The Good, the Bad and the Bengali English; Now Translate Potol

A couple of days ago, when we were singing paeans about Tagore, updating our status messages on Facebook about the literary achievements of the genius called Rabindranath, somewhere in a dark corner of another world, some Bengali was heard saying (to his host) - the phood was yammy! (Literally translated as – I do not know the difference between the sounds “u:” and “ɑ:”. Why? Because my mammy did not make me laarrn.)

There is something endearing about us Bongs and our pronunciation of English words. I admit, we are no Jhumpa Lahiris out there to impress the English-speaking world, hence we have all the right to roll our eyes and say - Bhee the peepull, with as much pride as our Big Sista in Calcutta does.

It does not take long for a non-Bengali to discover that we Bongs mix up our “w” and “v”. In vain is most certainly In wain, and a woman is always a voman. Try saying that ALOUD. But to do that, you will need the soul and the soft, mellifluous voice of a Bengali. That would mean you will have to take a huge riks (read risk; pronounce riks!). While we are on the topic of enunciation, its not entirely unusual for the phish-eating Bengali to mix the “f” and “ph” sounds. The accent gets thicker when he is drinking.

I have never known a Bengali who writes grammatically incorrect English. In my circle of Grammar Nazi friends, we poke fun at each other for our community’s inability to pronounce certain words. That’s how perfect we are. At least in our heads. And I am not even venturing on to talking about the bushy-faced Bengali still hanging on to his embroidered jean pant and bush shaart.

Perhaps another day.

But my favourite mention will be from the recent movie Bhooter Bhobishyot, where the front desk lady at the real estate developer’s office is heard saying (to someone) on the phone, Hard diks crash hoye gæche. Kichchu shave hochche na.

I squealed with glee. Little things make me happy.

That is exactly the reason I turned these mundane-looking potols into a dish fit for royalty. The Shorshe-Narkel-Potol. That’s Parwal in Mustard and Coconut for you.

 

Ingredients for Shorshe-Narkel-Potol are:

10-12 potol/parwal washed
1 heaped tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
1 teaspoon black mustard seeds
1 tablespoon poppy seeds/khus-khus/posto
Half cup grated coconut (I use the freshly frozen kind)
5-6 green chillies
2-3 bay leaves
4-5 tablespoons mustard oil
Sugar
Salt

Begin by randomly (but gently) running a blunt knife on the potol. Just to scrape off lengthwise bit off the skin from places. DO NOT peel the skin off. Cut both sides of the ends. You can keep the potol whole for the recipe or cut them in halves if they are larger.

Grind together the mustard seeds, poppy and green chillies. Start by dry grinding the seeds first, once a coarse powder, add the green chillies and a little water to do a coarse wet paste.

For the coconut, do a coarse wet grind and keep.

Heat mustard oil in a thick pan and add the bay and potols. Sauté on high for 4-5 minutes. You can cover and cook till the potols get lightly coloured at the edges.

Add the mustard-poppy-green chilli paste to the potol and mix well till the vegetables get coated with the paste. Reduce the heat and cover again.

After about 4-5 minutes, add the coconut paste. Give it a good mix, cover and cook for about five more minutes.

The moisture from the wet ground ingredients will help soften the potols. Make sure you keep scraping the spices from the bottom of the pan, else they may burn.

Once the potol has cooked, add the sugar and salt. Cook uncovered till the extra moisture evaporates and the spices and the coconut cling on to the potol.

Do one last taste test and season with more salt and sugar if necessary. You can throw in a couple of broken green chillies to add some more heat or leave the dish as it is. I did not add any turmeric to my dish. Just because I wanted the natural colors of all the ingredients to show. You can, if you want to.

An accent-deaf Bengali would eat this Shorshe-Narkel-Potol with mushurir dal and rice. And maybe a rui maach bhaja on the side.

Koraishutir Kochuri

India spoils you! Even my Argentinian friend who lived there only for a couple of years agrees.

Its people power is immense. Right now, apart from my immediate family, I miss almost everybody from my everyday life back home. From the domestic help and cook, to the go-to Auntyji next door whose door I would knock shamelessly for a bowl of sugar. Last evening I ran out of sugar while making the filling for Koraishutir Kochuri. What I had thought to be a bag of sugar in my pantry turned out to be all-purpose flour. Now if you are a Bengali, you’d know that sugar is very important for the Koraishutir pur.

Obviously since I am toting a baby these days, I couldn’t just slip into my sneakers, plug my music on and go to the supermarket on a rainy evening to get it. Instead I had to patiently wait for the husband to bring me a bag of sugar on his way back from work. Which meant waiting for a couple of hours more and also the probability that he might forget in spite of two emails and a text message; and might I add, a follow up call to check if he had received those pieces of communication.

Had I been in India, I would have used the easiest (read reliable) route to getting a bowl of the coveted sugar.

