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 Withdrawn.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!

From BongMom with Lau’er Malaikari

This malaikari is inspired by everyone’s favourite – the BongMom! Though I’d admit, I did not follow her, sorry her Mum’s recipe to the T. I did minor hera-pheri here and there. Somewhere at the back of my mind, I had my Mum’s Chingri Malaikari too. I am hoping I will be pardoned for the culinary license I took.

The Lau’er Malaikari or Lauki (Bottle gourd) cooked in coconut milk is a very new recipe for me. Probably that’s what makes it all the more interesting.

Ingredients for BongMom-inspired Lau’er Malaikari are:

1 small lau/lauki, peeled and diced
1 medium size red onion made into paste
1 can of coconut milk (I use the Thai variety)
1 tablespoon ginger paste
3-4 whole green chillies
1 tablespoon mixed whole garam masala spices (cloves, green and black cardamoms, cinnamon)
2-3 bay
Half teaspoon red chilli powder
Half teaspoon turmeric
4-5 tablespoons desi ghee
Sugar
Salt

Heat the ghee in a thick pan. Add a pinch of sugar and let it caramelize. Now add the onion paste and the whole garam masala spices and bay. Very soon the onion paste will start turning a darker shade of pink. Keep moving the onion in the ghee and the spices, till you have a line of ghee on the sides. This will also indicate that the onion paste is cooked and does not have its conspicuous raw smell. Add a couple of green chillies if you want to at this stage. Do this cooking on low-medium heat. We don’t want the onions burnt.

Now add the cubed/ diced lau pieces. Mix with the onion paste. After about 2-3 minutes, add the ginger paste and salt. Add the red chilli and turmeric powder. Cover and cook for 5-7 minutes.

Open the lid to see that a lot of juices and moisture from the lau has been released. Cook on high for a minute or two and pour the coconut milk.

Let the coconut milk come to a rumbling boil, then reduce the heat. Let the lau cook in the coconut milk for about 8-10 minutes. You will see a thin layer of the ghee surface on top. Add sugar and more salt if necessary.

Move around the thickened coconut milk and lau pieces. Pray that you have done a good job and turn the heat off.

Your Lau’er Malaikari is now ready to be eaten with plain, white rice.

Thank you, BongMom for being an inspiration and a friend I can run to with my cribs and complains.

Gota Sheddho Revisited

I am a fourth generation Bengali to grow up in Bihar. I also went to a convent school. Such socio-cultural dynamics are not strange or unheard of in India. But they clearly contribute largely in raising a sufficiently confused young girl.

Tomorrow is Saraswati Puja in India. Growing up, it meant an extra holiday in school. I do not remember myself doing any prayer ritual on this day; although something that lingers on from this day is the taste of Gotta Sheddho, literally translated from Bengali as “whole boiled”.

I am told, Gota Sheddho is a Ghoti thing, where Grandmothers and Mothers cook at least five types of whole vegetables with lentils on the day of Saraswati Puja, and eat it the next day, when its cooled down. The day of Sheetal Shasti.

Saraswati Puja in the part of Bihar I lived in, meant young boys and men setting up pandals in the neighborhood and praying to the Goddess of Knowledge. It often translated into muted nuisance where the more boisterous boys would visit every home in the neighborhood to collect donations or chanda, which sadly was more forced than voluntary. These were also the boys who probably never went to school. So their association with “learning and knowledge” remained questionable.

But I do not want to undermine the credibility of their efforts in making arrangements for just one day only (though “celebrations” often stretched to a week). Loud music - most often the raunchiest songs of that year made a perfect set up to tease and torment scared girls who ventured out on the streets that day. Another reason for me to stay in and prepare for the final exams coming up the next month. Though traditionally, its a pen and paper down day in India for all students.

But watching young girls and boys in their finest dresses made a great celebration from home. Some girls as young as 12 or 13 would wear saris.

On this day, it is traditional to wear the color yellow (or mustard yellow) to welcome the Spring/Basant season in India. My memories of girls wearing yellow cotton saris, their hairs washed and smelling of Head & Shoulders, making a wet patch of damp at the back of their blouses where their hair ended are quite vivid. Each girl giggling, walking nervously in their little heels when they saw a group of boys coming their way. This day also made for a great desi, pre-Valentine’s Day celebration. All in the name of knowledge!

With all the Saraswati Puja gung-ho around me, I would shift between bending over the cast iron railings of our terrace to people watch, run to the kitchen to see how Mum was making Gota Sheddho and sprint back to a very visible spot where people could see me “studying”. Clearly I was the only one who was not letting the Goddess of Knowledge down.

Now back to the taste of tradition – Gota Sheddho. There is no one recipe for this vegetarian stew, packed with hearty vegetables. Each family pretty much does it their own way. I will of course share how its made in my family. I had previously made Gota Sheddho on a regular day and the recipe is here.

Ingredients for Gota Sheddho are:

Half cup whole urad dal
Half cup whole green moong
2 small sweet potatoes (either whole or cut into quarters)
Handful of whole green peas, remove the stringy part
Handful of broad beans/sheem, remove the stringy part
6-7 small eggplants
Few green chilies, slit
1 1/2 tablespoon ginger paste
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
2 tablespoon mustard oil
Sugar
Salt

Wash the two dals and begin to boil them in a pressure cooker or a thick bottom saucepan – for about 25-30 minutes.

When the lentils get to a rolling boil, add vegetables, ginger, green chilies, turmeric powder, salt and sugar and pressure cook on medium-high heat for 10-15 minutes or until vegetables and dals are cooked. Just when you think all the vegetables and dals and well cooked but not too mushy, drizzle the mustard oil, remove from heat.

The Gota Sheddho is the right balance of sweet and savory, so do a test taste and adjust accordingly.