Making Overripe Banana Palatable

 Nobody likes overripe banana, right? 

 I had only one small banana left. Its skin started turning black.  Nobody  can guess from the photo but inside it just started to become very soft. Usually I throw it if the skin is totally black but during this difficult time of pandemic getting fresh fruits and vegetables are not easy; I can't simply go out and get fresh and new things. So, we are not throwing out anything. Pandemic has changed our lifestyle.

Early this morning I manually made a paste of yesterday's leftover soaked Gobindobhog rice and golden mug Dal for preparing a special traditional East Bengal pancake. I used some of this paste to make my overripe banana palatable. 

Banana Coins Coated in Rice Paste and Semolina

I cut the banana into small round coins and dipped them in the thick rice and mug paste and coated them with semolina. Then I sautéed them in very little oil. I removed them from the frying pan as they started being golden brown on both sides. They were super crispy outside and very soft inside.

I didn't add sugar to the rice paste batter but you can if you want it sweet. I don't have a sweet tooth. So, for me the banana itself was sweet enough.

Sago Pearl with Mug and Rice -- Raw Vegan Lunch

 

 We decided to have a no-cook meal today. 

And to prepare this meal we need a special type of all the ingredients. Simply any rice or any Mug (a type of yellow lentil) or any type of sago pearl won't do. Here are a few words about the main ingredients:

Gobindobhog rice or গোবিন্দভোগ চাল is a small grain, aromatic rice,a indigenous produce of certain districts of West Bengal. West Bengal has the geographical indication tag for it. 

Sona mug or সোনা মুগ is a very small and bright yellow type of the mung bean (Vigna radiata) or green gram. I had difficulty to find this in the cities of Western India where I lived for years and I used to pack some to take with me each time I visited my Mom in West Bengal. সোনা মুগ gets this name because of its bright golden yellow colour. It's also very tiny. 

The sago pearls or সাবুদানা we, Bengali people, traditionally consume has very tiny particles. It is usually a baby food or used in diets for elderly or sick people. Tapioca pearls are an alternative which produced in large scale industrially and is cheaper. 

দানা in Bengali means "grain" or "particle". 

We soaked Gobindobhog rice, sonamug Dal and the smallest type of tapioca pearl for about five hours. Then all these are very soft. I mashed two small ripe bananas with these ingredients and took one date with it. But I suggest you add sugar also. And you can add more bananas and jaggery. The quantity of rice was much less than the lentil. I guess I took about two tablespoons of mug and one tablespoon of rice. I always take according to my guess, experience and choice. My Mom took more rice. But I liked it this way. There's no hard and fast rule. But rice should be taken just a little since it is uncooked. 

Before soaking, please rinse thoroughly. Washing the ingredients with drinking water is important. Soak the three ingredients in separate containers.

This meal was totally without oil. 

This is not a diet for small children.

Taler bora: Sweet Fritter from Ripe Sugar Palm Fruit

Taler Bora -- Sweet Fritter from Ripe Sugar Palm Fruit

Palmyra palm or sugar palm (Borassus flabellifer), is very common in our region and we make a delicious fragrant sweet dish from the ripened sugar palm fruit. We can call it sugar palm sweet fritter. My mother makes it every season and we help her.

We remove the outer black husk and get this. These are the fibrous kernels of the ripe fruit.

We rub this on a grater and this fragrant yellowish pulpy substance comes out. 

We add sugar or jaggery (non-centrifugal cane sugar from sugar cane or palm sap) and ripe and soft banana into it. Adding banana is optional and it has to be much less in quantity compared to “tal”. (You can also add grated coconut.) Then everything is mixed very well. Now this mixture is too soft to give it a shape. So, rice powder is slowly added and mixed until we get the required thickness. It is also quite common to add refined wheat flour (Maida) but my mother and grand-mother prefer rice powder to it.

Then we make flat and round shapes by hand and deep fry. You can also shape it like round balls. To fry, we usually use sun flower oil. 

Traditionally, Atap rice used to be soaked and then ground using “shil-norha” at home. "Shil - norha" are basically a set of grinding stones very similar to mortar and pestle. "Shil" is bigger, flat and not moved. The spices, or rice in this case, are placed on it and ground moving the "norha" on it, sprinkling water every now and then. The result is a thick paste. “Atap” is a Sanskrit word that means “sun (sunrays/sunlight)” or “heat”. We get “atap” rice by husking sun-dried paddy.  Nowadays we buy ready made rice powder from local shops. We eat less rice/ rice items nowadays and we no longer stock Atap rice at home. We still have shil-norha but it is rarely used. Mixer-grinder is the more efficient replacement for our generation. 

