পাতলা চিতই পিঠা -- A Porous Rice Flour Pancake

 This is a traditional age-old recipe from the former East Bengal ( পূর্ববঙ্গ) that turned into East Pakistan overnight with India's independence, which became Bangladesh later in 1971. So, East Bengal doesn't exist any longer but East Bengal food culture is alive in India with the  Hindu Bengali community who fled to this side of the border after partition and gradually established themselves in India. And of course it is very much alive in today's Bangladesh. In fact, Bangladesh's hospitality and food is extraordinary. 

This pancake was a snack my Grandmother often prepared for my mother and her siblings to eat after they returned from school.

I have never been to Bangladesh, my ancestors' motherland, where they were the children of the soil since time immemorial. But I want to and I can keep the food culture alive.

I made this yesterday morning with the leftover soaked Gobindobhog rice and mug lentil for the day before. I manually made the paste on the traditional shil-norha, শিলনোড়া ( see the photo below). 

Shil -- the flat stone, Norha -- the small, cylindrical one

The Paste

I added salt, baking powder, shredded green chillies and onion, and more water into it and mixed very well. Beating the batter well is essential, too. The consistency needs to be watery. There can't be any lump left. 

The Batter is Ready

We need really very little oil to make this pancake. Just baste the pan with the oil of your choice. I used rice-bran oil. Pour some batter on the hot pan bearing in mind that the pancake will be very thin. The flame should be medium. Flip and cook both sides. It took about a minute only to cook one side. You will see and understand how long (or how quick) it will take as you do it. 

Note: 1) Traditionally only rice flour is used but I wanted to use up the soaked mug from the previous day. 

2) We serve it with some kind of curry/ meat dish but I was to have only the pancake; therefore I added green chillies and onion. 

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.

ঝাল সুজি -- Savory Semolina

 I often make a savory porridge of semolina for breakfast. Depending on the availability and the season, the vegetables change. Today I added peanuts, too. 

Savory Semolina

Now, below are the photos showing the different stages. Since I have posted the recipe earlier -- the link is at the end of this post -- I am just posting the photos today:

Ready

Mixing all ingredients before adding water

Adding semolina

The vegetables

Usually I add more vegetables. But today, along, with carrot, I added an unusual ingredient: cucumber. This pandemic and quarantine life is making me really adventurous with food! 

The recipe is here:

http://kayhavingfeasts.blogspot.com/2018/07/jhaal-suji-spicy-semolina.html?m=1

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.

Sautéed Okra and Potato

 Sautéed Okra and Potato or আলু ঢেঁড়স ভাজা is a common side dish with rice and lentil soup. It's super easy and very quick. You don't need much oil.

Add long and thin slices of potato to heated oil. In one or two minutes add nigella seeds and sliced green chillies. Stir and add medium cut okras into it. (Okra cooks faster than potato. Therefore, we add the potato first.) Add turmeric powder and salt. Stir and mix well. The flame should not be two high or too low. Stir and cook for some time. Stir to make sure it doesn't burn. You will see the colour will start changing. Cover and let it cook for a few minutes. The reason I can't specify exactly how many minutes because I have been doing it since I don't remember when based on guess and feeling. I keep an eye and check from time to time. Cook it until the vegetables are done. 

I prefer preparing it in mustard oil. But that's not a must. 

We prepare the simple okra and potato curry the same way with the same seasoning. But in the curry the okra is tenderer and practically wet, a little viscous because we use even less oil, put the vegetables right after adding the seasoning in the hot oil, add salt and turmeric and cover and let it cook on a low flame. It is practically steamed. Therefore, while frying, don't cover in the beginning, but only at the end for a few minutes. Many people don't like the viscosity and for them this recipe is an option. 

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.

