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.

Vegan Omlette with Sattu Filling

 

I often prepare myself a pancake early in the morning and semolina is my regular ingredient . I make a light batter of semolina adding salt, shredded green chillies, shredded onion, and sometimes a pinch of cumin powder. To make the vegan Omlette above I added cumin seeds and green chillies and a little flour to the semolina, and of course, salt. 

To  make the filling I made a paste of sattu adding salt, freshly shredded onion to it. I don't like hot and spicy but you can add chillies, too, and a little lemon juice, if you want. Also, it tastes good when we add a little shredded coriander leaves, tomato and bell peppers but we don't have our usual supply of vegetables during this quarantine. 

First, I make the pancake cooking it by both sides. I put the filling like in the photo below, roll it and cook it just one or two minutes changing the sides. Et voila! My breakfast is ready. 

Note: sattu is roasted split Bengal gram flour.

মুসুর ডালের বড়া -- Red Lentil Fritters

 During this pandemic our consumption of rice and lentils has increased and that of fresh vegetables has decreased only to ensure maximum physical distancing and isolation. Therefore, we are having red lentil fritters more often than usual.

We had red lentil fritters tonight also. Two days ago I soaked some lentil and made fritters with some of it. The rest was in the fridge. We had to use it up, too. 

This fritter is super easy to make: soak >make the paste> add salt, a little shredded onion and green chillies, a little turmeric powder > stir, stir, stir to mix well > fry. And Voila! No need to deep fry! The only difficult task is to make the paste if you do it manually using the traditional শিল-নোড়া, the two pieces of stones with which Bengali women have been making pastes of almost everything under the sun since time immemorial!! 😅 But I suggest you use a mixer-grinder. Our mixer is kaputt and cannot take it to the shop for fixing unless the infection rate starts reducing. Almost every day we are at the top of the list in daily infections and death. For the same reason I can't get my spectacles replaced; so, Mom did the frying. Two days ago I did it without my glasses but we shouldn't take such a risk since the entire medical service is under tremendous pressure and treatments to other medical conditions are not happening regularly and so, this is not the most convenient time to have an accident in the kitchen. 

The Paste

Soaked Dal on the Flat Stone(শিল)

Instead of onion I prefer adding nigella seeds. I also don't add turmeric powder. 

Make the shapes flat; then the lentil will cook thoroughly though you don't deep fry. We never deep fry lentil fritters. 

It's heavy and oily. I wouldn't give it to very small children. But it tastes simply out of this world and a very common side dish with জল-ভাত /jawl bhaat/ in summer and a popular traditional part of the Iftaar menu as our poet শামসুর রহমান(Shamshur Rahman) reminds us in his poem 'বাংলাভাষা উচ্চারিত হলে': "নানী বিষাদসিন্ধুর স্পন্দে দুলে / দুলে রমজানী সাঁঝে ভাজেন ডালের বড়া"

Red Lentil Soup + Red Lentil Fritters with Rice

Khichuri with Very Little Vegetables

 

This is an example of my quarantine cooking.  Since lock-down started, we are consuming much less vegetables to make, in the beginning, my visit to fresh market, and now the visit of our domestic help to us, much less frequent.  

Today morning I made this khichuri -- the traditional Bengali rice and lentil dish -- with a few ground nuts and a small piece of carrot as you will see the ingredients in the pictures below. 

Usually we use at least the equal amount of rice and lentil and mostly more lentil than rice to prepare khichuri. But today I used relatively less mug lentil since we are having Dal with every meal nowadays. First I roasted the mug in hot wok and then washed it and kept it at one side.

In a separate pan I sauteed carrot, potato and the ground nuts in the seasoning of shredded onion and cumin seeds, adding turmeric powder, salt and coriander powder.

 I kept this at one side and started cooking the mug and rice together in water in a covered pot. I started on a high flame but reduced it as it started boiling. ( I had soaked the rice already for about half an hour ). After the rice and lentil are almost done, I added salt and stirred and mixed well and let it cook for a few more minutes. When both the ingredients are thoroughly done, I mixed the sauteed vegetables and mixed everything well and let it cook until the water dried up. That was it. I had a filling and satisfying meal. 

Cabbage Khichuri (Lentil Rice with Cabbage)

I prepared this in June and took photos but I have the time to post it now.
It is important for me to ensure that I don't spend long time in the kitchen and still have a balanced diet.
So, I often prepare an one-pot dish.

To make this cabbage Khichuri, I cut potato in small cubes and shred the cabbage manually.
I soaked rice, mug (yellow) Dal and musur Dal (red rentil) for about half an hour. You can soak it for a longer time. This yellow lentil is very special. We call it sona mug, a very tiny type of moong, of golden yellow colour. "Sona" in Bangla (Bengali) means "gold". It is not available outside Bengal, at least not easily available. I bring it from Kolkata.

I sautéed the potatoes and then added thinly sliced onions, cumin seeds, one or two dried chillies removing the seeds.

