Tamarind Rice (Puliogare)

Puliogare powder and the tamarind sauce: --

Soy-Nuggets Curry

I turn green with envy whenever I catch a glimpse of the variety of transition foods available to my vegan friends abroad. They have vegan cheese, tofurky (i.e vegan turkey), other vegan meats and even vegan fish. I have nothing!!! Not fair! Especially when it is not easy to become a vegan in India! Vegetarianism is common here but Veganism? What is it? Many people don’t even have the word in their lexicon.

I come from a piscetarian community. So, I never had meat as a part and parcel of my regular meals, unlike my friends in the West! And the only meat we sometimes ate at home was chicken. Therefore, giving up meat totally never seemed to me to be a difficult goal. But yes, like everybody else, I sometimes had a craving for non-veg food, though not very often. Soy nugget is the only plant based food, as per my knowledge, that has a meat like texture!

I do not know if soy nuggets are available in Europe or in North America but here it is pretty common.  I can buy them in cardboard cartons in every supermarket or at every local shop and with them, quite often, I make a spicy curry. Below is how I usually do it.

I soak the nuggets in very hot water for about 10 minutes. I add a little salt to that water, too but that is optional. I nuggets become soft and spongy and bigger.

As I let the nuggets stand in the hot water, I skin potatoes and cut them into big pieces, sautee them and keep them aside. I usually use sunflower oil to cook this. If you use mustard oil, it is mandatory to heat the oil up till its smoking point to get rid of the smell. I drain the water very carefully, as much as possible and then add them to the remaining oil and continuously stir and sautee. Soon I add some cumin seeds, two bay leaves, chopped green chili, finely chopped onion, a little turmeric powder, and a little cumin powder. I usually do not use red chilli powder but you can do, if you want it hot and spicy. And black pepper powder, too! “Some like it hot”! (Since the spongy nuggets are quick to soak the oil, you may skip sautéing them but I love oily preparations, especially when at home.) Then I add ginger- and onion paste and stir and mix everything well. It is important that the onion gets cooked very well! After that I add tomato puree and again stir and mix well. Then the potato and water has to be added. If you do not sautee the nuggets, you need to add them as the water starts boiling. Let everything cook for a few minutes. Depending on how thick the gravy you want, you can determine how long you should let it cook. You can also sprinkle some garam masala powder towards the end.

Alur Dom -- A Spicy Potato Dish

"Alu" in Bengali means potato. This is a very popular dish in Bengal. I am so proud that we have so many traditional vegan recipes though the word "vegan" is not known to many. Actually these plant based recipes have been part of our traditional food culture for ages, long before the word "vegan" were coined. But I think only the word "vegan" can describe them perfectly and they reflect that our original food habit was much less to do with meat than it has nowadays.
We prefer to use baby potatoes to prepare this dish but it is fine to use any type of potato. I have posted the cooking procedure earlier also. As I tried to look for it. I found it in my previous blog that I don't work on at the moment. Below I have copied the post from August, 2009.

Papri Chat

In Kolkata food is everywhere! Bengalis are really foody! They love eating out. An evening for shopping is incomplete without some snacking.

This was our snack bar this time, in front of the South City Mall. We went for Papri Chaat, a fast food from northern India. It is vegetarian.
The main ingredient of papri chat is papri, a crispy wafer from white flour and oil.

Our chaat seller starts with sprinkling tomato ketchup on some papris. Then he adds boiled potato and boiled chick peas to it. WE asked him not to add yoghurt, which is another important ingredient.

He also added some chanachur and some roasted pea nuts.Then he garnishes it with thinly sliced coconut and sev and served it to us.

Note: sev is a very thin noodle made of chick pea flour, broken into very tiny pieces. Sev is salty and very crispy.

Papri chat was very spicy for me and probably that is why my stomach did not find it very friendly.

Indian Dinner in Paris

I decided to spend the weekend with my friend in Paris. I cooked this special egg curry and the spicy shrimps for dinner and she got wine for us:

Beef with Pepper

Today I tried my hand for the first time on beef as I cooked my lunchinner (= lunch + dinner, since it was too late for lunch but quite early for dinner).
I mixed pepper, salt, and a little turmeric with the beef, cut in tiny peices and let it stand for about fifteen minutes. I sauteed the beef on olive oil with shredded green chillies and shredded white onion.
After that I added water into it and cooked for some time.
I had it with steamed Basmati rice.
It was tasty but at the same time easy to cook.
I am very satisfied with my f-i-r-s-t beef curry!

Shrimp with Peas

Ingredients:

Shrimp -- 100 gm
Peas -- 25 gm
Coconut -- half of one small
Red onion – one large
Garlic -- a big clove
Salt
Sugar – a pinch
Ginger powder – a pinch
Turmeric powder -- half a teaspoon
Cumin powder -- half a teaspoon
(Use curry-powder if these typical Indian spices are not available.)

Olive oil (or sunflower oil)
Green chilly – one medium
Red chilly powder (optional)
Tomato – one small (optional)

How to Prepare:

Chop 1/3 of the onion into thin slices. Grate the rest.
Shred the chilly and also the garlic.

Grate coconut. Keep it to one side.
Grate tomato. Keep it to one side.

Heat the oil a little and add chopped onion, garlic and green chilly to it.
Sauté till the onion start turning golden.
Add schrimps. (You can add them later also. I prefer frying them a little.)
Now add the spices, grated onion and stir and mix very well.
Now add grated coconut, stir and sauté.

Add salt.
Add grated tomato. Stir and mix well.

Stir and cook for some time.
Add water and the peas. (You can add the shrimps at this stage also.)
Boil till the peas are cooked.

Serve hot with rice.