Ghugni -- a popular Bengali Dish of Garbanzo beans

We call garbanzo beans "kabuli chhola" ". Interestingly "chhola" is "gram" and "kabuli" in Bangla (Bengali) is the adjective of Kabul, the city in Afghanistan and so, means "something related to Kabul/something from Kabul". So, literally, it means, Gram from Kabul. I don't know if garbanzo beans came to us from Afghanistan but it is not the only bean we use to prepare this popular dish, ghugni; we also use Bengal gram, the darker and smaller sister of Garbanzo bean and also, dried peas.
The photo above is the breakfast my mother made yesterday. (I am at my mom's house because my father is undergoing a surgery.) My mother makes this quite often and serves with handmade ruti (the hindi word "phulka" or "phulka Rori" may be familiar to some of you!).

To prepare it, soak the beans overnight and then boil them until thoroughly cooked. Add salt in this process. We use a pressure cooker for this purpose.
Cut potato in small cubes. You can also prepare it without potato.
Heat oil of your choice and  add the potato cubes. Let them fry till they turn brown. Now add the seasoning: dried bay leaves (one or two), sliced green chilies (two to three), half a teaspoon of cumin seeds, finely chopped onion and crushed garlic. Stir everything well and let it dry till the onions turn golden. Now add turmeric- and cumin powder. (IIadd a little confused oriander powder, too, but that's optional). Stir well to mix. If you want tomatoes in this dish, add some, finely chopped, now (yesterday my mother didn't because my father is not suppsed to eat tomato but we sometimes do). If you add tomatoes, now let it cook for some time.
Add the boiled garbanzo beans now. Mix well. You might need to add a little more salt. Add water. Let it boil for some time and let the water reduce. You can also add a little garam masala powder towards the end.

Some like it really hot and spicy. They add some red chilli powder with the other spices. I don't prefer that.

Jawl - Bhaat

Steamed Rice soaked in Cold Water, with Lemon and Fritters

        This is a summer delight! "jawl" means water. "Bhat" means cooked rice. So, literally, it is 'water-rice'.

Jawl-Bhat ("Water Rice"?!!)

          Indian Summer can be deadly, especially if you are outside under the scorching sun for a long time. Even indoors it is not really comfortable. Our entire house is not air-conditioned. We have ceilings fans and we have comforting food! Jawl-Bhat is one example!

To make Jawl-Bhat. I cook steamed rice, drain the starch and then, leave it to cool. Then I add cold water and salt and squeeze a lemon to it and mix everything well. Usually a green chili is eaten with it, too, which I can do without. (My taste buds are rather d-e-l-i-c-a-t-e!)
          Common side dished to go with this are thinly cut and fried potato, lentil fritters and / or onion fritters. You can check my posts for recipes of fritters.

Onion Fritter:-

http://kayhavingfeasts.blogspot.in/2015/08/onionfritter-i-crave-for-fried-food.html

Cabbage Fritter:-

http://kayhavingfeasts.blogspot.in/2013/01/cabbage-pakora.html

       
Plantain Balls:-
http://kayhavingfeasts.blogspot.in/2011/07/kanchkolar-kofta-curry.html

Jawl Bhat and Peaji and Lalshak (red leafy vegetable)

Rigde Gourd With Potato and Nigella Seasoning

Jhinge Alu Kalo Jire Kancha Lonka Phorhon Diye

         This is a traditional, simple and quick recipe and totally vegan. We peel the ridge gourd and potato and cut them into small pieces. Then we heat up oil, (mustard oil traditionally but rice bran oil this time). We add nigella seeds and sliced fresh green chillies and add the vegetables and stir well. WE let it cook for a few minutes and stir as required. Then we add turmeric powder and stir and mix well. Then we cover it and lower the flame and let it cook. We don't need to add water since juice comes out of the gourd. 

         After the vegetables are thoroughly cooked, we add salt and we do not add sugar though traditionally at least a pinch of sugar is added to every dish.

          We mix the salt well and let it cook a little more especially a lot of juice is still there because we eat this with lentil soup and rice and we don't want it watery.

One can also take a little more time and after heating the oil, sautee the potato cubesm keep them separate and then after adding the seasoning add the gourd pieces and sautee well adding cumin powder in addition to turmeric powder. But I like it simple, and more importantly, quick.

