Fresh Salsa Salad

This is a Mexican-inspired salad which is an all-time favorite of ours. Its quick and simple to make and most often you will find all the ingredients at home, except of course jalapeño peppers.

If you don’t have jalapeños, use any hot green chilies.

Ingredients for Fresh Salsa Salad are:

2 firm red tomatoes
2 jalapeño peppers
1 medium red onion
1 medium cucumber
Juice of one lime
Handful of cilantro/coriander
1 teaspoon cumin powder
Half teaspoon black pepper powder
Salt

Remove the seeds from the jalapeños and chop them finely. All the other vegetables also need to be chopped as finely as you can.

Mix everything in a large bowl. Toss in the spices and seasoning and add freshly squeezed lime juice.
If you are making this salad to serve later, do not add salt. Add it just before you serve. Its best to serve this salad chilled.

I will serve this tonight with grilled Tilapia fillets.

Pickled Pink

Once upon a time little pickled onions were served only in (North) Indian restaurants.
The “waiter” would thump a small bowl of vinegar onions on the table along with mango pickle and green chilies while you waited for the food to arrive. Smells wafting from the restaurant’s kitchen would drive you to an insane level of hunger and soon you would reach for a pink, pearly onion. You’d begin gently first, peeling the top leaf between your mouth. Tasting its subtle sweet flavor mixed with the sharpness of the vinegar.

You’d involuntarily close one eye, while keeping the other (eye) on the rest of the pink beauties. The vinegar-onions would send the taste buds tickling and you would experience a sharp rise in appetite.

The vinegar-pickled onions can play a starring role on your dinner buffet. Serve them with Butter Chicken or Matar Paneer and see how they orchestrate transformation on the table.

And while I was peeling these pearl onions for the pickle, the lush Cherry Belles on my kitchen counter also inspired me in a certain way.

There is something exotic about these bright-skinned radish with white insides. I washed and snipped off the stems of a handful of these and dunked them in white vinegar too, with some green chilies.

Apart from the fact that they are pretty on the eye, they also add some bright, lively bite to the buffet.

Quick-pickled vegetables provide a zesty complement to salads and entrées. But you already knew that.

Bengal’s Own, Alu-Begun-Chingri

This is my Mum’s recipe. I love making her recipes because they are simple and easy to execute. The ingredients are readily available even in Canada, and I also get to re-create certain food flavors which have been in my head since childhood.

Though the main ingredients for this recipe are are Potato (Alu), Eggplant/Brinjal (Begun) and Shrimps (Chingri), a whole lot of flavors come from the green chilies (kancha lonka) you add to it. So this Alu-Begun-Chingri is not really for the faint-hearted.

I am not a food snob when buying my groceries. But I am very particular about green chilies. The ones we get in the supermarkets here have no bite to them, so I usually get my fill of green chilies from the Indian stores or Chinatown.

This dish is something between a curry and a sauté, we call the consistency makha-makha in Bengali, where the sauce and the spices cling to the vegetables or meat. It can be eaten with chapatis or dal and plain rice.

Ingredients for Alu-Begun-Chingri are:

400 grams shrimp (I used just the tails, they were largish, size 8-12)
3-4 Oriental eggplants, halved and cut lengthwise
2 medium size potatoes, cut into wedges
1 medium red onion, slivered
2 medium tomatoes, roughly chopped (the riper the better!)
7-8 green chilies, slit lengthwise
Generous handful of chopped coriander
One and half tablespoon of ginger-garlic paste
1 teaspoon turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chili powder
3-4 tablespoons mustard oil
Salt

Heat oil in a large, thick pan. Sauté the onions and green chilies till the onions are still light brown in color.
Then add the potatoes and get some color on them, for another 3-4 minutes. Now add the eggplants and mix well.

Next to add are the turmeric and red chili powder and the ginger-garlic paste. Mix for a minute or two, scraping the spices from the bottom of the pan, all this on medium heat. Add the chopped tomatoes and salt, cover and cook for 3-4 minutes.

The salt will help the tomatoes release their juices which will moisten the other vegetables too. Add the shrimps to the dish and mix again.

Cover for 4-5 minutes on medium heat and cook. Keep checking so that the spices do not burn. Add a cup of water and cover till the potatoes are done. The shrimps will turn pink and the eggplant and tomatoes will become mushy.
Check the seasoning. Turn the heat off if the potatoes are done, else continue cooking for a few more minutes.

