Poha

This is a very tasty and easy to make dish. We often make it for breakfast. Poha is actually flattened rice flakes, can be found in any Indian grocery store. In Bengali we call it "chire". Usually there are three types of poha available in the market, thick, medium and fine. I use the medium one for this preparation.

Ingredients:

200 Gms poha (medium)

1 Boiled potato (cubed)

1 Onion (chopped)

2-3 Green chillies (chopped)

Handful of frozen/fresh peas

Handful of fresh coriander (chopped)

1 Tsp finely chopped ginger

1 Tsp lime juice

1 Tsp whole mustard seeds

1 Tsp turmeric powder

1 Tsp cumin powder

Few peanuts

Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Method:

Heat the oil in a pan and fry the peanuts and keep them separate. Now add the mustard seeds in the remaining oil, once it starts to splutter add the onion, chillies and ginger and fry for a minute. Now add the salt, cumin powder and turmeric powder to it, mix well then add the boiled potato and the peas in to it and let it cook for few minutes. Soak the poha in cold water for only a 1-2 minute, no more than that otherwise it will become like mash which you don't want. Drain the water and add the poha to the mixture in the pan and mix it well. If you think the mixture has become little dry sprinkle some water to it. Cover and cook for another few minutes. Now add the lime juice, fresh chopped coriander and the fried peanuts. Mix well, take off the fire and serve hot with tea or coffee.

Curd Rice

Curd rice is an inseparable part of any South Indian meal. Its a very simple yet delicious comfort food. This is a dish that is usually eaten after the main meals. One of my friend requested for this recipe, so here you go..

Ingredients:

100 Gms cooked rice (boiled)

2-3 Tbsp of curd/ yogurt (use Greek yogurt for richer taste)

1/2 Red onion (finely chopped)

1-2 Green chillies (finely chopped)

Few coriander leaves (finely chopped)

For seasoning:

(All of these below ingredients can be found in any Indian grocery store)

2 Tsp oil

Few curry leaves

1 Tsp mustard seeds

1 Tsp Urad dal (This is a type of lentil white in colour)

1 dry red chilly

Pinch of salt

Pinch of asoefetida (hing)

Method:

Mix the boiled rice and curd together, to that mixture you add the chopped onion, green chillies and the fresh coriander leaves. In a pan heat the oil and add all the seasoning ingredients and fry for a minute (be careful as the mustard seeds will splatter once you add them to the heated oil, so cover the pan as you do so). Now add that to the curd rice. Mix well everything, check the seasoning and serve.

Note: If you keep the curd rice for few hours the rice will absorb all the moisture and the curd rice will become dry. You can then either add more curd or a bit of milk to get back the moisture in it.

Chilli Fish

This is an easy and fast recipe to cook. If you are looking for a fish dish with lots of flavour then this could be a good choice. I have used Monk fish but you can use any fish you like.

Ingredients:

200 gm fish (cut into small cubes)

2 Onions (cut in cubes)

2 Green chillies (chopped)

1 Capsicum (cut in cubes)

1 tsp finely chopped ginger

1 tsp finely chopped garlic

3 tbsp tomato ketchup

Salt to taste

1 tsp sugar

Oil for frying

For marination of the fish:

1 tsp ginger-garlic paste

2 tbsp soy sauce

1 tsp red chilly powder

2 tsp cornflour, diluted in little water (cold)

1 tsp lemon juice

Method:

Marinate the fish in the marination mixture for 30 minutes. Heat the oil in a deep bottom pan. Fry the fish pieces for 2 minutes (do not overcook it will make the fish chewy). Do not through the marinated mixture. Now add the chopped ginger and garlic in to the remaining oil. Fry for few seconds then add the onions and the chillies. Now cover and cook till onions are bit soft but not fully done. Now add the capsicum and the marination juice left. Cover and cook for few minutes. Add the tomato ketchup, sugar and salt, mix well, cover and continue cooking in a medium flame for another 2 minutes. Uncover the pan and check for seasoning. If require add sugar and salt to your taste. Serve hot with steamed rice. Enjoy!

Green lentil soup/ Mung Dal

Lentils are source of proteins. There are several types of lentils available in the market and each one of them looks and tastes very different form each other. Today, I am using green whole mung dal for this soup.