Ridge Gourd, whole

Alu-Uchchhe Bhaja

Uchchhe - a Type of Bitter Gourd

             Bitter gourd is commonly translated as Karela (Hindi) / Karala (Bengali, pronounced: kaw-ro-laa) but "uchchhe" is a much smaller and a little round as you can see in the picture below. 

Uchchhe Fresh from Market

      It is quite common in Bengal but I'm not sure if it is much available in other parts of India. Most commonly we shallow fry thinly chopped Uchchhe or boil it whole along with rice when we cook steamed rice.

Potato and Bitter Gourd Sauteed Together Ready to Serve

          To make this dish, we chop the vegetables thinly but not too thin. We heat oil and add "panch forhon", a seasoning consisting of five types of seeds (panch [a nasalised and n not pronounced] = five, and phorhon = seasoning in this context). We add the vegetables and add turmeric powder and stir and mix. We cover the lid and lower the flame and let it cook. Since we cook it this way, covering it on a low flame, we do not need to add a lot of oil. We cook it till tender. We need to check and stir in between. But if you cook regularly you know when to check. When it is almost done we add salt and mix it well and cover it again till done. It is served with steamed rice.

        Traditionally our meals start with something bitter and end with sweets though nowadays we eat neither sweets nor something bitter everyday. But if you cook Uchchhe, you have to eat it first, before putting anything else into your mouth.

Trying Raw Vegan

Salad, Without Dressing!

They said if you eat plant based, you will lose weight! Well, not me! I am a happy fat vegan! I am a master of fritters! I believe food is the biggest pleasure of life (and that is why I have named my blog "Total Foodgasm"!). I never lose weight! Ha ha ha! Who cares! But sometimes this happy fat vegan tries healthier food! Some of my family members eat chicken once in a while but they, also, love raw green vegetables.

So, sometimes, a big plate of mixed vegetables adorn our lunch table.

Just like they acquire loan words from each other's languages as two communities/races come close or interact for various reasons, e.g. political, business etc., they also learn from each other's food culture. But it is interesting how local flavours, ingredients and  food habits modify the original food and customize that for the local taste buds. "Salad" is a Russian loan word in our language but the salad that is available everywhere here has nothing to do with Russian salad; neither it is in any way similar to any type of salads we usually have in other parts of Europe. At every popular street snack stalls in Kolkata, you will get "salad" with your orderd food which is most commonly shredded cucumber and onion mixed together with or without some Kasundi, an age old popular mustard sauce. But, yes, day by day, variety is increasing and more and more shredded carrot and beetroot ate creeping into this "salad"!At home we always had thinly sliced cucumber, tomato and onion neatly placed on a plate. And if you asked for sauce, most commonly you will be served tomato ketchup. Or, I should rather say, if you want some ketchup, ask for tomato sauce. In most food joints you will also find, chilli sauce. 

My personal intention of not adding a dressing is to keep the salad lighter, of less calorie because I can't give up my fritters!

Peajkoli

I am back to writing. I was busy for quite some time with two language courses. I passed my Russian exam with a pyateorka i.e. band 5, the highest band in the Russian evaluation system, which was not easy and I am continuing learning with the final exam ahead in a few months. In addition, I'm brushing up my German and also preparing for a difficult English language test to check whether I have native-like proficiency! So, I have enough on my plate, no doubt! Does that mean, that I didn't have time to cook and my "plate" in its literal sense, was not so full? Not at all! Whatever happens, I make sure that there is foodgasm in my life!
In this post I am going to introduce "Peajkoli", one of my favourite winter vegetables. "Peaj", pronounced with the 'e' nasalised, means onion and "koli" literally means "bud"! Here is how they look like:

I cut these into small pieces, about an inch long or a little shorter, and add potato cut in small cubes, as you can see in the picture and sautee in a little mustard oil. It is fine to use rice bran- or sun flower- or ground nut oil. But if you cook it in mustard oil, don't forget to to heat the oil up till its smoking point to get rid of the odour.
Here is the finished product to go with dal ( red lentil soup) and steamed rice:

Being Innovative with Soups

My First Spaghetti Soup 

I feel, cooking is like painting. You can be as creative as you want. Cooking is also a great stress-buster for me!

