. This makes the steam to lock and cook a soft, fluffy cake.

It takes 12-14 minutes for the cake to be done.

Keep it at rest for few minutes before serving.

Because there is coconut milk in the cake, it is recommended to have it within 36 hours. It has to be refrigerated if so, but has to be taken out at least an hour before eating it.

I do not find any energy to ask people how they have been; I am not in the habit of faking anything. I can see people are not happy with the new world situation. The scare of a virus have disturbed the rhythm of life. Moreover, people who are like me; pessimistic with full of negativity within, they are perhaps finding it difficult to look through a "tomorrow!" I am in a constant fear of "what is waiting for us tomorrow?" In this situation, when someone called yesterday and asked to take the best out of the situation, stay positive and happy; that indeed gives me a better feel. I see some sunshine too this morning.

I perhaps woke up from the actual sleep around 4am today, still trying to have some more sleep I lay tight on the bed but to no avail. Awkward pictures from around keeps me thinking how can people be so mindless, heartless that they do not leave people at peace in their death. Instead of paying tribute, they go to the extent of sharing pictures the police might need for obvious reasons. What level of disrespect do we show circulating the picture of the dead? Where are we heading to? Tomorrow do we click the bodies in a morgue and circulate in public? This is how I felt yesterday night; then think of people who stay alone and go to the bed with this dark in the corner of their minds. These days we hardly think of a consequence of an action. Around 6am, I get up and come to the living room. I again go to sleep on our dilapidated couch and wake up at 8:30 am.

Feeling fresh at this time and I stick to my yesterday's decision of sharing a porota / paratha / flatbread recipe with boiled potato & radish greens MULO SHAAK O ALOOR POROTA with my readers today. The man has to go to office this week; if I have the feel that I will miss his presence at home, life is good with him. If I see traits of patriarchy in him like his family, I rebuke him straight on his face; because I found him different, I married him. If after reading my social media posts he has not battered me; he is on track and life is worth it with him. Always keep a room for debate in a couple's life. As the person over phone told me yesterday, there is always something good to look forward to in life. See, I am liking it that the weirdest at home occupied my place in the couch , has put the television set in full volume. The atmosphere seems lively.

Yesterday afternoon, after I had bought lunch for the family and did some "tukitaki bazaar" and sent it home through Cristine; I felt free to go for a walk. Because I would have a late lunch, I bought myself three vegetarian gyoza in a stick for 1:70$.

I eat them, I drink the water Cristine packs for me and then set off for the walk. I thank my men for not questioning my movements ever. On the way, I did an exercise just to keep myself happy, tore the dried leaves from the roadside trees.

Back home, I got busy with something else and ate a bowl of kimchi flavoured noodles as late as 5:30pm. Thereafter, it felt I could have skipped it. At times I overeat, I do not know why. I loved adding the greens to the noodles. Let me see how I can use the remaining greens.

At this time, I am having that rice flour vegan cake I blogged about last Friday and a plain porota / paratha / flatbread made from a left over dough. The cake has not spoilt but it does not remain so good in taste after 3-4 days; it has coconut mind it!

That I would blog about a very rustic, vegetarian, Indian flat bread recipe with radish green and potato MULO SHAAK O ALOOR POROTA today was decided on my walk yesterday when a sudden news did not start pouring in. I do not wish to go into any discussion why it had to happen, people who take such a step, know the reason best. The problem is they do not live to say why; so that experts can find some way to find a cure. I only wish to say; when we feel low, we must take a look at the ravages the storm has caused to many lives, the jobless situation the virus that has spread has caused; there is a possibility we may feel ourselves in a better position. I am simply disliking the analysis, cruelty of minds revolving an incident, or say concerning any incident happening around. People go to any extent with their expert comments.

I do not have any expertise in me; I listen to music instead; of few genres. Its been long I have not sung for myself. I so wish to learn Hindustani Classical and specialise in Thumri after settling the son; the fees of the Gurus are really high here. Moreover who will teach an untrained, middle-aged woman now who lack dedication, concentration? Not everyone is our swimming coach Joe, he taught us without even touching us. It feels bad not to hear his voice down below for months now. He offered to teach me butterfly & backstroke too. Let me cook instead.

