Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja

This event has its roots in traditional Durga Puja celebrations. If you have celebrated Durga Puja and have been part of Sharadiya Durgotsab, then participate and share your experience here.

Nostalgia, memories, food and Durga Puja festivities are inseparable. Did you know that the the first grand worship of Goddess Durga is said to have been celebrated in the late 1500s. Some other records say that the zamindars of Dinajpur and Malda initiated the first Durga Puja in Bengal. According to another source, Raja Kangshanarayan of Taherpur or Bhabananda Mazumdar of Nadiya organized the first Sharadiya or Autumn Durga Puja in Bengal in 1606.

But in this day and age, where we are already so wired in, I thought it’d be a good idea to share our stories, memories and recipes which mark Durga Puja.

Through Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja, let’s share, record and create an experience for anyone who has ever been part of Ma Durga’s homecoming. And leave a legacy behind, a footprint of sorts for the still tiny ones who will some day not so far away in time will Google for and stumble onto your story!

I am thinking on the lines of waking up one crisp, sunny Autumn morning to the intoxicating fragrance of shiuli phool, or rolling in bed to the mellifluous chants of Mahalaya. Wearing a new dress to the Pujobari, pandal-hopping like there is no tomorrow, and not even complaining about the shoe bite from which your feet are painfully aching now. 

Sitting down only to quench your thirst with a bottle of Thums Up, and not really protesting when your friends “force” the piping hot beguni and alur chop for you to eat.

Holding the hot malsha of bhog and spreading your “hanky” under it, driving back home late in the afternoon. Napping in between celebrations to rejuvenate for the evening aroti and dhunuchi naach. Doing your grooviest “Mithun” steps to the beat of the dhakis.

Pandal hop again the next day. Check out more girls. Immediately try and look them up on Facebook with your smartphone if you hear a name like Chaitali or Barnali called out loud. And if you are one of the more adventurous ones, you even ask her out for an egg roll being made right outside the canopy of that pandal. Durga Puja for me is a reminder that happiness finds its way home. Every year. That every woman looks stunning on Dashami after a vermillion bath. That if you touch the feet of elders on Bijoya, you get a plateful of mishti, narkel nadu, tok-jhal dalmut and ghugni.

Durga Puja means we are still breathing…

Here is how you can participate in Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja:

• Have recipes and dishes that symbolize or represent Durga Puja, which you have cooked or eaten or both
• A story, a memory and a bagful of nostalgia around Durga Puja. You can become the narrator for someone else in your family!
• Have a home décor idea/ theme for Durga Puja
• Have photographs taken by you of Durga Puja, and all that fanfare around it. Don’t forget to add captions and little details about each photograph.

Post your entry on your Blog and link to this event. Also don’t forget to leave a comment here so that viewers are led to your post. Also send me an email at preeoccupied@yahoo.com with the following details:

1. Title of your post
2. URL of your post

There are no constraints on words, and archived posts are also welcome as long as a direct link to Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja appears on your post.

If you don’t have a Blog, you can still participate. Send me a mail at preeoccupied@yahoo.com with the following details: mention Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja in the subject line of your email.

• Title of your story/write up
• Your write up in MS Word
• Your name and location (will not be published, if you don’t want to)
• Preferably watermarked photographs in JPEG format

The last date to receive your entries for Beyond Five Days of Durga Puja is October 10, 2010.

I look forward to celebrating Durga Puja with you.

Till then, in the words of my great grandmother, Dugga Dugga.

My Name is Anthony Bourdain

From being the “bad boy of cuisine”, this 54-year-old, father of a three and a half year old “raw oyster-loving” toddler appears warm, fuzzy, almost downright blissed-out until he opens his mouth!

He still maintains his wicked charm, he still has the ability to make a puritan gasp with his trademark expletives, and yes, the man can talk. All of the little less than two hours that I spent the evening with an auditorium-full of people at Massey Hall last night, my jaws were aching. I was constantly grinning, smiling, chuckling and the rest of the times laughing out loud at whatever Anthony Bourdain said. His stories about sex, drugs, crazy food, travel and dining culture make you lust for more.

But what did make multiple entries during the last night of No Reservations: An Evening with Anthony Bourdain was his unpretentiousness, his humility and his greatness. I had the fleeting urge to get up from my balcony seat and go sit by his feet, just to hear him talk from closer.

Bourdain just makes everything sound irresistible. Even a pig’s uncooked gut. Four minutes into the evening and Rachel Ray, Guy Fieri, Gordan “Hell” Ramsay and his other Food Network peers, along with food bloggers and critics came under Bourdain’s chopping board, but just out of humor and not hubris. But even before he did that, he slings at himself first. Making pot shots at the way he is hypocritical about organic food. And calls himself a calls himself a “jaded, overprivileged foodie”.

