Something About Shukto On A Dark, Dismal Day…

It wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be a cookbook-writing Bengali. I was supposed to have my own cooking show. I was meant to sign my cook books. I was supposed to look all fab, and flaunt my manicured nails while chopping onions on television. I was meant to look like a Bengali version of Goddess Nigella, in lal-parer sari and sindur’er teep.

But here I am. working 8:30 to 5 pm.Taking the subway home each day from the financial district of TO. If I am lucky, I can get into the first train that arrives on the platform while I am waiting. Waiting with the hundreds of people on the downtown subway station. Everyone looks the same. In a hurry. Dressed in black. Tired. Withdrawn. Like workdogs, who are only trained to well…work! I have become one of them. I am one of them.

I dress in black, not because it looks classy, but because its easy to dress in. And it also makes me look slim.

Its another thing that three-fourths of my wardrobe is black.

And then I see color peeking through the dark clouds and the dark clothes all around me. Vibrant, luscious, beautiful colors in the ingredients of Shukto. Green, white, purple, yellow, and some more green.

Shukto or Shuktoni is a medley of fresh vegetables. It has the perfect balance of bitter, sweet and savory. A food very sophisticated and time taking to cook. Its always made from scratch in Bengali homes. Its a starter for many memorable meals. This dish is made to be mopped clean with rice. Eat the shukto and rice with your hands and experience manna-like experience down here on Earth. Incredibly enough, the Shukto is personally satisfying and it has been on my agenda to share it with you.

Its a pretty engaging recipe with several vegetables and ingredients. But the key ingredient for traditional Shukto is bittergourd or karela and a whole spice blend we call paanch phoron - fenugreek seed, Nigella seed, cumin seed, celery seed and fennel seed in equal quantities. Apart from the usual ginger paste, posto paste and yellow mustard paste.

 

For this dish, Bengalis typically use easily available vegetables in the Summer season. I have used uchche (bittergourd), sheem (broadbeans), shojne data (drumsticks), begun (Oriental eggplant), alu (potato), potol (parwal, sorry I do not know the English name!), lal alu (sweet potato), and mulo (radish).

On another day, if I do not find any of the green vegetables in the Bangladeshi store, I’d replace it with borboti (longyard beans), or kanch kola (green banana). But uchche is a must! Anyone cooking THE Shukto without bittergourd is not really a Shukto.

 

Ingredients for Shukto

1 large bittergourd, cut lengthwise into two inch pieces

1 large white potato, cut into two inch large sticks or Batonnet

1 medium size sweet potato, cut into Batonnets

Handful of fresh drumsticks, cut into two inch pieces

1 plump Oriental eggplant, cut lengthwise into two inch pieces

Handful of broadbeans, halved if large

Handful of longyard beans, cut into two-three inches

1 small radish, cut into Batonnets

Handful of potol, cut into two inch pieces

2 tablespoons poppy seed/posto paste (Start by dry grinding posto seeds and then add water little by little to make a smooth but thick paste)

2 tablespoons yellow mustard paste (Follow the process mentioned above)

2 tablespoons ginger paste

2 tablespoons roasted panch phoron powder (dry roast the panch phoron on low-medium heat and make a coarse powder)

1 and a half tablespoons whole panch phoron

Handful of bhaja bori (I did not have it, and hence skipped adding)

2-3 bay leaves

Sugar

Salt

Ghee for cooking and garnish

Start by heating ghee in a kadai/thick wok/pan. Add the bittergourd pieces and shallow fry for a 3-4 minutes till they get coated with the ghee, remove with a slotted spoon and keep aside. Now add each type of vegetable in no particular order and shallow fry them and keep. Do not be lazy and mix all of them together for shallow frying. One at a time. That’s how Grandmothers and Mothers made Shukto! Even the ones who worked outside.

Once all the cut vegetables have been shallow fried, mix all of them in the same wok and cook together for 3-5 minutes with sugar and salt.

Now add the posto-ginger-mustard paste and coat all the vegetables nicely. Let the vegetables cook on medium heat in their own juices. Add very little water if the moisture is drying up. The consistency of Shukto should be makha-makha, or thickish. The three different paste used eventually make the dish quite thick. Check the taste, and adjust sugar and salt. The vegetables should have cooked through but not mushy.

In a small butter pan, heat ghee and add the bay and the whole panch phoron. Once the seeds crackle, add the garnish to the vegetables cooking. Mix everything well and turn the heat off.

Just before serving the Shukto, add the dry roasted panch phoron powder and the (already fried) crushed bhaja bori.