INGREDIENTS :

WHEAT FLOUR : 2 COFFEE MUG
REFINED FLOUR : 1 COFFEE MUG
RADISH GREEN / YOUNG RADISH LEAF : A BUNCH
BOILED POTATO : 1 BIG
CHOPPED CORIANDER : 2 SMALL TEA CUP
CHOPPED GREEN CHILLI : 1 TBSP
SLICED ONION : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP
DRY RED CHILLI : 2-3
SALT : AS REQUIRED
TURMERIC POWDER : 1 TSP
AAMCHOOR / DRY MANGO POWDER : 2 TSP
GHEE OR OIL : 2TBSP + 1 TSP TO FRY EACH FLATBREAD
BUTTER TO GARNISH [OPTIONAL]

PROCEDURE :

Here we do not get very young leaves of radish like in Kolkata but it is what you see below.

We have washed the bunch thoroughly and chopped them small, if not so finely.

We have washed, boiled, peeled and mashed the potatoes. We have peeled and sliced the onions, chopped the green chillies and coriander leaves. We have washed them well.

Heat oil in a wok; tear the dry chillies and add.

Add the sliced onion & chopped green chillies and fry till golden brown.

Add both the radish greens, little salt & the turmeric.

Stir cook for 4-5 minutes at medium heat and add the dry mango powder; fold in well.

Add the boiled potato; stir cook well for 3-4 minutes and switch off gas.

Take the two flours, a bit of salt, 2tbsp oil in a bowl and rub well for 2 minutes. Add the greens & potato mix. Add the washed, chopped green chillies too.

Prepare a dough; add water if only required.

Rest it covered for 15-20 minutes. Tear off smaller portions and smoothen between palms.

Dust each ball with flour and roll out roundels. I am never good at it. If you are not as lazy as me, you will make stuffed paratha out of them.

Roast well both sides in a pan. Use 1 tsp oil or ghee to cook each of them.

You can see I garnished them with butter and served with raita, salad and apple achar. Our boy eats them with sauces or as it is.

This is that light, soupy, vegan curry I have been wanting to blog about for long now. It was just not happening. I do not know how authentic Bengali it is, if other Bengali Homes do it or not. It used to be done in our family every week throughout the summer. I am a very disorganised person. I could have asked the mother at least yesterday if this vegetarian curry was done in their family or in our father's side or she had learnt it from any parent in our school. I call her, then forget to ask what is required. Now if I call, she will not take calls. In the mornings, she is busy with "jharu-pocha, gate e jol, snan, shokal er pujo, gachey jol." After mid-afternoon, she gets free. The major problem with her is her mania for cleanliness. Else, with two part-time helps, she need not overwork. Just now I have learnt a word that perfectly describes our mother, "fastidious."

So many times I try to say her to be less judgmental and be thankful. She still expects me to do "mani-mani" all the time as before; how is it possible? I have a husband, a boy; they are my responsibilities, love. Love gets distributed proportionately; it's natural! I cannot be her; with only "baap er bari" on her mind. I know she is just waiting for the train service to resume and will risk life to travel in the Sealdah main line. I may sound selfish, our grandmother got sores cradling me. Then, one has to understand I have a family now and love & affection is learnt, gotten by inheritance and executed. "ja pelam, ja shikhlam, ta amar agami ke diye jabo." The baton is passed on naturally.

I never deny where I come from, my roots, the womb that nurtured me; that quality sperm that never will allow me to be dishonest, wrong the people. I just cannot satisfy her expectation level; I express my gratitude towards them through the recipes I cook and share. This light, soupy, non-spicy, vegetarian, vegan curry with raw papaya & potato, white sesame seed PEPE ALOOR SHUKTO is one such tribute to the family repertoire. The mother does it with poppyseed paste / posto bata which is banned in this island.