When I left home, I took sheaves of paper and a pen stuffed in my handbag, with my camera of course. The aching wannabe journalist in me was crying out loud for an opportunity like tonight’s. But who was I kidding? The papers remained inside my handbag, I remained glued to the chair with no elbow room, for I was too mesmerized by this solitary man. He walked on stage on time, with a bottle of beer in his hand. His crop of peppered hair slickly brushed back, his dark, charcoal denims snugly fit on his lean bod which assumedly so had travelled, worked out and ate well. Giving him the right balance to understand cultures and kitchens around the world.

He seemed at ease with the expecting crowd around him and more importantly with himself. Each time he opened his mouth, which was pretty much all the one hour forty minutes of the evening, I felt I needed to log on to Wikipedia or dictionary.com to see what the word he just created meant. All hopes of course of taking notes had evaporated as soon as he had appeared on stage. No one can keep pace with this man. Not even his own shadow.

The un-constrained evening of hysterical culinary-literature ended too soon. He took questions from some people who chose the occasion to hobnob with him for the 10-seconds of time that they were blessed with. I, of course had no such luck. So I did what I could do best, down a stiff vodka with OJ with my husband and replayed the memories of the very sexy, very seductive Mister Anothony Bourdain.

(Poor quality of the stage photos should to be blamed on the no-photography rule @ Massey Hall. These are sneak shots by a very smitten woman whose husband was not too pleased with her breaking the rules.)

Two Heart Warmers: A Dog’s Tale and Some Caramel Custard

It was their midweek movie night. A ritual she and he have been following for many months now. They would finish their dinner, do all the chores for the day, curl up in bed and click a movie on. Tonight it was Hachiko: A Dog’s  Story. 

They laughed while they watched. She giggled each time Professor Parker Wilson’s Akita puppy refused to fetch ball. His heart warmed at the story of a special bond between a dog and his master. And melted when he saw tears roll down her eyes.


He stroked her hair when she wept, watching Hachi wait at the station for his companion, who’d never come back…

They walked up to the balcony in silence. The late night air was not nippy enough for their warm hearts and her hot, pug-nose. Since she was a child, her nose always got hot at the tip when she cried a lot. She never knew why!

They sat on the balcony talking about their own pets. He had Sultan, Moshi and Kaya. She, Jimmy, Gittu, Doogie and Miss Webby. He told him once again how Kaya, his Cocker Spaniel would rest her snout on his neck and sleep. She chirped (for the upteempth time) about how she would put the German Spitz twins Doogie and Webby in her t-shirt and roam around. They continued talking about their own doggy memories…

The light from the receding traffic fell on their faces, revealing the glint in their eyes. That’s when he abruptly said- let’s never get a dog. And she nodded in silence. Too scared to go through the pain and loss both him and her had gone through in their past.

He squeezed her hand and went in to get the Caramel Custard she had made earlier that evening. Maybe that could act as a picker upper, he thought.

The Caramel Custard was still warm. The familiar taste of the amber-colored caramel caressed their taste buds, helping them to loosen up a bit. The jiggle-y custard underneath was the perfect soul soother, these two dog lovers so needed tonight…

Ingredients for Caramel Custard are:

3 cups milk
4 eggs
1/4 cup + 1/4 cup sugar
Vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon butter (unsalted)

Pre-heat oven to 325° C.

Boil milk still scalding hot. Caramelize one-fourth cup of the sugar in a saucepan till you get a nice amber color. Line the ramekins with butter. Pour the caramel immediately into the ramekins to coat the base evenly.

Beat eggs in a glass bowl. Start adding the hot milk little by little. Keep mixing with a whisk so that you don’t “scramble” the eggs! Add one-fourth cup of sugar and vanilla extract. Mix well.

Pour the milk and egg mixture into the caramel-lined ramekins. (Use any other baking dish if you don’t have ramekins.)
Keep all the ramekins in a larger baking dish. Pour hot water into the dish to cover three-fourths of the ramekins. Bake for 45 minutes. Poke a small skewer at the center of the custard. If it comes out clean, the Caramel Custard is done.

Let it cool down before you chill for a few hours.

Slide a knife around the edge of the custard, invert on a clean plate and serve.

Wallowing in Kosha Murgi

In antiquity, when our great grandmothers were reigning supreme in their kitchens, chicken was considered pedestrian – very low in the culinary rung of princely paatha’r mangsho, ilish, cheetol, pabda and rui maach and golda chingri.