Ingredients:

150 Gms green mung dal (soaked overnight)

1 Onion (chopped)

1 Potato pealed and cut into small cubes

2 Cloves of garlic (finely chopped)

2 Tsp ginger (finely chopped)

1 Tomato (chopped)

2-3 Green chillies

1 Tsp cumin powder

1 Tsp coriander powder

1/2 Tsp turmeric

1/4 Tsp red chilly powder

Salt to taste

Oil for frying (2 tbsp)

Optional:

Cube of butter (the dimensions of the cube-> I will leave it your imagination ;))

Cream for garnish

Fresh coriander (handful, chopped)

Method:

The method is quite simple and easy if you are comfortable using pressure cooker. Heat the oil in the pressure cooker, add the ginger and garlic to it and fry well. Now add the onion and fry till golden brown. Add the tomatoes, all the spices and keep cooking for 2 minutes. Now add the potatoes mix well and cook for a minute or so. Make sure all the potatoes are coated well with all the spice and onion tomato mixture cooking in the cooker. Now add the soaked dal to the mixture give it a good stir and then add 300mls of boiling water, add salt to your taste, mix well then cover the cooker and let it cook till 3 full whistle and then turn off the heat. Do not open the pressure cooker immediately let the cooker release the pressure slowly and when its done then open the cooker. Give it a good stir again, check the seasoning and most importantly the consistency of the dal. You can add more boilling water to to make it dilute or boil the dal for few more minutes to increase the consistency. It really depends on you and how you would like it. Add the green chillies now and serve hot with rice or bread of your choice.

You can make it a richer by adding cream and butter before serving the dal. Now how much cream and butter to add? That's really up to you. Garnish with chopped fresh coriander and serve it hot.

Garlic Rice

Well, I am suffering from a terrible cold, and really don't feel like cooking a lot. I remember, when I was a little girl and used to catch a cold, my mum used to make this for me. I loved it because it taste good and now I have another reason to like it because its so easy to make. So, here you go....

Ingredients:

Rice (cooked) take as much as you would like to eat

2-3 cloves of Garlic (cut into pieces)

1/2 tsp freshly crushed black pepper

Ghee/ Butter

Salt (as per taste)

Method:

Simply heat the ghee/butter and fry the garlic. When the garlic is almost done add the crushed black pepper and salt, now mix it with the rice. Eat it hot you will feel good.

Note: You can vary the quantity of the ingredients as per your taste.

Chocolate Cake

Birthday without a cake is unthinkable! So, I thought of baking one and not just any cake its a chocolate and coffee cake. Its a home-made cake so nothing fancy but something made with love and a bit of butter (may be more!!).

Ingredients:

200gm all purpose flour

150 gms butter

3 eggs

150 gms sugar

150 gms dark chocolate

100gms mixed nuts (crushed)

2 tsp coffee diluted in warm water

2 tsp baking soda

Method:

Melt the butter, beat the eggs and add it to the melted butter and continue beating. Now add the sugar and continue beating until the mixture becomes homogeneous. In a separate bowl mix the flour and the baking soda, slowly add that to the mixture and keep beating so that there are no lumps present. Now add the melted chocolate and the coffee in to the mixture and keep beating. I use an electronic hand blender to beat the cake mixture, it comes out well and less hard work!

When you get the consistency (like honey) and the you see bubble forming in you mixture as you stop beating, that means your mixture is ready. Add the crushed mixed nuts to it and mix well. Preheat the oven at 200 degree centigrade, butter your cake tin and pour the cake mix in the cake baking tin. Now place the tin in the centre of the oven and bake for 25-30 minutes. Use a long pin to pierce in the cake, if it comes out clean that means you cake is done, else bake the cake for some more time until its done. You might consider bringing down the temperature as it might result in burning the top surface of the cake. Once cooked, let it cool then serve hot. Enjoy!!

Note:I usually use a 8" tin to bake, because it takes less time to bake and the surface area is big so the cake gets cooked evenly.

Luchi/ Puri

We Bengali's are very passionate about Durga puja. This is our main festival. This goes on for number of days but the most important day during Durga puja is the 8th Day, we call it "Astomi" or "Durgastomi"and one of the things that almost every Bengali eat on this day is Luchi . Luchi or Puri is a actually a deep fried bread made out of plain flour.

Ingredients:

200 gms plain flour

Pinch of salt

Water to knead

Oil for frying

Method:

Mix the salt and the flour well then add 1 tbsp of oil and mix it well in the dry flour. Now add the water in to the flour and knead well to make a dough. Make small balls out of the dough. Now dip the balls corner in to oil and roll it with a rolling pin. This makes the rolling of the luchi easier. Heat the oil in a deep bottom pan. You need to deep fry the luchis so pour enough oil in to the pan. When the oil is very hot fry the luchis one by one. As soon as you drop the luchi in the oil try to remove oil from the top surface of the luchi, so that it can blow up. Fry on both side for few seconds then drain the oil and keep it aside. Serve hot with any curries. As you can see in the picture I have served with Dum Alu.