Whichever society I come from; I have always believed and maintained that post marriage, both the boy and the girl should build a separate home for themselves and take utmost care of both homes without discrimination. I have always hated this concept of "cheler bari meyer barir mathar opor thakbey." Let us ease the situation or may be I am going to put you in a soup! You can keep wondering for the entire day & week; "how an overweight woman at 50 can eat four, carb filled meals in a day?" Okay; I really can. Yesterday, the man did not go to the office, he had a headache. We packed his lunch box with four flatbreads & chicken. I do not let them eat cold food if at home. So, I had two parathas with mango achar for breakfast, he had a mango bowl that went into his snack box.

For lunch, I had "shabu makha", sagoo+mango+banana+coconut+milk+little amount of sugar. I had a toasted bread with a piece of chicken too. They had paratha & chicken.

Around 6:30pm, I wished to have some outside snacks. Cristine got salty bun for the son and we shared half & half of a salted bun & potato curry puff which is similar to samosa. The man will have nothing with tea, snack he has only when there are guests at home.

Thereafter, which middle-aged will have dinner? I had. Our dinner was mutton kosha and this light, vegan curry with raw papaya & potato, roasted white sesame seed paste PEPE ALOOR SHUKTO. It did not remain soupy anymore, may be the potatoes did not let it. I had them with pearl millet, they with fine basmati. I must have a bowlful of dal for lunch.

Today, I felt I must put a check on the food intake, having oats appe made by Cristine in little amount of ghee. After having six of them, I want more! May have two biscuits.

Anyway, the plating you see is not totally fake. I mean I can have the vegetarian curry with rice, but I need a "rui-katla bhaja ba duto charapona bhaja" to have it happily. The men too must have a fish or meat curry of their choice to have it. Neither, our mother dared to serve it without fish or meat.

INGREDIENTS :

RAW PAPAYA : A SMALL SIZED OR 1/2 OF A STANDARD SIZED
POTATO : 1 MEDIUM SIZED
WHITE SESAME SEED : 2 TSP [YOU CAN USE POPPYSEED IF ALLOWED AT YOUR PLACE]
TURMERIC POWDER : A PINCH
RADHUNI / WILD CELERY SEED : 3-4 PINCH
SALT : AS REQUIRED
SUGAR : 1TSP
OIL : 2TSP

PROCEDURE :

Discard the two ends of the raw papaya, cut half and peel off. Cut further and thinly cut off the inner line, likewise the seeds. Throw the seeds in potted soil.

Cube them small. Peel off the potato. Cut half and further, get cubes a little bigger than that of the raw papaya.

Take them in two separate bowls and wash. Marinate with little of salt.

Now dry roast the white sesame seeds, take in a strainer and wash. Thereafter, prepare a paste of it adding a little water.

We have to be very careful about the amount of sesame & wild celery seeds used, they tend to add bitterness to a dish.

Heat oil in a wok and temper with the wild celery seeds. Add the marinated raw papaya. Add a pinch of turmeric and stir well, reduce the heat to the minimal and cover. Cook until the raw papaya cubes are 50% done.

Add the marinated potatoes now and cook covered at minimal heat for 3-4 minutes.

Open cover, add the roasted white sesame seed paste, sugar, a little of salt and fold in well.

Add a coffee mug of water and cover cook at low heat for 5-6 minutes.

We have it with rice, it should go with chapati too.

Kajoli is a much loved fish variety in both sides of my family. I checked the wiki and see it is called Gangetic Ailia / Ailia Coila in English. It is majorly found and eaten in the Indian Subcontinent. It is perhaps heading towards it's extinct, why not? There is a major shift amidst the new age Bengalis themselves to go for a quick curry with big, fat, less boney oily variety of fish or chicken or egg curry rather than to sit with cleaning a smaller variety of fish, rubbing the spices all over, cutting properly the vegetables to go with it. The later kinds are not kids' choice friendly either, so I cannot blame the mothers of not doing such kind of dishes often. Who has time today, people multitask. I accept that part. What worries me is that these homely, traditional dishes are vanishing from the scenario. That should not happen is what I feel. Keep the tradition alive at some corner of your heart, cook them once a month or once in two months.