It still is, in certain Bengali homes which are untouched by gym-sweating, muscle-trotting show offs! Chicken Curry was almost looked down upon on special occasions in Bengali homes. It was either made to appease some non-Bengali guests or because the festivities were at the month-end, which meant the Bengali had spent all his salary eating like a King and could not afford the more expensive goat meat or fish.

But come of age it did, this Kosha Chicken. One-seventh of the same snooty Bengalis succumbed to the ease and charm of slow cooked or bhuna or kosha chicken. And now they wallow in it.

However, “slow cooked” doesn’t mean you overcook the chicken. It takes a little amount of practice and patience and in some cases both to master this art! My Mother makes her Kosha Murgi in a thick kodai/karhai. Which is what you will need for this recipe – a thick-bottom pan if you don’t have an Indian wok.

Ingredients for Kosha Murgi/ Chicken are:

1 medium size chicken about 1 kg, cut into regular pieces, giblets removed, I used drumsticks and thighs today
1 large red onion, cut into thin slivers
1 large ripe and plump tomato
2 tablespoons ginger-garlic paste
1 tablespoon green chili paste (go easy on it if kids are eating)
Few sprigs of finely chopped coriander for garnish
1 tablespoon coriander powder
1 tablespoon cumin powder
1 tablespoon red chili powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
Half teaspoon garam masala powder
2 + 2 green and black cardamoms
1 small stick of cinnamon
3-4 cloves
2 bay leaves
3-4 tablespoons mustard oil (you can use Canola or vegetable oil)
Salt

Heat oil in a pan, and add the bay leaf, cardamoms, cinnamon and cloves in no particular order. Sauté for 10 seconds, till the whole spices are fragrant. Next to go in are the onions.

Tip: If you want the onions to caramelize quickly, add a pinch of sugar in the hot oil, let it melt and then add the onions and see them get a gorgeous color instantly!

Once the onions are something in between a pretty pink and a brown color, add the chicken pieces and fry them on medium-high heat for about 5-7 minutes.

Now add the ginger-garlic-green chili paste. I usually wet grind them all together.

Mix the wet masala with the chicken. I add the ginger-garlic-chili paste later so that my chicken gets the desired color on it. The wet paste has moisture in it and adding it before I add the chicken does not allow the chicken to color well.

Add the rest of the dry spices – turmeric, coriander, cumin and red chili powders.

Mix the dry spices to coat the chicken pieces well. Cover and cook for five minutes. Cut the tomato straight onto the chicken so as not to lose any of its precious juices. Give it a good mix.

Cover again cook for 5-7 minutes, then add salt. Cover. The salt helps release moisture from the tomato and chicken. You will see a puddle of gravy in the chicken by now. Chicken does not take much time to cook, check at this time if your chicken is done.

Now cook the chicken on high for the next five minutes, stirring it gently. When all the extra gravy has dried up, turn the heat off. Season with a pinch of garam masala powder (I grind together cloves, cinnamon, black and green cardamoms for my Bengali gorom moshla).

Garnish the Kosha Murgi with finely chopped fresh coriander. Serve with ruti/roti/chapati/phulka or naan.

Borbotir Chorchori

I don’t know how to cook Borboti any other way, except for the traditional Bengali Chorchori.

Borboti/ Barbarti is a summer vegetable, the rest of the world calls it Yard Long Bean or Runner Bean and sometimes even Asparagus Beans.

A Borbotir Chorchori is a great side which opens up a lunch paired with a bowl of daal and rice. I found my bunch of Borboti in a Chinese grocery store. Lesson# 437: Borboti is NOT just a Bengali vegetable. The Chinese call it cheung kong tau or dau gok.

Ingredients for Borbotir Chorchori are:

250 grams long yard beans, ends chopped off and cut into roughly two inch pieces
2 medium size potatoes, cut in cubes
A cup of diced pumpkin/ buttercup squash
A cup of diced eggplant
3-4 green chilies, broken from the middle
Mustard oil
1 tablespoon paanch phoron
Half tablespoon yellow mustard powder
Half tablespoon turmeric powder
Half tablespoon red chili powder
Sugar
Salt

Heat oil in a wok and sauté each type of vegetable separately. Keep aside.

In the same oil, add paanch phoron and the green chilies. Let them splutter for a few seconds, then add the already sautéed vegetables. Add all the spices, season with salt and sugar and mix well. Sauté for another couple of minutes.
Pour enough water to drench the vegetables, cover and cook. It should take about 15 minutes on medium heat to cook the vegetables. If water remains, cook uncovered for a few more minutes till there is hardly any water. In Bengali, we call this consistency makho-makho where only the extra moisture is made to evaporate. Yet it does not leave the dish parched.

How do you cook your Borboti?