Khichuri of Mung Lentil and Winter Vegetables

Even though I don't really have a sweet tooth and rarely eat sweets I can't restraint myself from tasting পিঠেপুলি! They're always out of this world. The photos are of the simple dinner I made on Poush Sankranti. আমার ভালো লাগে মিঠে খুব যে তা নয়। তাই বলে কি বিনা পিঠে পৌষপার্বণ হয় ?! পিঠে গড়ার এ সংস্কৃতি গর্বের, কদাচিৎ খেলেও, মায়ের হাতের পাটিসাপটা মূহুর্তে শেষ তা সত্ত্বেও। আর, নিজে রেঁধে সোজাসাপটা মুগের ডালের খিচুড়ি একহাঁড়ি, নৈশভোজে, সঙ্গে দিলাম সর্ষেতেলে বড় বড় বেগুন ভেজে। মায়ের একটু হল বিশ্রাম, আমার হল মনের আরাম। © Kanta

Cabbage Curry with Peas

মটরশুঁটি দিয়ে বাঁধাকপির তরকারি

Heat up oil. I prefer mustard oil. Add the potato cubes into it. After the pieces turn golden, add the seasoning: bay leaves, cumin seeds, sliced fresh green chilli, crushed garlic, curshed ginger. This time I didn't have bay leaves and ginger. Add the shredded cabbage immediately. Sir and let it cook.

Above is how the cabbage should be cut. This is the tedious task. I cut it by hand. The rest of the cooking process is simple. Now add turmeric paste and cumin-coriander paste. Stir and mix. Add salt. Cabbage will start releasing water. Add grated tomato and garlic. (I didn't add the garlic in the seasoning but here. )

Mix and add the peas, cover and cook on a low flame. You need to check in between and ensure it has enough water in it and doesn't burn; stir if required. Do this until thoroughly cooked.

Pierogi: My First Attempt

This year I cooked a lot but didn't write much about my adventures in the kitchen. Now on the last day of the year I am trying to put them on my blog. It goes without saying that I'm doing it hastily. So, I am not giving a detailed description of how to prepare them; I believe, everyone already knows. Here are they ready to be cooked:

Yes, I wanted them colourful. I used mashed potatoe and carrot as the filling because I eat plant-based.

Below you can see them after boiling:

And the coloured ones which you can call pierogi-inspired dumplings, if you want to.

And here are the fried ones:

Broad Beans Sautéed and A Very Simple Dinner

Broad bean is সীম /sheem/ in Bengali. It's a very versatile ingredient. You can prepare it with poppy seed paste, make stuffed broad beans or add them in fish curry. Here I am making a very simple side dish to go with rice and dal. I sliced them very thinly and after having heated mustard oil till its smoking point added nigella seeds and fresh green chilli lowering the flame. Then I added the beans and stired and sautéed them. After a few minutes I added my homemade turmeric paste and again stirred to mix it well. And then we cover it. We don't add water and the beans don't release a lot of water. Therefore we keep an eye and stir every now and then. You can see the beans soften, their colour changes and the quantity reduces. Add salt. Usually we add a pinch if sugar but I have stopped adding sugar to my dishes and nowadays add less salt than earlier. Cook it until thoroughly done. It won't take much time at this point. The lentil soup in the picture is musur dal and I used garlic, onion and dried red chili for the seasoning. In addition, you can see, fried pumpkin slices on the plate.

লাউয়ের তরকারি -- Bottle Gourd Curry

This is a bottle gourd.To make a curry, I cut it into very tiny pieces, then after heating some mustard oil in high flame, add the seasoning of sliced fresh green chilli and nigella seeds into it and then add the vegetables and lower the flame. I stir well and ket the vegetable cook for a few minutes on low flame. I add some freshly made turmeric paste and salt and mix very well. Water starts coming out from the vegetable. I add the peas and cover and let it cook. after about six/seven minutes I check. I stir well and add shredded fresh coriander leaves and cover and ket it cook again until it's thoroughly done. The actual cooking time depends on the quality of the gourd. Thus dish has many richer variants. We often add snall shrimps or বড়ি, small , sun-dried lentil cones to it. But this one is the simplest. But curting the vegetable is a lot of work.

Pasta/Ravioli: My First Attempt

This year I did a lot of things for the first time in my kitchen. This was my first attempt to make pasta/ravioli of different shapes and sizes.

The dough us dark coloured because I mixed some raagi powder (finger millet powder) with the flour.

For the filling of ravioli, I made a thick paste of sattu, shredded onion and tomato and fresh green chilli so that everything is totally plant-based.

The final dish was spicy with a lot of tomato puree.

I did the whole process during the night in my small bedroom secretly. We don't really have a baking culture of that of naking continental food and my experimentscare neither vencouraged nor appreciated. How one's personal freedom can be so restricted may be unintelligible by many, especially for those with no experience of how phenomenal parental interference can be in certain cultures. But I hope, I will soon be able to leave soon once again.

Marble Cake: My First Attempt

This Christmas I prepared my first marble cake. I made it very early in the morning when Mom was still asleep. I wanted to start the morning with freshly baked hot cake and also to surprise her.

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