Such dishes like this JHINGE PEYAZ DIYE MAKHAMAKHA KAJOLI is a gluten-free, non-vegetarian, Bengali fish recipe with a smaller variety of freshwater cat fish Kajoli / Gangetic Ailia, Ridge Gourd, Onion and very few spices. In my side of the family they do not always fry a fresh, smaller variety of fish; they marinate everything together, temper the heated oil and cook it slow covered without using water. They eat deep fried, smaller variety of fish though. In the in-law's side, they deep fry any smaller variety of fish and cook it with a couple of vegetables including potato. I have already shared one or two smaller variety of fish recipe as done in both sides of the family in the blog earlier, let me add one more. Actually Bele Maach, another smaller variety of fish is done this way more in our family; when I get to blog about it, I will search the english name for bele.

Yesterday, I went to the Indian Market to get some homely, near to the heart stuffs. It is still risky; yet I went and it was worth it. I got hilsa & rohu, I got pointed gourd perhaps after 7-8 months, fresh drumsticks too. I am happy. So what if the son does not enjoy these kind of dishes, I try my best so that he does not give up altogether. He enjoys crispy, batter fried smaller variety of fish. I do that and serve; to lessen my work, I will not cook a big pot of chicken curry and serve him everyday. That he enjoys Bombay Duck bharta & pakora, dried fish, banana blossom veggies & fritter, stuffed pointed gourd is because I did not give up. At a younger age, I also did not like a fish dish with a smaller variety like this JHINGE PEYAZ DIYE MAKHAMAKHA KAJOLI, now I crave for it. Good that we live in an Asian hub where we get similar variety of small sized fishes and I keep recreating traditional recipes with them. I firmly believe, one day the son will stop and look back, will take interest in his own culture; to be otherwise is so very wrong, utterly disgusting. I definitely do not have such acute problem with the man, he grew up in a very Bengali environment. He never ever denied his identity nor tried to prove what he is not. He loves his "ilish, katla, aar, manghso, deem"& Hemanta, Manna, western music, films, news channels all in the same length & breadth.

INGREDIENTS :

KAJOLI / GANGETIC AILIA / ANY VARIETY OF SMALL FISH : 400-500GM
RIDGE GOURD : 1 SMALL OR 1/4 OF THE GIANT SIZED WE GET HERE
ONION : 1BIG
GREEN CHILLI : 5-6
RED CHILLI POWDER : 2 TSP [CHOOSE AS PER YOUR HEAT TOLERANCE]
TURMERIC POWDER : 1/2 TSP
NIGELLA SEED / KALOJEEREY / KALONJI : 1/4 TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 1 TBSP + 3 TBSP [WE USE MUSTARD]

PROCEDURE :

This fish is very soft, single boned. It is not at all a problem to eat the bone, who will tell my son? If we cook it without frying, they tend to break; so soft they are.

We need only our fingers to clean the stomach of each fish. If you want, you can cut the tail end a bit.

Now wash them gently and drain the water.

Peel, cut half the ridge gourd / jhinge and further into strips length wise. Wash them.

Peel and wash the onion and slice it thin. Wash and slit the green chillies.

Add the washed ridge gourd strips, sliced onion, slitted green chillies and add to the bowl of fish.

Add the turmeric, salt as required, red chilli powder and 1tbsp of lightly heated oil, mustard oil preferably.

Rub well and marinate everything together. Keep aside for 12-15 minutes.

Heat 3 tbsp oil in a wok and temper with nigella seeds / kalojeerey. Add the marinated fish that has ridge gourd, green chillies and onion along with the marinade.

Cover cook at minimal heat for 7-8 minutes. Open the cover, lightly fold in and cover cook at minimal heat for another five minutes. We should be done.

It only goes with piping hot steamed rice. One can try with millet too.

If I say I am feeling cold sitting in a tropical island in the month of June, I am not joking. The fan is switched off and I have wrapped myself in a bed spread. My "bori" batch is going to spoil, its raining for fifteen days now. I started off with the blog post late; the man is working from home today and I have no tension to finish off quick or whatever. For this freedom, I cook all day on Saturdays. None in the family apply this theory of mine, neither did I do so whilst my stay in Kolkata much. The son was young then. Now I do. Until Thursday, it will be just taking out at least three dishes for lunch and dinner each; cook rice or breads and eat. For breakfast, I keep buying and baking stuffs, do instant idli, appe, etc. The problem is to feed the senior breakfast on a weekday. If he is served mango, he still eats but I did not get mango this week; only litchi, dragon fruit, pear. The fun thing is if we had packed these same fruits and a cake in his snack box, he would have eaten but he has to skip breakfast whilst at home. The son is having luchi / puffed bread, fruit yogurt & dragon fruit.