Though it is very easy even for a typical piscetarian Bengali to shift to a plant-based diet since hundreds of traditional veg recipes  exist in our cooking culture, handed down from generations to generations, I sometimes try to experiment with continental ingredients, partly because I terribly miss continental food, and partly because nobody can give me unsolicited instructions!

I picked some spaghetti, imported from Italy. My sister brought me some herbs from Germany and I used basil here. I chopped some carrots and onions and made this soup.

First I cooked the spaghetti until half done and kept it aside.

I heated very little oil and glazed the chopped onion in it. then I added chopped carrot and some fresh peas, added salt and pepper, stirred and mixed every thing well and then added water. I let it boil till the vegetables are half done and then added the spaghetti and boiled it a little longer. I don't like the vegetables overcooked. 

I sprinkled some dry basil on it after having removed it from fire.

Nonta pithe

I was always interested in baking but unfortunately I don't have a oven. I am always on the move. I am planning to relocate again. So, I am surely not going to invest in rebuilding my current kitchen. So, I tried to fix my microwave oven. It has the option for baking. This led to a loss of money and time and effort with no positive result. Well, then let's fry these. Back to square one!

I made the dough tomato puree little by little. Besides, I added the usual ingredients of my dough i.e. salt, pepper, a little cumin powder.

I made theses shapes stuffing them with spicy potato mash. You can be creative with the the filling and add vegetables as per your taste.

I got the idea from youtube. There are many videos available where passionate cooks from all over the share their creativity.

You can also make sweet

.

My Carrot Soup When I Feel Cold and Tired!

This is a very easy preparation and perfect to warm you up in a cold snowy evening!
To make this, I heat a little oil, usually sunflower oil, in a cooking pot, add chopped carrot into it and stir from time to time. After a few minutes I add salt and water and let the carrot cook.
After the carrot is thorough cooked, I use an immersion blender to make the soup uniform and smooth.
Then it is ready to eat.
I sprinkle some dried dill- and. basil powder and black pepper powder on it and enjoy.
It has been my comfort food many times as I returned home late after a very long working day. It has given me the warmth I needed after a long walk on a snowy road!

Ruti-Alubhaja

"Ruti" is the Bengali word for Hindi, "Roti" or more specifically' "phulka", the very popular Indian handmade flat bread of wheat flour (ata). I usually prefer it for Breakfast, if I, for a change wake up in the morning and have a breakfast. But in many Bengali families ruti is preferred to steamed rice as dinner and most parts of northern India it is the staple food in major meals, and not rice.
This, ruti with "alubhaja", literally, "fried potato", was my evening snack one day since I was just too hungry to be satisfied with a few fritters with my favourite Darjeeling tea.
In my previous post I mentioned that we love potato and we make fried potato in all shapes and sizes. This alubhaja you can make with relatively less oil because you do not need to deep fry. This time, I peeled potato and cut it into very thin and long slices. I mixed salt and turmeric powder well with the potato and kept it aside for a few minutes. In the meantime I chopped chilli and onion finely. I heated the oil in a korai, the traditional deep and circular, cast iron cooking pot, and added the potato draining the water that came out of it. I immediately covered it with a lid. This makes this alubhaja not crispy but soft, better for ruti. After a few minutes I stirred the potatoes. Stirring from time to time is necessary to make sure that the potato doesn't get burnt, and everytime you cover it after stirring..  When the potato is almost cooked, I added the onion and chilli, stirred and mixed well and again covered ad let it cook.This way the onion will be glazed only. After the potato is thoroughly cooked it is ready to serve.
To make ruti, we make the dough of ata, make small balls of it, dust the each ball in flour and roll it out thinly in round shapes and then bake it on high flame. We traditionally use a thick and almost flat cast iron plan that we call "chatu" in Bengali and "tawa" in Hindi, and a flat circular net like thing made of thick iron wire. The pan/chatu shuld be heated already before we put the rolled out dough on it and after placing it on it reduce the flame to medium and cook till small bubbles start to appear. Then remove the pan from flame and place the half done ruti on the net I talked about above, raise the flame to high and put the net direct on the flame. The ruti will puff up like a balloon. The Bengali word for "phulka" is "phulko" that actually means "puffed up".
I will dedicate a separate post on making "phulko ruti" in near future!