Serve warm with gorom bhaat/rice to start a traditional Bengali meal. I usually sit there with a smug look on my Nigella Lawson-like face as I see my guests savor the delicate flavors of a traditional Shukto, often asking for seconds. I am pretty pleased with my Shukto outcome - juggling between a job, a kid, the kid’s dad, and living in a country called Cantartica!

Dimer Dalna, Bengali Egg Curry

The Dimer Dalna is every Bengali mother’s answer to those nights when her pantry and fridge are gaping emptiness. That’s when all she can think of is doling out a quick egg curry to maintain that non-bhej dinner tradition at home. The Dimer Dalna is also a preferred quick something by the cash-strapped bachelor who has called his Mother and painstakingly written down the recipe of Dimer Dalna for those days and nights towards the end of the month.

Dimer Dalna has immense possibilities. It can pass off as a non-vegetarian dish and even fool a hard core fish-eating Bengali. And may I add that a simple meal of Dimer Dalna-bhaat after a day of rich and heaBy Bong eating is like manna from heaven.

Ingredients for Dimer Dalna/ Bengali Egg Curry are:

6 hard boiled eggs (two per person; chicken eggs are mostly used, but if you find duck's eggs {haasher deem} during winters, try them too)
3 boiled potatoes, peeled and halved
1 medium size red onion, very finely chopped
1 large ripe tomato (the riper the better), coarsely chopped
Half cup green peas
2 tablespoons ginger-garlic paste
Handful of freshly chopped coriander, stems and leaves
1+1 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin powder
1 teaspoon coriander powder
1 teaspoon finely ground garam masala powder (cloves, cinnamon, cardamoms)
2 bay leaves
3-4 tablespoons Mustard or Canola oil
Sugar
Salt

Heat mustard oil in a pressure pan, add the eggs and half teaspoon turmeric powder. Fry the eggs on high heat till they get coated with the turmeric powder and get a light brown color on the outside. Remove with a slotted spoon. In the same oil, add the halved potatoes, add half teaspoon turmeric powder, coat well on the potatoes, till they get light brown, remove and keep with the eggs.

To the oil, add the bay leaves, sauté for a few seconds and add the chopped red onion.

To get a good color on your onions, you can add a pinch of sugar, let it caramelize and then add the onions. Fry the onions till they get lightly browned. Now add the ginger-garlic paste, the remaining turmeric, red chili, cumin and coriander, salt and a little pinch of sugar. Cook covered for about 4-5 minutes. Now add the coarsely chopped tomato. Mash the tomatoes with the back of your spatula to release all its juices. Cook covered for 3-4 minutes on medium heat. Now add the green peas and a cup of water to this mixture and cook on medium heat, covered for 4-5 minutes, till the raw taste of the ingredients is gone.

Check the seasoning, and adjust at this point. Now add the eggs and potatoes, mix well with the rest of the ingredients, taking care not to break the eggs. Cover the pan, and cook till you have a thick gravy. You can also cook this mixture in a pressure cooker and have one whistle go off after you have added the eggs and potatoes.

Turn the heat off and add the garam masala powder and freshly chopped coriander.

Serve with plain rice or chapati.

P.S. A very useful tip of making egg curry is by adding the eggs and potatoes in a leftover gravy of chicken curry. Try it, it never fails you.

Doi Maach

New beginnings in Bengali homes usually feature fish! It’s tradition.

So after a hiatus of three months I am back to writing a new post. Let me clarify, I was never out of action (from the kitchen), but what I cooked in the last three months was nothing to write about!

For those who are wondering about my inadequacy at updating a Blog which has evolved as a way of life for me, I have news! I gave birth to a beautiful (Yes, I am biased!) girl about a month ago. She is exactly 27 days old today, and already has a way with her eyes. She uses them to blackmail her parents. I have a feeling she will pout, purr and use other girlie ammunitions for extraction in the future. Just like her Mommy does.

So while my daughter takes her baby naps, I sneak into the kitchen and do a much-asked dish – the Doi Maach. Bengali for fish (it’s always Rohu) cooked in yogurt. This is a traditional Bengali dish which has found its way to weddings and occasional feasts. It often stands out for its silken texture and a balanced sweet, savoury and sour taste. And if you are lucky, you might even find plump raisins in the gravy!

Essentially pieces of raw fish are introduced in the yogurt sauce once its cooked. However, many who do not like the idea of “raw” fish prefer to lightly fry the pieces of fish before they are dunked in the sauce. It’s also important that you choose the right pieces of fish – preferably the gada or the pieces from the back of the Rohu. Ask your fish monger and he will know!