I so fail to understand the senior till date. What I know well is I cannot repeat one thing more that two to three times; in that case he starts yelling at you. I tell him had it been these "new age girls", they would have not only seek a divorce but had gotten various other charges against you. Leave that. What got my concern is my addiction towards bread varieties for breakfast for the past several months which may not have proved good for my health. I will not spend extra bucks or go and hunt for keto bread. For the past two, three days, I had been trying to eat less and a bit healthy. This morning, I made this vegetarian, snack meal using just one bowl. Because I am a true heart Bengali, I enjoy beaten or flattened rice more than oats. Instead of frying, I roast or toast them in microwave adding a tea spoon of butter. I named it BUTTER TOSSED CHIREY BHAJA IN MICROWAVE. Chirey is beaten rice in Bengali.

I have so many food photos with me whose recipe I wish to share with you. Then I must go by my whims. I wanted this easy to make snack to go to the blog today, I did. It takes few minutes you know, that too in a bowl. Thereafter, you can see I had it and dragon fruit for my breakfast.

Truly it feels less guilty. I just cannot skip meals neither do I think it is good for the body to do it. Last night I went to sleep thinking to have a fruit bowl this morning. Then I got skeptical if fruits & tea shall gel well. Actually, I research less, so never does comment on what is beyond my knowledge or capacity. What I can say is beaten rice may be just another form of rice, hence loaded with carb but I do not think it is too bad to have it in this form. We are not frying it in oil or took time to roast it in a wok on stove top. We can just add a tea spoon of butter, the rest of the cooking the microwave will do. We can add our choice of dry fruits & nuts to this easy snack BUTTER TOSSED CHIREY BHAJA IN MICROWAVE. I added walnut, almonds, cashews, sunflower seeds, raisins, roasted green peas.

INGREDIENTS :

BEATEN / FLATTENED RICE : 50GM
BUTTER : 1TSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED TO SPRINKLE
BLACK PEPPER : 1/4TSP
DRY FRUITS & NUTS, SEEDS OF YOUR CHOICE, GREEN PEAS TO ADD

PROCEDURE :

Take the beaten rice & butter in a microwave proof bowl.

Microwave at minimal heat for 30 seconds.

Take out and mix well.

Microwave at the lowest heat for a minute. Take out and add the broken nuts.

Mix well and microwave again at the minimal heat for 30 seconds.

Take out and add the salt & black pepper.

Mix well the entire thing and microwave again at the minimal heat for 30 seconds. Take out and add raisins, seeds, fried or roasted green peas, etc.

Have it with tea or coffee while it is still warm.

There was a huge feeling of satisfaction doing them yesterday. I was very poor with this particular ladoo with roasted white sesame seeds, jaggery, cardamom powder and a bit of sugar. Yes, it requires exactly those few ingredients, the real trick is the ratio of the jaggery & roasted white sesame, the right consistency of the cooked jaggery. Each time I was trying, I was failing at this point. Either I was adding too much of water to the jaggery or overcooking the mixture which turned crumbly on cooling. Yesterday too I was heading towards a similar fate but I was desperate to get the homemade sweet right. At one point, I felt miserable; won't I be ever able to get that sticky mixture so easy to form balls with? I thought.

Just before going to depression; all of a sudden I remember, I saw the family further beating the roasted white sesame in "hamandista", a very heavy iron mortar & pestle(?) This perhaps helps the sesame oil to release and bind together with the cooked jaggery well. Okay, I do not have a proper mortar & pestle and the useful memory did not strike in time; in the last lap before losing hope for one more time I pulsed the mixture for few minutes in the mixer and we got the right amount of sticky consistency first in my life. Thereafter, turning them onto homely Bengali, vegan, gluten free sweet meat with roasted white sesame seeds & jaggery TIL ER NARU was a cake walk.

