Hoi Pulao

I am not a great one for celebrating every Bengali festival under the sun. In fact, I find the Bengali baro mashe tero parbone (13 festivals in 12 months) tradition downright tiresome. However, if you're staying away from home, you tend to experience the typical expat’s zeal for observing every date on his or her native culture calendar. And so it was that I decided to celebrate Poila Baishakh, the first day of the Bengali New Year, by cooking a few special dishes. And, needless to say, eating them. Pabda Maachher Jhaal is an eternal favourite in Bengal. The fish has a distinctive taste, no bones (barring the central one), and tastes absolutely smashing when cooked in a simple mustard sauce. However, this is one fish I don't cook too often. Mainly because frying it is fraught with danger — it sputters and sets off minor explosions when placed in hot oil. Frying Pabda and escaping unscathed is basically a function of superhuman agility and dumb luck. You ...

The other day we went to this restaurant called Pot Belly. The name was endearing enough. But what intrigued me was that its USP was Bihari cuisine. Now, I would not have described myself as insular, but the fact is that though I am from Bengal, and Bihar is a neighbouring state, I was completely unaware that Biharis have a distinctive culinary repertoire. Anyway, so off we went to the newly opened Pot Belly outlet at Bihar Niwas in Delhi’s Chanakyapuri area. Browsing the menu itself was a delight. There was the commonly known Bihari staple of Litti chokha (whole wheat balls stuffed with sattu and served with aubergine mash and potato mash), of course, but also a whole lot of other gorgeous sounding dishes such as Fish Chokha on Marua Roti (Fish paste served on crispy buckwheat pooris), Pothia Machhli Fry (Small deep fried fish serve with hot banana chips), Dana Jhamarua Thali (Aubergine and potato in a mustard gravy served with rice flour rotis stuffed with spiced poppy seeds), ...

What’s your most favourite Italian dish? After the pizza, I mean. If you're not a food snob and wont to drop names like “Zabaglione” (which is quite a sublime dessert, by the way) or “Saltimbocca alla Romana” (a delectable veal concoction), likely as not, you will say it’s spaghetti Bolognese. It’s simple, it’s hearty, and it’s available everywhere — which also accounts for its popularity. Unfortunately, in India at least, the spaghetti Bolognese is a much abused dish. It often tastes a lot like spaghetti with keema curry, or spaghetti with minced meat groaning under an overwhelmingly sour tomato sauce. I can tell you about a horrendous spaghetti Bolognese I had at Calcutta’s Bengal Club a few years ago. The so-called Italian restaurant there was being managed by an outfit called Don Giovanni at that time. It was an oily, spicy, minced meat sauce served with tough, underdone pasta. It was nothing short of an abomination.  So anyway. Here’s my recipe of spaghetti Bologn...

It was Saraswati Puja yesterday — my first since I moved to Delhi. In between setting up house, settling down and finding my feet at work in a new city, I haven’t managed to do much cooking for pleasure lately. Saraswati Puja is a special day, however, a day redolent with childhood memories. Memories of the Puja at my aunt’s house, of my mother draping me in a small-sized “ basanti ” (yellow) saree, which invariably came unstuck after a couple of hours. Of murmuring “Jaya Jaya Devi Charaachara Shaare…” before the resplendent idol. And most of all, of the glorious food that was to be had after the puja was done. There was khichuri and begun bhaja , luchi , kheer , kuler aumbol , murir moa , khoiyer moa … Since my Mom’s family came from east Bengal, there was also the delightful ritual of jora ileesher biye , followed by lots of dishes featuring the peerless fish. The chilly winter morning in Delhi yesterday brought back those memories sharply. I longed for the airy luchis , ...

I bought some mutton yesterday. This morning I was all set to cook a nice, spicy, archetypal Sunday-lunch-mutton-curry. But the weather made me indolent. The day was cool and rainy and I longed to finish the business of cooking quickly and curl up with a book. I simply didn’t relish the idea of spending a long time in the kitchen frying masalas. And putting in the hard labour of frying the mutton in it.   So I settled for a mutton stew. Serendipitously, some rajma was soaking overnight. I also jettisoned last evening's plan to cook a rajma dish and instead, bunged the stuff into the mutton. This one’s dead simple to do and absolutely delicious to taste – a lovely, fragrant mutton broth that comes out tops on wholesomeness too. Mutton Stew with Rajma Ingredients 750g mutton pieces 200g rajma beans soaked overnight 2 onions roughly chopped 1 tomato chopped 3 cups mutton or chicken stock 1 inch piece of ginger cut in juliennes A few cloves o...

I always look upon the passing of peas with sadness. I mean, when winter ends, spring is also on the wane and peas -- so sweet and tender in season – take on that hard, grassy, rather woeful, taste. Fresh green peas do lend an extra dimension to the winter table. I tend to put them in virtually everything – have them with other veggies like cabbage, cauliflower, potatoes… Make a pea soup, put them in a veg au gratin… Then there are the staples like matar paneer and keema matar – wonderfully familiar and superbly tasty when made with fresh seasonal peas. But the most glamorous dish made with peas has got to be karaishutir kochuri – Bengal’s brand of puris stuffed with peas. It takes me back to my childhood in a trice. The yummy high points of winter were always my Mom’s karaishutir kochuri and gajorer halua (that’s gajar ka halwa  to all you non-Bongs). I loved the colours – the green of the kochuri and the red of the halwa – the one savoury, the othe...

If you ask me what’s my most favourite food in the world, I shall reply: fish. Really, there’s no fish that I don’t like. Fish and seafood. Happily, Bengal’s culinary tradition is replete with a fantastic array of fish preparations. Not so happily, seafood, with the exception of prawns, tends to get short shrift in our cuisine. There’s the kankra jhal (spicy crab curry), yes, but look for dishes that feature clams or mussels or squid, and you’ll draw a complete blank. What’s worse is that you won’t find these things in the supermarkets or even the big markets here. So when I want to cook a seafood chowder – a dish I love because it’s so tasty and wholesome and is in fact a complete meal – I am forced to leave out the clams and mussels and resort to good old prawn. I add some fresh white fish too – preferably, bekti. This is not the classic seafood chowder, no, but what the heck, it tastes great even without them clams and other bits of seafood. Indeed, it's on...