Suji er halwa (Semolina pudding)

OK! So, I will start with the sweet/dessert recipes. The first one is suji halwa. This is a very easy and quick recipe to make and very tasty as well specially if you have a sweet tooth. So here we go.

Ingredients:

100 gm suji (semolina)

3 Tbsp sugar (or more to match your taste)

100 ml warm milk

Boiling water (as required)

1Tbsp ghee/ butter

1 Bay leave

1 green cardamom

Few cashew nuts

Few raisins

Method:

Dry roast the semolina until the sweet aroma comes out of the semolina and it turns light brown. Remove it from the heat and set it aside. Heat the ghee/butter now, fry the cashew nuts and set aside. Add the bay leave, cardamom to the remaining butter and fry for a while now add the roasted semolina and mix well, then add the sugar, milk and the water and keep mixing until you get a homogeneous mixture stirring it continuously. Now add the raisins and the fried cashew nuts and mix well. Serve hot.

Optional : you can add little bit of orange food colour or a bit of saffron diluted in the warm milk. This will give a different dimension to the dish.

Bengali Meal

This is a special Bengali meal I cooked on a very special occasion.

It was my husband's birthday and I ran out of ideas to get a gift for him.

We Bengali love to eat and I thought what can I do to make a good meal

for his birthday. So I thought of this crazy, yummy idea of presenting

him with a big fat Bengali meal.

Bengali cuisine is too vast and varied that it is physically impossible for

someone to cover the entire breadth of it, however, I tried to cover as many

representative dishes as possible. Also I had to keep in mind that my husband could eat or at least be able to taste all the items I cook J so what I did was picked the items I could get in our local Indian grocery store and cook the meal. It took me two evenings to prepare this meal.

Here is a list of items that I have in the photo above.

1. Bhat (Plain white rice )

2. Phulkopi bhaja (Cauliflower fry)

3. Kumro bhaja (Butternut squash fry)

4. Begun bhaja (Brinjol fry)

5. Alu Bhaja (Potato fry)

6. Ilish maach er dim bhaja (Fried hilsha eggs)

7. Mung dal (Lentil soup)

8. Bhindi Masala

9. Egg Curry

10. Ilish maach er jhal (Hilsa in mustard sauce)

11. Pomfret fish fry

12. Cucumber

13. Red onion

14. Lime

15. Green chilly

16. Kosha mansho (Mutton curry)

17. Chingri maache er malai curry (Prawns in coconut sauce)

18. Semai er payesh (Vermicelli milk pudding)

19. Suji er halwa (Semolina pudding)

20. Chocolate cake

21. Jalebi

22. Misty Doi (Sweet yogurt)

23. Glass of water

Soon I will start uploading the recipes (the ones I cooked) as well.

Upma (Rava)

Ingredients:

100gm semolina (rava)

1 Onion (chopped)

2-3 green chillies (chopped)

1/2 cup mixed veg (you can use the frozen veg)

2 Tbsp peanut

1 Tsp urad dal

1Tsp mustard seeds

Few curry leaves

1 Tsp coriander powder

1 Tsp cumin powder

1 Tsp finely chopped ginger

2 Cups of boiling water

Oil for frying

Salt to taste

Method:

Heat the oil and fry the peanuts. Once the peanuts are done remove them from the oil and keep aside. Now add urad dal, curry leaves (if you don't get fresh use the dried ones), mustard seeds to the remaining oil and fry for a minute. Next add the onion, green chillies, ginger, mixed veg, coriander powder, cumin powder and salt and keep frying until its done. Now add the semolina, mix it well with the veg and add the water. Keep stiring so that it doesnot form any lump. Add more water if required. Cook for another 2 minutes.

Roti / Chapati (Indian bread)

Ingredients:

200gm all purpose flour

Pinch of salt

Water to make the dough

Ghee (optional)

Method:

Mix the salt well in the flour then add the water and make a soft dough. Kneed it well cover with a cling film and set aside for 15-20 minutes. Take some dry flour, make small balls out of the dough, dust with the dry flour and roll it with a rolling pin. Keep dusting with dry flour while rolling. Now heat a pan and place the roti on it. When the bubble appears on top of the roti, flip it over to cook the other side. Now use a dry towel to press the roti to help it puff. you can brush some ghee on the roti when its done but that is optional. Serve hot with any curry.