I think the family has to do something here. I have noticed the very expert homemakers in my family are not so good with this particular homely sweet meat. The best were done in other homes. Then too, now too I think they may have expertise in homely, Bengali cooking, but making of this sweet & the setting of plain yogurt had not been so great in their hands. I remember the maternal grandmother's yogurt seemed more like butter milk; well I did not know what buttermilk is at that age; only have it in the recent years & enjoy too. Our mother sets better yogurt, its a regular at home. Shop bought yogurt in Kolkata or Bengal is not contributory towards good health; it is bought as a dessert which I consider the ultimate in dessert porn.

Its raining again, I do not like continuous rain, it causes more of depression in me. More because the wind and rain tend to damage my little of greens.

I believe sunshine gets us bountiful of happiness. We are getting it in the afternoon time for a small period. I am feeling more awkward today because the senior had to leave for office at 7am, I woke up at 7:18 am. I saw a coffee cup in the kitchen sink and his astray and knew he made his own tea or coffee and left in silence. Making his own tea or coffee is not a problem but I want to say a "tata" to him every day, as did to the father until the day before marriage. He was supposed to work from home this week but there was a change of plan. Something is special there and he is not carrying food either. Actually, I wake up around 3:30am, then go for a sleep again; today it was deep and I was in bed till late. He could have called me. I keep praying to my God to get some normalcy to my men; yesterday it was with something between moong dal halwa & payasam and pears; it was the occasion of Rath Yatra.

The vegan, gluten free Bengali sweet meat with roasted white sesame, jaggery TIL ER NARU could not be offered to God as it was cooked in regular utensils I use for cooking fish, meat, eggs for us. I am not a liberal soul as such, may be God is extraterrestrial to me?

INGREDIENTS :

WHITE SESAME SEED : 100-150GM
JAGGERY : 50GM
SUGAR : 2 TSP
CARDAMOM POWDER : 1/2 TSP
GHEE OR OIL : 3-4 DROP TO GREASE THE PALMS

PROCEDURE :

Here is how white sesame seed looks like.

Heat a pan on gas top. Add the white sesame seeds and keep stirring to roast them. We will keep the heat at low and this exercise may take some 7-8 minutes.

We will transfer the roasted white sesame seed to a plate.

We will add the jaggery and 2tbsp water to the pan and set the heat at minimal. Adding more water may spoil the game. We can sprinkle little if required. Breaking the jaggery chunks further in a mortar & pestle is good.

When the jaggery chunks melt completely and get stickier, we will add the cardamom powder and sugar and keep stirring for a minute or two.

We will add the roasted white sesame seeds now and stir to mix. We will take down; further cooking may turn it crumbly when cool making it difficult to form balls. I have learnt it from errors made.

Store it on a plate to cool. We have to shape balls while it's still warm. Fearing burns, I was perhaps a bit late and was facing problem after doing 2-3 of them.

Before going to depression with another round of failure; I used the mixer to pulse them for 1-2 minutes. Perhaps it helped release some sesame oil which got me a sticky consistency just perfect for round, shapely sesame balls. Grease your palms with ghee or oil before shaping.

Cristine gave the final finish, a smoother look.

They taste the best when eaten fresh but I have to refrigerate, my moody men eat when they wish to.

For the past two months I had been wanting to share this recipe with my readers; it was just not happening. Manghshor Khichuri / Rice & Lentil Hotchpotch with meat is definitely not a family thing; our family always have prepared vegetarian khichuri and served it with semi dry vegetable preparations & fries, fritters. Only in the recent years, I have known Khichuri can be made non-vegetarian too. Many Indian & South Asian Homes prepare this wholesome meal as part of their lunch or dinner deal. The good thing is we do not need to cook anything else if we are doing this Bengali style, gluten free, non-vegetarian rice & lentil hotchpotch with chicken MURGIR MANGSHOR KHICHURI.

