This is never the right time for me to do a blog post, I am a morning person. The otherwise non-functional brain feels happy & fresh in the mornings. To feel free most of the days, I cook not in bulk but a variety on a Saturday. During this circuit breaker period, I am just cooking extra breads each day. Yes, our one meal is "ruti-porota-luchi" every day. We prefer a vegetarian puffed or flat bread meal over a vegetarian rice. For the majority of Bengalis, rice is associated with fish or meat. Tonight, we will have a vegetarian, rice meal. I am too tired to prepare "roti-prata", my Sunday after a Saturday has to be relaxing. Cristine shall fry the hyalencha / water cress er bora / fritter at night and we will have it with "mash kolai er dal and til bata diye kancha tomator torkari." On Thursday, I got in hand some green tomatoes which we rarely get here. If you follow my personal profile, you may see I had my lunch with Cristine made "porota in ghee, lau o aloor chokla boti and an omelette." I did get Udon Bowl with Karage for Cristine and Bento Boxes for the men.
The man too is having a "muri-chanachur-badam-peyaz-lanka" bowl today; recently again in fact. I think he is not willing to watch a movie or web series together with me this weekend. Since yesterday, he is watching political series. Now what is going on is concerning CIA & Syria I am not interested in. What more can I expect from a man who after the first proposal took me to watch a Hollywood political thriller in Light House; that too knowing me since age twelve. Yet, he changed a lot in the past two decades to accommodate me. I do not remember when I stopped expecting a bit of romanticism from him. So long he or the monkey happily eats this vegetarian platter of KABULI CHOLAR BORA O DOI POROTA their lady cooked, I am happy. Look, how I turned a plate of falafel & pita to something I am comfortable in. What to do? I cannot ditto follow recipes. I do not plan them much in advance and never spend generously buying ingredients for a particular dish. Falafel uses parsley and I had coriander only. So, be it. I am not so happy with the look of the Garbanzo Beans cutlets / croquettes / bora / tikki but they tasted very good with the plain yogurt & self-raising flour flat bread I made. The salad bowl and the sauces were a must. I learnt about this two main ingredients flat bread from a you-tube video. It used it for pizza base baking it in an oven. Long back, I prepared pizza base with it too, the video is there in the saved files but I am tired enough to find it from a collection I saved two years back. Had I been technically sound, I would have taken the Blog to a better position. It really is a handicapped kind of a feeling.
INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOI POROTA / YOGURT FLAT BREAD
SELF RAISING FLOUR : 2 COFFEE MUG [YOU CAN USE PLAIN REFINED FLOUR OF SAME AMOUNT WITH 2 TSP BAKING POWDER & 1/3 TSP BAKING SODA]
PLAIN YOGURT : 150 GM OR AS REQUIRED FOR A SMOOTH DOUGH
SALT : 1/2 TSP
OIL : 2-3 TBSP + 1TSP FOR EACH FLAT BREAD
INGREDIENTS FOR THE KABULI CHANAR BORA / GARBANZO BEANS TIKKI
GARBANZO BEAN / KABULI CHANA : 350-400GM
CHOPPED CORIANDER : 1 MEDIUM TEA CUP
CHOPPED ONION : 1 SMALL TEA CUP
GARLIC CLOVE : 4-5 BIG OR 8-10 SMALL SIZED
GREEN CHILLI : 3-4
CRUSHED BLACK PEPPER : 1 TSP
CUMIN POWDER : 2TSP
CORIANDER POWDER : 2TSP
RED CHILLI POWDER : 1TSP
LEMON JUICE : 4-5 TBSP
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 100-150 ML [I DID NOT DEEP FRY IN A LOT OF OIL]
PROCEDURE :
Let us do the Garbanzo Beans cutlets now!
I had soaked the Kabuli Chana in water for about 8 hours. They expanded really well and I drained the water.
Cristine did all the peeling, cutting, washing job for me, as usual.
We will always do the blending job in batches, else the blender would stop working unable to take the load.
Each time we will blend the content into a coarse paste, trying not to add water.
I had shown Cristine to prepare standard sized, flattened cutlet shapes. She did.
We refrigerated the un-cooked tikkis for at least 6-8 hours, covered. Took out only when the oil was made to get hot in the wok.
I did not deep fry them in a lot of oil, so they not look that good. I am not comfortable using too much of used oil.
I fried both sides at low heat until they were brown. Each batch may take 7-8 minutes to be done.
Cristine looked after the frying part mostly while I was making the flatbreads / doi porotas. They had to be done simultaneously for a good tasting meal.
Reserve the fried tikkis on tissue papers before serving.
For the plain yogurt and self-raising flour porotas / flat breads, I took the flour, salt, 2 tbsp oil and the plain yogurt in a wide mouthed bowl.
We have to mix and rub the content for 2-3 minutes.
Cristine kneaded the dough for some 10-12 minutes to get a smooth dough. We can add more of yogurt if required but not water.
Thereafter, we have to keep it covered with a moist, clean piece of cloth for 15-20 minutes.
We will take it out and knead for 2-3 minutes.
We will tear of portions of a tennis size ball, smoothen between the two palms, roll out round or oval.
We will place it on a hot griddle / tawa, it will by itself form bubbles; we just have to adjust the heat from low to minimal.
After been turned over and cooked each in 1 tsp oil, both sides will look like below respectively.
We prepared an apple, tomato, cucumber, onion salad in a jiffy, used store bought tamarind sauce & coleslaw and had a soul satisfying vegetarian lunch.