I would have either called my grocery-wala saying – Raju Bhaiya, ek kilo chini bhijwa do. And add an urgent – Jaldi!. Or walked across to my neighbour’s and said – Aunty, I ran out of sugar. Thoda sa milega kya? And Auntyji would only be too glad to fill the bowl with the white stuff and hand it over to me. She would even offer to babysit while I cooked. Later as a thank you gesture, I would send her hot Koraishutir Kochuri!

Transactions and deals like this are common in friendly, urban India I grew up in. Here I don’t really know who my next door neighbour is. He is an elderly gentleman who nods a polite hello whenever we see him in the hallway. We have never exchanged a word beyond that. And I am pretty sure he wouldn’t appreciate if I knocked on his door begging for a bowl of sugar. Maybe I should make the first move and call him over for some Kochuri and Alur Dom. I wonder if he would ask for the recipe too!

Ingredients for Koraishutir Kochuri are:

500 grams fresh (or frozen) green peas (shelled and coarsely ground)
2 inch ginger (paste)
2 teaspoon red chili powder
2 teaspoon turmeric powder
Pinch of asafoetida
Sugar
Salt
2-3 tablespoons mustard oil
1 cup Maida – Atta combination
Vegetable/Canola oil for deep frying

Heat mustard oil in a wok, add a pinch of asafoetida. Add the green peas paste, ginger paste, dry spices and salt and sugar.

Keep stirring and frying the ingredients till the peas mixture soaks all the oil, moisture and is good enough to make small balls. From a bright peas-y green, it will turn into a moss green color.

Let the mixture cool down till you are able to handle it with your hands. I sometimes make my peas filling a day before I am making the Kochuri, it saves up a lot of time on the day I am actually making it.

Knead maida-atta with some water, one tablespoon vegetable oil and a pinch of salt. Keep aside covered with a lid or a moist tea cloth for an hour. Give it a quick knead again. The dough should feel like a baby’s bottom under your fingers. Heat one cup of vegetable oil in a thick bottom wok.

Make small balls of the dough and roll them out into discs. Fill in the peas mixture (about one tablespoon in each) and round the dough between the palms of your hand. Roll them again as you would make puris.

Let the oil heat up before you slide the Kochuris in. Give both sides a minute each before turning. Use a spider to take them out of the oil. Drain each Kochuri on paper towels to get that excess oil out.

Because the Kochuris are filled in, they wouldn’t always fluff up like a luchi/puri.

But mine did! Go figure.

Mete Chorchori, Quick Liver Stir-fry, the Bengali Way

I was a very thin kid. I have photographic evidence to prove it. Like most mother’s of the previous generation, mine too thought that a chubby kid is a healthy kid. Mine, a first-time mother at 25 took things in her own hands and started with a project of her own – liver juice for her toddler (me). She thought she could transform a scrawny kid and add blobs of protoplasm by feeding me spoonfuls of raw liver juice. Liver – a storehouse of nutrients is indeed good when it comes to  proteins, vitamins and also packed with saturated fat.

But then raw liver juice revolted with my highly developed palate (at three years), and I would vehemently refuse to have it. Not surprisingly, what did go down well with me was this spicier version of Mete Chorchori for adults.

This is the first time in many years that I have cooked liver. And mostly out of taste memory of how my Mother does it. It was too late to call India and wake Mum up. So I went ahead and did it sans her long-distance help.

Ingredients for Mete Chorchori are:

300 grams liver (I only use kid goat’s)
1 medium onion, finely chopped
5-6 baby potatoes, peeled (use 1-2 regular, cubed if you don’t have them)
1 tablespoon green chili paste
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 tablespoon garlic paste
Half tablespoon black pepper powder
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
Half teaspoon garam masala, coarsely ground (I used cardamoms, cloves, cinnamon, and nutmeg)
1-2 bay leaves
3-4 tablespoons mustard oil
Salt

Cut the liver into bite-size pieces. My butcher had thrown in a heart too, which you can see in this picture.
 
In a bowl, mix together the liver pieces, green chili, ginger and garlic paste, turmeric, and a couple of tablespoons of mustard oil. Keep for an hour.
 
Heat the remaining oil in a thick pan and sauté the potatoes till they are lightly browned. Remove with a slotted spoon.

In the same oil, throw in the bay, coarsely ground garam masala and the chopped onions.
On medium heat, sauté the onions till they are golden-brown. With the spatula you are cooking, line the onions to the sides and expose the pan’s base. Now add the marinated liver and turn the heat up to high.

Its important you cook the liver on high heat so that it gets browned nicely. Keep stirring continuously so that the wet spices do not stick to the pan. Once the liver is lightly browned, introduce the potatoes.

Add the black pepper powder and keep frying everything.

Towards the end, I did cover the pan to turned the heat on low to cook the potatoes. This should be done for about five minutes. Add salt and check the taste. Remove from heat.

The Mete Chorchori is now ready to be eaten with phulko ruti or paratha.