I am feeling too lethargic since morning. Somedays I feel such, reason can be as stupid as my bowel system not working well for two days. This happens with idle brains. Why is it so when I ate bread & buns everyday, my weight was less than now when I am not eating them for a week. I will however eat a coffee cream stuffed bread bun with my tea now. Off course, the dry cake & "modon kotkoti" biscuits caused this weight gain. They are sensuous addiction, there are so many of such loves I sacrifice each day; puff pastries, sugar toast that the island make or the varieties that come from Bangladesh; Karachi Cookies of Hyderabad. Yet weight management never makes friends with me. May be because I ate a bit of rice with hilsa curry or bit more of millet than usual. Frustration crawls towards a food loving soul.

Life to me cannot be a dry toast and bowls of salad with plain yogurt every day. Neither, frustration be allowed to breed. A sixteen year old girl, popular in social media commits suicide. Do not I feel like slapping her? Did you think suicide will get you more popularity post death; your death will be romanticised, speculated, given an honourable status? I really want to ask her. At any given point, why cannot we think we live better than crores of our fellow beings? Because I am so unable to eat clean and exercise hard to get a happier self, I find happiness in other things. I wake up to my indoor plants every morning. They are arranged in the bedroom window pane in the time being for some growth. I got a tulsi plant again yesterday. Changed the set up outside our main door. My micro mini garden is much damaged due to continuous rain, wind, fungal infections. They do not flower; yet I do not lose hope; one expires, I keep adding to the family.

There is no stopping to live until life naturally comes to an end. Then, I have my kitchen kingdom which I keep busy all the time; this not at all a family dish with chicken, rice, red lentil MURGIR MANGSHOR KHICHURI is also a product of my kitchen. I have seen shares made around but cooked it using my own ideas.

INGREDIENTS :

CHICKEN : 500GM MEDIUM CUT
RICE : 1/3 COFFEE MUG [ANY NORMAL VARIETY, I USED PONNI]
RED LENTIL / MASOOR DAL : 1/2 COFFEE MUG
CHOPPED TOMATO : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
SLICED ONION : 1 MEDIUM CUP
SLITTED GREEN CHILLI : 3-4
GINGER PASTE : 2TSP
GARLIC PASTE : 1TBSP
TURMERIC POWDER : 1TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1/2TSP
CUMIN POWDER : 1TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 1TSP
LEMON JUICE : 3-4TBSP
CINNAMON STICK : 1 INCH STICK TWO OR THREE
GREEN CARDAMOM : 2-3
CLOVE : 2-3
CUMIN SEED : 1/4TSP
BAY LEAF : 1+1
DRY RED CHILLI : 2-3 HALVED
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 4TBSP + 1TBSP

PROCEDURE :

Take the rice and red lentil / masoor dal in a heavy bottomed vessel and wash thoroughly. Add about 3 coffee mugs of water and keep soaked for an hour.

Wash the chicken pieces, boneless or bone on; drain the water and marinate with little salt, turmeric and lemon juice. Keep aside for an hour.

In a bowl prepare a spice paste with the ginger garlic pastes, little salt & turmeric, the cumin & coriander powders, red chilli powder adding 2tbsp of water.

On one burner, put the vessel with rice & dal and cover 80%. Cook at minimal heat, stir every 5 minutes, add little water if required to keep it runny. When half 70% boiled, add little salt, turmeric & the washed and slitted green chillies. Once done, switch off the gas top.

In the smaller burner, place a wok. Heat 3tbsp oil and temper with a bay leaf, the cinnamon sticks, green cardamoms & cloves.

Add the washed, sliced onions and stir fry till golden brown.

Add the spice paste now and stir fry for 2-3 minutes. Add the washed and chopped tomatoes and stir cook until they melt.

Add the marinated chicken and fold in well. Cover cook at minimal heat for 10 minutes.

Open cover and check if water has released or not. Add a medium tea cup of water if otherwise.

Fold in well and cover cook again at minimal heat for 12-15 minutes, checking in between.

Add the cooked rice and lentil now and fold in everything well. Add a coffee mug of water, mix and cook at low heat for 5 minutes or so. Switch off the gas stove.

In another pan, heat 1tbsp of oil, temper with a bay leaf, cumin seeds and halved dry red chillies, add it to the khichdi / hotchpotch / khichudi and fold in well.

We are done! I served it with "chak chak aloo bhaja or beguni" / ringed potato fries & batter fried egg plants. You can just manage with "papor bhaja."