Jeera Rice (Cumin Rice)

Ingredients:

200gm basmati rice (uncooked)

400ml of boiling water

1 Tbsp Jeera (Cumin) seeds

2Tbsp ghee (or oil)

2-3 Green cardamon

2" long cinnamon stick

2 bay leaves

2-3 cloves

1tsp dry red chilly crushed (optional)

Salt to taste

Method:

Wash the uncooked rice and let it dry. Heat the ghee or oil in a pressure cooker, add all the whole spices and fry for a while. Now add the rice and keep frying for a minute or two. Add water and salt. Stir it well and close the lid of the pressure cooker. Wait till 2 whistles and turn the heat off. Wait till the pressure is release. Serve hot with any curry.

Sunday Morning Pancakes

Ingredients:

100 gms all purpose flour

Pinch of baking soda

Pinch of salt

1 Cup milk

1 Egg

1 Tsp butter

Method:

Melt the butter and add the beaten egg in it and mix well. Mix all the dry ingredients and add to the butter and egg mix. Now add the milk and mix everything well to a homogeneous mixture. Heat a nonstick pan and drop spoonful of the mixture in to the heated pan (no oil or butter required). Cook till the small little bubbles appear on the top of the pancakes. Turn the pancakes and cook the other side. Serve hot with cold maple syrup.

Stuffed Capsicum

Ingredients:

4 Capsicums

1 Cup rice cooked (you can use the leftover rice)

1 Medium onion (chopped)

1 Egg (optional)

2-3 Green chillies (chopped)

1 Tsp of cumin seeds

1 Tomato (chopped)

Handful of green peas

Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Method:

Heat the oil in a pan. Cut of the top part of each capsicum and remove the seeds. Fry them turning frequently for few minutes and then remove from heat. Now add the cumin seeds in the remaining oil (add a bit of oil if required), fry for a bit and then add the onion and the tomatoes and the chopped chillies. Cook till the onions are done, now crack the egg (optional, you can skip the egg if you want) in the pan and mix well with the onions and continue frying. Now add salt, peas and the cooked rice. Stir well and cook for 3-4 minutes and remove from the heat. Now fill the capsicum with this mixture and serve hot.

Raita

Ingredients:

300gm Yogurt (Greek style recommended)

3 inch cucumber cut into small pieces

1 Red onion (finely chopped)

1 Tomato (finely chopped)

2-3 Green Chillies (finely chopped)

Fresh Coriander for garnish

1 tbsp sugar

pinch of salt

Method:

Add the sugar into the yogurt and mix well. Now add rest of the ingredients and mix well. Serve cold with stuffed paratha or biriyani.

Spicy Baked Beans

Ingredients:

1 Can of baked Beans

1 medium sized onion (chopped)

1/2 tsp whole cumin seeds

1/2 tsp crushed dry red chilly

Oil for frying

Method:

Heat the oil in pan. Add all the spices and the onions and fry for a while. Once the onions are done add the baked beans and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add a bit of water if required. Keep stirring so that it doesn't stick at the bottom. Serve hot with toast.

Missi paratha/ roti

Ingredients:

200gm all purpose flour

200gm Besan (gram flour)

Methi (Fenugreek) leaves (chopped)

1tsp Cumin powder

Red chilly powder

Salt to taste

Oil for frying

Method:

Mix all the ingredients well (other than oil) then add water to it and knead it well. Cover and keep for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes knead it again for a minute and then make small balls from it. With a rolling pin roll them, use dry flour to avoid sticking. Heat a frying pan place the paratha on it and cook from both side. Now spread some oil on top of the paratha fry for a bit and then remove from the heat. Serve hot with any curry or yogurt and pickle.

Potatoes in yogurt sauce

Ingredients:

200gms of yogurt (beaten)

3 medium potatoes (cubed)

1 onion (chopped)

2 tomatoes (chopped)

3-4 green chillies (slit in to halves)

1 dry red chilly

1 tsp of panch phoron (a mix of 5 spices)

1/2 tsp of turmeric powder

2 bay leaves

A pinch of asafoetida

2 cardamom

2 cloves

1 small cinnamon stick

1 tsp corn flour (optional)

Red chilli powder (to taste)

Salt (to taste)

Oil for cooking

Method:

Heat the oil in a pan, and add the dry red chilli, panch phoron, bay leaves, cardamom, cloves, cinnamon and asafoetida. Cook for a minute then add the onions and fry till golden brown. Now add the turmeric, salt, red chilli powder, tomatoes and the potatoes and mix well. Cover and cook for 2 min. Now add enough water to submerge the potatoes. Cover and cook it over low heat till the potatoes are done. Now add the beaten yogurt to the potatoes and mix well. Bring it to boil. Serve hot with roti/parathas.