Ingredients for Doi Maach are:

5-6 gada pieces of Rohu fish
6-7 tablespoons plain yogurt, whisked with half a cup of room temperature water
1 medium red onion, finely chopped
2 tablespoons ginger paste
Half tablespoon garlic paste
10-12 raisins
2 bay leaves
2-3 black cardamoms
2-3 green cardamoms
1-2 sticks cinnamon
4-5 cloves
2 tablespoons ghee
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 heaped teaspoon red chili powder
Sugar
Salt

Heat ghee in a thick pan and add the whole spices – cardamoms, bay, cinnamon, cloves with the onions. Sauté till the onions are transparent. Add the raisins at this stage.

Now add the ginger, garlic, red chili powder and turmeric and cook everything till lightly coloured. All on low-medium heat.

Turn the heat to the lowest gas mark and gradually add the yogurt. Make sure you continuously mix the ingredients as you add the yogurt.

It takes about 15-20 minutes of slow cooking, the pan covered all the time to cook the sauce.
You will know when you see the oil bubbling at the sides of the pan. That’s when you know that the gravy is ready. Season with sugar and salt and gently slide in the pieces of fish. Make sure you are using an open-face pan to give you enough room to move around the fish.

It takes about 8-10 minutes for the fish to cook through in the sauce. Do a last taste test and see if the Doi Maach has the right balance of taste. Remove from heat. Its best served with plain white rice.

Maacher Muro Diye Mugger Daal

We are not a family of werewolves. We are Bengalis. A community which is known to eat fish in all its forms and with all its parts. Including the coveted head.

Maacher Muro with Mugger Daal is a big fish head (usually Rohu or Katla) cooked with yellow mung dal. Its a wedding and special occasion tradition.

My father taught me how to work my way into a fish head. The process is meticulous and requires some patience. The eyes and the brain of the fish are the most sought after. They say those are the best parts of the fish head, good for eyesight and the brain. That explains all the Bongs out there with exponentially celestial cerebral equity. Its the fish head, I tell you!

This recipe is my Mother’s of course, and I have re-created it in my kitchen out of greed. That insatiable desire to dunk my hand into a bowl of dal and fish out (pun definitely not intended) a big piece of the head.

Just as the Muro Diye Mugger Daal is here, brimming with flavors and the taste like that from an outside world, I am reminded of a little story my Father always loves to narrate. How he never got a chance to eat the Maacher Muro in his wedding feast. Reason? He was too shy to break into the big fish head when my Mum’s relatives laid out the feast for the new groom. And some benign lady apparently in some kind of hurry, thought it was wise not to embarrass the notun bor with a fish head and took the big Rohu muro away while my Father looked at it longingly. This happened exactly 36 years ago, but the vividness with which he re-tells this incident is still fresh and funny!

Ingredients for Maacher Muro Diye Mugger Daal are:

For the fish head:

1 big fish head (Rohu or Katla) cut into half, cleaned and washed
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
Quarter cup mustard oil
Salt

Smear the head with the turmeric and salt. Heat the oil until smoking and fry the fish head – about 3-4 minutes on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep.

For the dal:

1 cup yellow mung dal
2 tablespoons ginger paste
4-5 green chilies, slit lengthwise
1 teaspoon heaped red chili powder
1 teaspoon heaped turmeric powder
3-4 bay leaves
2-3 black cardamoms
2-3 green cardamoms
1 stick of cinnamon
5-6 cloves
3-4 tablespoons desi ghee
Sugar
Salt

In a pressure pan, dry roast the dal till golden brown. Do this on low-medium heat and babysit the dal so that it doesn’t burn. Remove and keep aside.

In the same pan, heat the ghee and add the bay, cardamoms, cinnamon, cloves and the green chilies. Sauté for a couple of minutes and add the dry-roasted dal.

Mix the dal well with the whole spices and the ghee. Add the ginger paste, turmeric and red chili powder.

On medium heat, mix together all the ingredients. Add the fried fish head and mix again. Let this cook for about 3-4 minutes till the fish head starts disintegrating into the dal and spices.

Use your spatula to give the fish head a helping hand. Add two – three cups of water and simmer. Season with sugar and salt.

Cook the dal till done, but not mushy. I would say about 15-20 minutes, covered all the time. If you see the water drying up too soon, add some more.

This dal will not be runny and have a thick consistency, more so because of the fish head added to it. The head would have now broken down quite a bit and you will see it mixed well with the dal and spices. Do a taste test and add sugar and salt if needed.

The Maacher Muro Diye Mugger Daal usually starts a lot of meals. Serve it with rice, crispy alu bhaja, and a wedge of Gondho Lebu and you will have a meal fit for a queen or a king! Follow it up with this or this. A meal like this usually ends with a bowl of chilled Payesh.