This was our dinner last Friday. I try to wipe clean my Saturday cooking by Friday night and only the Aloo Potol er Dalna was left on that day. I did not wish to cook any extra dish and get tired on a Friday evening when I have a good amount of cooking on a Saturday. I do not know how people cook four dishes in forty five minutes, I or the family I come from cannot. For us cutting of the vegetables require hours; be it "mocha, echor, kochu shaak, thor, potol.""Guchiye Ranna" runs in the family and I cannot get out of it. Till date, our mother cooks two vegetables, one dal, a non-vegetarian curry for the day. The brother does not want to repeat for dinner what he ate for lunch. So I ask the mother to cook a few dishes on a day; say over the weekend given Bhai has become a pro when it comes to buying raw vegetables & meat, fish and she need not have to go to the market in the morning. The problem is she is getting irritated being jailed at home, she loves her freedom.

When the mother was here last year, she complained how she hates sitting idle all day. We know she does. I keep telling her to cook on Saturdays & Sundays and enjoy gardening rest of the days. Since childhood, I have seen she hates cooking in the evenings. Even at this home, what we eat for lunch is not served at night. Our mother does not like anyone else cutting the vegetables for her; size matters, cuts matter to her. After her late afternoon shower for the second time, she does not like soiling and cleaning again her kitchen counter; retires to her room, switches on the television and sleeps. If the daughter-in-law is at home, she does all the work for the evening, mani says. The problem is she alone has to take care of her parents too, juggling between two homes has become very tough for her; not everyone can employ a couple of helps for the aging parents. What I wish to tell both my mother & sister-in-law is that take a shift from "luchi, porota, aloor porota" and try such easy to go desi breads, a literally hand made beuli / urad dal / skinned & slit Black lentil fried puffed bread BEULIR DAL ER GURO DIYE HING ER KOCHURI; that is a vegetarian puffed bread with powdered black lentil, the dough flavoured with asafoetida, it is that simple.

I will call it Bengali because after eating it, I felt the Dakshineswar temple ground shops sell something similar but there definitely have refined flour in their dough. The entire Kolkata sells similar tasting pooris / puffed breads in the roadside stalls. I was finding it difficult to roll them with a rolling pin; the dough was tight, yet. The texture was not right according to me, felt soggy after I had fried three of them. Then I felt let me use my palms & fingers and I got them, Cristine too used her palms. The trick for their fluffier selves was me constantly splashing oil on top of each poori while frying them at low heat. Actually my bori / vadi / sun-dried lentil dumplings with the readymade urad dal powder were not satisfactory. What to do with the rest of the flour? I did these Bengali style vegetarian puffed bread BEULIR DAL ER GURO DIYE HING ER KOCHURI.

INGREDIENTS :

POWDERED BEULIR DAL / URAD DAL / BLACK LENTIL : 2 COFFEE MUG
SEMOLINA : 1/2 MEDIUM TEA CUP
ASAFOETIDA / HING POWDER : 1/4 TSP
SALT : 1/4 TSP
OIL : 3TBSP + 2TBSP + 100-150ML TO DEEP FRY

PROCEDURE :

Take the dal / lentil flour, semolina, aesafoetida and salt in a bowl. Mix together well.

Add 2-3 tbsp oil to it and rub well for 2-3 minutes.

Add water little by little and prepare a dough which will take some 7-8 minutes. Add 2tbsp of oil and knead again for 3-4 minutes.

Keep covered for over an hour. Open cover, knead it again for 2-3 minutes and tear off smaller portions. Smoothen it between your palms.

Take each on your washed & clean left palm, flatten lightly with your washed right hand finger.

Heat about 100-150 ml or as required for deep frying each bread in a wok, not to smoking point. I add each bread at a time, I am not a pro.

Keep splashing oil from the sides on top of the bread, it automatically fluffs up in 30 seconds. Turn over and place on to tissue paper before serving.

I served it hot with a Bengali Pointed Gourd & Potato Curry; you can serve it with any curry, sauce, chutney. If invited, I would want to have it with the chutney that the kolkata roadside stalls do with stale rasgulla syrup; tamarind & red chilli flakes or a dry roasted spice powder.