I added the cabbage and let it cook for a few minutes. I then added the spices: turmeric-, cumin- and coriander powder and mixed everything well. It's required to stir from time to time and let it cook without adding water. If you want it a little spicy, you can add a little chilly powder.
Now I added some peas. I get frozen peas from the supermarket near my house.

I have mentioned above that I soaked rice and lentils. Now I drained the water and added it all. Just like earlier, I stirred and mixe everything. And then I added salt and water. I cooked this in pressure cooker. I closed the lid and after six whistles I turned off the flame.
I was very hungry. So, I let the steam out by lifting the pressure. But usually I wait for quite some time and then open the cooker. In the meantime it completely stops sizzling and there is no air pressure inside. You should never try to open the lid of a pressure cooker immediately after removing it from the flame.  If you don't use pressure cooker, you can check progress from time to time and cook till everything is thoroughly cooked.

When I opened the cooker it looked like this from above. Under this upper most layer it wasas really soft.

My First Slider

In Kolkata, food is everywhere. And it is fresh and the price is reasonable.I am actually quite proud of the street food tradition of my city. but, if we want to have burgers, some foreign multinational food chains are, as far as I know, are the only options, which are in my personal opinion, unjustifiably expensive! So, I decided to prepare mini burgers for my sister and myself.
I made the burgers with a little potato and lentil paste. It is a good idea to add soy nuggets. I I added shredded onion, chopped green chilies, salt, a little pepper to it and mixed everything very well. I made it the way I make my fritters. That means, I made round flat shapes out of it and shallow fried them well, flipping sides.
I bought the breads from a local bakery. Since, I haven't yet learnt making vegan cheese, our slider wasn't "cheesy" but that did not lessen the fun!

Dal Seddho

Side dish

Serves two

Very simple recipe.

Ingredients:

Red Lentil (musur dal) – 100 gm

Water

Salt

Green chili – raw

Shredded onion – 10 gm

Mustard oil

How to prepare:

Boil the lentil in water.

The dal boiling

Add salt only after it is thoroughly cooked and soft enough to eat.

Stir and mix the salt well.

Boil till very little of the water is left. I suggest that don’t put too much water right at the beginning.

Add green chili. Depending on your taste, you can also add the chili along with salt.

(I want the chili raw, not partially cooked and softened.)
Add shredded onion.

Dal Seddho

Serve with plain steamed rice.

Traditionally, the lentil, put inside a watertight metal container or in a piece of cheese cloth, tied tightly , used to be put inside the handi (the traditional rice cooker) while preparing rice in it. This is how I have seen my mom and other senior ladies preparing it. When in cheese cloth, it can also be kept in boiling water till the lentil is cooked. 

I find this dal preparation so tasty that I can make it my main course and eat up all the rice on my plate with it. But usually we prepare some small accompaniment, typically some fried vegetables, to go with it.

Here is an example: alu-bean-gajor-bhaja.

Alu-bean-gajor-bhaja.

Serves two.

Preparation time: 10 minutes

Cooking time: about 15 minutes

Ingredients:

Carrot – one, medium

Potato – one, small

Green beans – 50 gm

Alu-bean-gajor-bhaja

How to prepare:

Cut carrot, beans, and a small potato into very small cubes.

Heat the oil.

Add nigella and sliced green chili to it.

Add the vegetables.

Add turmeric. Stir well to mix well.

Add salt.

Stir well. Let it cook till all the vegetables are softened. Stir from now and then.

Serve with dal seddho and steamed rice.

Paat Shaak

If Mom accompanies me, even a day-out turns into a quite nice food experience. Mom is the person who pampered my taste buds the most and actually spoiled them. Now it is not so easy to satisfy them. On the other hand, it contributed a lot to build my food culture.

This time Mom packed chholar dal (chick pea dal), paat shaak (jute leaves), kankrol bhaja (fried yet-to-find-the-english) and rice for lunch, and luchi & alubhaja for snacks.


I am sure you know ‘Jute’ but did you know that you could make curry of tender jute leaves? Jute is ‘Paat’ in Bengali and tender jute leaves that is edible is called ‘paat shak’.


---- Paat Shaak: the green one in the caserole

Ingredients:

Mustard oil
Kalaunji (kalo jire),
Green chille (chopped)
Ginger paste
Paat shaak i.e. tender jute leaves(shredded)
Turmeric powder
Salt
A little water

How to do it:
Heat mustard oil in a kadai till the color looks lighter and the smell goes.
Add a pinch of Kalauji (kalo jire), and chopped green chille
Add a little ginger paste
Add shak (shredded). Stir a little.
Add turmeric powder
Stir a little so that it get mixed well with the shak
Add salt
Stir.
Let it cook. Do not add water now. Let it get fried a little. And stir so as to fry it uniformly.
Add a little water.
Cover with a lid. Let it cook.
Turn off the oven when the leaved are softened i.e. completely cooked and the water it dried. It is a dry preparation Gravy should not be there.

And chholar dal and kankrol bhaja?
And luchi and alu bhaja?

I will tell you later. Bye bye!