Taler bora is a must-have for the Hindu religious festival of “Janmashtami”, the birthday of God Krishna, celebrated in the month of Bhadra ( pronounced “bhaadro) of Bengali calendar.

Bannana-Yoghurt-Honey

One Year Completed in Germany

Yesterday was the day. Last year on Nov. 6 I reached Germany.
And this is how I am celebrating: I have prepared sweets for those who made my life enjoyable and successful in Germany.

Here is halwa (of semolina, almond and a lot of butter since I did not have ghee here!)

And the one below is made of fresh cottage cheese and carrot.


It took me eight hours from starting from scratch till packing the end-products in the fridge. Even the cheese I made myself. I am tired but very happy. Now I will try to sleep for a few hours before I set off for work taking these late night creations with me.

Gerlingen Street Festival

Gerlingen is a beautiful village about 15 kilometers away from Stuttgart. This weekend Gerlingen celebrated its 32nd street festival. One of my seniors grew up there. They were to sell mainly east Asian food that they made at home (spring roll, for example)in this fest. The fest took place from Saturday 15:00 till midnight and again the next Sunday till 18:00. (I do not know when exactly it started on Sunday but I am sure much before my day began. I woke up at 11:30.)The spring rolls I had for my brunch. On Saturday I took the U-Bahn from Stuttgart after our hat party and reached Gerlingen at about 22:30 because I wanted to see the fest at night too. I had chicken nuggest as dinner. This was more like a family fest. Local people participated through sports clubs or similar local organisations. Most of the things were home made. People knew each other and said hallo to each other. I was probably the only person who looked like a real tourist. Spring roll and chicken nuggets were not new for me since those are quite popular in Kolkata, too. So, I did not take photos of them even though I enjoyed them. They were sold at a real low price.

But these turkish sweets were new for me. I tasted only a few of them.








There wete sausages, beer, potato salad, pommes frittes, as usual. There were different types of wines, old and new, from Baden-Wuerttemberg. There were Hungarian delicacies. I had my first gulash here.

Sujir Payesh

Friends for Dinner and My First Narkol Naru

Instructions via a few international phone calls to Mom in India and ingredients of wonderful quality from German supermarket made it possible.The result was a super hit. I prepared my first in life narkol naru --tiny coconnut balls, Kokonussbaellchen!
I am so happy that my friends enjoyed it. It was for them.




Ingredients:
Grated coconut
Sugar
Cinnamon (powdered)
Water(very little, not needed if you can grate the coconut at home)

How to make it:
Mix the ingredients very well.
On a low flame cook it by continuously stirring it until it gets a little sticky.
Let it cool down a little.
Make small balls.

Important:
1) Do not overcook. If it becomes totally dry, it will not be possible to make balls.
2) Make the balls before it becomes cold. When it is cold, it is too tight to give it a shape.

This weekend we ate a lot! We ate out, I tried new things at home, I cooked typical bangali dishes, too.

This was our Sunday morning dessert.
I made it with creme, mango, honey, and chocolates!

My St. Nicolas Day!

Today is December 06. St. Nicolas Day!
On the 5th children are supposed to leave shoes outside their doors. At night St. Nicolas comes and leaves gifts for good children.
Now see what he has left for me.




And why is this super-cutie on my food blog?
Heh heh he! I did not understand that he is made of chocolate before seeing this:



Too cute to eat! Isn't he?

Kolar bora

Kola means banana. I would like to translate this as ‘banana sweet pakora.’

Ingredients:
Five big bananas
Half a coconut (medium sized) – finely grated
Sugar (according to your taste)
Cardamom 5/6 crushed/ powder, even better
Cinnamon powder – 2 pinches
Sunflower oil (Virgin coconut oil can also be used.)
Flour, to make the mixture tight. (according to the requirement)

How to make it:
Mash the bananas into a fine pulp.
Add coconut, cardamom and cinnamon powder, sugar. Mix very well.
Add flour and mix it by continuously stirring to prevent the flour from forming lumps.

Now heat the oil in a frying pan.
Take the mixture in a teaspoon and dip into the oil.



Fry by turning it from one side to another until it is golden brown.



Enjoy your snacks.