Bratkartoffeln, I miss you!

Potato! Who doesn’t love this adorable starchy darling? Potato is easy and quick to cook, filling and super satisfying to eat!

I have heard that potato is an immigrant in Indian sub-continent. The British brought it in this land and now India is one of the top potato producers in the world. Potato is one of the most popular vegetables in India especially in the northern part. Though in South India also, potato constitutes the main ingredient in many popular dishes like masala dhosa, I feel that it is consumed more in North India. For example, we add a little potato in most of our dishes though we do have some recipes without potato: we add whole round potatoes, if relatively small, or big potatoes halved almost always in our regular meat dishes, we fry potato in different shapes and sizes, we add potato cubes almost in all vegetable curries in our daily meal, alur dom/dom alu – slow cooked hot and spicy potato curry – is almost invariably on the menu in any festive occasion!

When we were small, finely mashed potato was our baby food. I still love it with a few drops of virgin mustard oil and shredded onion.

That evening I was home alone! I was enjoying my own company and watching a movie and suddenly craved for a comfort much to complete the pleasure!

So, I washed and peeled two large potatoes, and cut them into pieces that you can see in the picture here.  I soaked them in cold water for a few minutes, drained all the water carefully. Then I added salt and a little turmeric and a little sugar to the potatoes and mixed everything very well. I left this stand for about 15 minutes. Then I drained the water that came out of the potatoes. I heated mustard oil in a korai (traditional cast iron cooking pot, circular, deep and thick) till the smoking point to get rid of the typical strong smell of it, added the potatoes into the oil, reduced the flame and fried them. After that I sprinkled a little black pepper powder on them and served to myself!

It was total foodgasm for my taste buds!

Soy Nuggets with Vegetables

A local TV-channel was asking for original recipes having soy nugget as the main ingredient for a competition and so much wanted to participate in it.I came up with a few recipes; not all of them were totally plant based, though this one is. Unfortunately I could not participate in the competition since it was not possible to upload the photos on their website. I was very disappointed. I not only put effort to prepare those dishes but I created them, they were the results of my imagination.
Here I have used green bell pepper, carrot, fresh peas and spring onions with soy nuggets.
I put some salt into boiling water, removed it from heat and soaked the nuggets in it. After the nuggets became soft and spongy, I drained the water.
I cut the vegetables in small pieces and heated a little oil in the pan and cooked the vegetables till they are done but not overcooked because I didn't want them too soft. I added just a little water.
Now I added the nuggets in the pan and stirred and mixed every thing together. It was a dry preparation.
I made a paste of tomato, a few cloves of garlic, salt, basil powder that I brought from Germany, and extra virgin olive oil.
I added this paste to the vegetables and soy and mixed everything together and served.
I Germany I often had excellent Italian food and fell in love with pesto. That love inspired me to make this paste. Indian basil looks different and tastes different and we don't make anything similar to pesto with it. In fact I never  consumed it except for one or two leaves with honey in cold winter mornings when I was a child.

Add Carrot to Onion Fritters

Onion Fritter is a very popular evening snack here. But onion is very costly at the moment! We are paying an equivalent to one euro or more for one kilogram of onion. Secondly, I feel that I have vitamin A deficiency! For theses reasons I wanted to add more carrot to my diet and to my onion fritters! Neither am I a big fan of carrot. Nor do I like "healthy" food deprived off oil and spices!