Add a generous amount of chopped fresh coriander (leaves and stems) and mix again.

Though I used shrimp tails, you can use whole deveined shrimps or kucho chingri for this recipe. If you are vegetarian and do not eat shrimps, please feel free to omit them and call this dish Alu-Begun!

For more Bengali recipes, photographs and discussions, see The Big Bong Theory.

Soul Seduction with Beef-Barley Soup

My soup repertoire is quite limited. But this 50ish lady at P’s office cafeteria was giving me some long distance competition. Every time, P did not take lunch from home, he invariably has the Beef-Barley Soup served at his work’s cafeteria. Apparently its his favorite soup. Now that sure was NEWS.

No wife likes competition from another woman. Even if its the harmless soup lady.

After some help from Google and Food Network, I created my husband’s favorite soup today. Ladies and gentlemen, applaud my maiden attempt at Beef Barley Soup, since you cannot slurp on it.

Ingredients for Beef-Barley Soup are:

300 grams oxtail
400 grams boneless beef stew pieces
Half cup (heaped) pearl barley
1 medium size onion, chopped
2 carrots, diced
2 celery ribs, diced
3-4 fat cloves of garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
2 tablespoons canola or vegetable oil
2 tablespoons chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
Freshly crushed black pepper
Salt

Cook the oxtail and beef stew pieces with the bay leaves, salt and pepper. I added about 8-9 cups of water in my stock pot. It took me about one hour to do so, until the meat was tender. Skim any fat from the surface with a ladle.

Separate the meat from the stock and shred them. Discard the bones from the oxtail pieces.

In a stockpot, heat the canola oil, sauté the minced garlic without browning it. Add the celery, onions and carrots and cook for 3-4 minutes.

 
Add the barley and mix well with the vegetables. Season with salt and pepper.

Once the barley and vegetables are coated well with salt and pepper and the cooking oil, add the pieces of beef. Give it a good mix and then add the beef stock and Worcestershire sauce.

Cook covered on a slow heat for one hour or so, stirring continuously. The barley will plump up and soak some of the liquid. Add a little water if the stock is soaked up.

Check the seasoning one last time and adjust accordingly. Turn the heat off and add the chopped parsley to the soup.

Serve the Beef-Barley Soup hot with your favorite bread for a complete meal that is guaranteed to seduce your soul. And your spouse.

And guess what my husband is taking for lunch tomorrow!

Bengali Begun Pora/ Roasted Eggplant Bharta

Some call it the melancholy fruit, some call it without any “gun” (talent). I call it Begun, Bengali for Eggplant or Aubergine or Brinjal.

All around the world this talentless eggplant is cooked in many ways- batter-fried, crescents fried in oil called begun bhaja, roasted, broiled or boiled and mashed. Making it one of the most congenial “fruits”, probably second only to the potato.

Come winter, India is flooded with plump, dark purple eggplants. In some parts of the country, the large, round variety of eggplants are also called Bhanta. 

That’s what my Mother uses for Bengali Begun Pora (Bengali Baingan Bharta). Since eggplant oxidizes very quickly, make sure you cut an eggplant just before you are ready to cook it.

Ingredients for Bengali Begun Pora are:

1 eggplant, slit lengthwise, make sure you keep its stem on
Handful of fresh coriander, coarsely chopped
1 medium red onion, slivered finely
Few green chilies, broken from the middle
Generous drizzle of mustard oil
Salt

Smoke or roast the eggplant. Hold the eggplant over a low open gas flame. Rotate frequently. I used my stove-top rack on my cooking range.

You will see that the skin of the eggplant will gradually darken, it will start to sag, and you will notice a pleasant smoky smell. Its time to turn the kitchen vent on!

In the meantime, keep all your other ingredients ready.

After about 20 minutes (or half an hour depending on the size of the eggplant), when the skin is completely charred, remove the eggplant from the flame. Allow the eggplant to cool, then discard the skin. Mash the eggplant with the back of a fork or use your hands.

Add the onion, green chilies, coriander leaves, mustard oil and salt and mix well.

The smoke-kissed Bengali Begun Pora is now ready to be eaten with ruti (chapati).