Nolen Gurer Payesh

Friday is Sankranti, which means its time to get Nolen/ Notun/Khejur Gur and keep a flickering tradition alive. The winter sun is at its glorious best today, it reminds me of my younger days in India, when my parents would get this famous date jaggery, Bengalis lovingly call Nolen Gur.

We would wait in anticipation when my Grandmother and Mum would get busy in the kitchen, breaking the gur down for sweet winter delicacies - pithe, puli, and payesh. All that is a thing of the past for me now.

What remains now, is just a taste in my mouth, and thankfully its not bitter. Its the smoky, sweet taste of Khejur Gur.

All I have today is a bowl of Nolen Gurer Payesh sparkling in the afternoon sun to remember my past and some forgotten traditions. And I’d like to share it with you…

Ingredients for Nolen Gurer Payesh:

1 liter half and half cream/full cream milk
3 tablespoons Basmati rice, washed and soaked in water
6-7 tablespoons of grated date jaggery/ nolen gur

Begin by doing this test. Boil half a cup of milk and add some nolen gur in it. If the milk curdles, you cannot use that jaggery for your dessert. If it doesn’t you are in for some treat.

In a thick bottom saucepan, boil the milk on low-medium heat, stirring continuously. When its reduced to half its original quantity, add the Nolen Gur. I grate my jaggery and then add it to the milk. It helps to quickly break it down in the hot milk.

Keep cooking the milk and gur by adjusting the heat from time to time. You literally have to babysit the cooking process. The last thing you want is to burn the milk and your precious gur.

When the milk starts to thicken, add the washed and drained rice.

Keep the heat on low and keep stirring all the time. Scrape the sides of the pan into the milk, if a skin forms on the top, mix that in as well, the real taste lies there!

Do a taste test and add a little more gur only if necessary. Remember all food tastes less sweet (or salty) when they are piping hot. Do not overdo the sweetness in the payesh, no one likes a sinfully sweet payesh.

When the rice in the payesh gets cooked, turn the heat off. The milk would have turned thick and adorn a color so rich, only Nolen Gur can flaunt!

Its now time to escape to the taste of tradition with a bowl of Nolen Gurer Payesh.

Its also legal to make Payesh with plain white sugar. Here is the recipe if you don’t have Nolen Gur this winter.

Koi Maacher Jhaal

There is an old Bengali saying that the power of endurance of a woman is like a Koi fish’s (Climbing Perch).

May manush’er praan, Koi maacher jaan!

Meaning both the Koi and a woman have great abilities to withstand pain. Try clubbing a live Koi for your meal and you will see how it takes you four or five, even more times to beat it to death! Koi is a pond fish, often found in slushy inlets, quietly hiding from a predator or fisherman. It has a dark appearance, the skin is rather thick. Koi fish is sweet, fleshy and has hook-like bones. I have once suffered the pain a Koi bone can cause to the throat, while eating a delicious curry made with mustard and green chilies, often called a Jhaal in Bangla. 
The Koi we eat should not be confused with the Japanese ornamental brocaded ones by the same name.

So today’s lunch was this Koi Maacher Jhaal, a simple mustardy curry spiked with fresh green chilies.

Ingredients for Koi Maacher Jhaal are:

500 grams Koi fish, washed and cleaned
2 medium size ripe tomatoes, quartered
6-7 green chilies, slit lengthwise
Handful of fresh coriander, finely chopped
3 heaped teaspoons of freshly ground yellow mustard
Three-fourth teaspoons red chili powder
2 + 1 teaspoons turmeric powder
Half cup mustard oil
Salt

Heat mustard oil in a wok/thick pan until smoking. Rub two teaspoons turmeric and a spoonful of salt to the fish and shallow fry them, about two minutes on each side. Remove with a slotted spoon and keep.

In the remaining oil, add the tomatoes and green chilies and sauté for a minute or two. In a bowl, mix together the mustard, turmeric, and red chili powder. Add three cups of water and add the mixture to the tomato-green chili in the pan. Season with salt.

Let this cook on medium-high flame for about 7-8 minutes, till the tomatoes and the spices are cooked through. Now gently release the Koi fish, holding them by their tails!

It takes about 4-5 minutes after you release the fish into the mustard curry to complete cooking. Don’t forget to turn the fish in the sauce. Finish with a generous garnish of chopped coriander. The Koi Maacher Jhaal is recommended with steaming hot rice. Enjoy!

Oh and just so you know, I did not have to club a Koi to death, it was available at the Bangladeshi store we get our share of desi fish from.