Carrot-Onion Fritter

I have already posted my onion fritter recipe om this site:  http://kayhavingfeasts.blogspot.in/2015/08/onionfritter-i-crave-for-fried-food.html . 

The same process I follow here, too! Only, the extra ingredient carrot, grated,  is added. One can use both onion and carrot in equal quantity or as one desires. 

Here is the mixture ready to be fried:

Grated Carrot+Shredded Onion+Gram Flour Paste

Below are the fritters frying in the pan. Traditionally theses are deep fried. But I made really flat shapes from the mixture above, so I didn't have to deep fry. I just changed the sides so that both the sides are equally cooked.

The Year-End Lunch

Recently my ex-student and now friend visited Kolkata for just a few days. We got the opportunity to see each other after eight long years!

I invited her to have lunch with us. And I cooked!

A Bengali meal usually consists of several courses. The meal traditionally starts with something a little bitter, fried bitter gourd, shukto for example. Usually a lentil soup accompanied by something fried or mashed potato with finely chopped raw or glazed onion and finely chopped green chili or, fried fish is served then. For my friend I fried green beans, cauliflower and potato together to have with rice and “daal”, red lentil soup as the entry course; I did not prepare anything bitter for this lunch.

Then comes some very typical and popular vegetarian dish. For my friend I prepared kumror chhenchki (at the left side of the plate) and alur dom (in the middle). 

The Vegetarian Side-Dishes: Kumror Chhechki, Alur Dom, Alu Kopi Beans Bhaja and  Musur Daal with Rice

Fish is the most popular and the most important food for us. No wonder that fish is often the main course of a Bengali meal, especially of daily meals. For guests, sometimes, we replace fish with chicken or mutton (from goat). We, Hindu Bengalis, usually do not eat beef mainly because it is prohibited in our religion. Even though I am not selective about meat and eat every thing: pork, beef, lamb etc., I do not cook those at home. I cooked chicken this time.

The main course is followed by sweet yogurt (mishti doi) and some sweets like rasogolla. However, we eat every day neither bitter gourd nor sweets and the healthier regular yogurt (tok doi) replaces sweet yogurt. But this lunch ended with pantua and rasogolla. This was the last lunch of the year after all and her visit made it even more special.

Pantua

Rasogolla

Here I am sharing with you the recipes for the vegetarian side dishes.

Musur Daal 

Ingredients:

Red lentil

Finely chopped onion and garlic
Water
Salt

Red chili, dried 

Turmeric powder,

Oil

How to prepare:

Heat the water until it starts boiling. Now add the lentil. Let it cook. You can also use a pressure cooker.

Add salt only after the lentil is completely cooked.

Heat oil in a small frying pan. Add the red chili into it and wait till it starts truning brown. Now add onion and garlic. As soon as the onion starts turning golden, pour all these, including the oil, into the boiled lentil.

Let everything cook together for about 2 minutes.

Musur daal is ready to serve with rice.

Alu Phulkopi Beans Bhaja

Ingredients: (all cut into very small pieces)

Potato (Alu)
Cauliflower (Phulkopi)
Beans
Black caraway seeds (Nigella Sativa)
One small green chili -- sliced
Sun flower oil

How to prepare:

Heat the oil. Add chili and then the nigella seeds. Add the vegetables. Add salt and turmeric powder and stir well so that they mix well with the vegetables. Saute till the vegetables are cooked.

Serve as an accompaniment with daal and rice.

Kumro chhenchki

Ingredients:

Unripe pumpkin,

Turmeric powder

Salt

Dried red chili

Shredded onion

Potato (optional)

Mustard oil (/Sun flower oil)

How to prepare:

Cut pumpkin into small cubes.

Heat the oil. Add red chili and wait till it turns dark brown and then add shredded onion into it. Wait till the onion turns golden.

Add the pumpkin to it. Add salt and turmeric powder. Stir a little. Then let it cook.

Alur dom

This recipe is shared here when I started blogging:

http://letterwoods.blogspot.in/search/label/Potato since I had not started my food blog yet!