Dim diye Palang Shak -- Egg-Palak Burji

Today I will be very honest with you, bare soul honest. A decade back I was not interested in cooking, at all. All that bovine poop about " smell of jeera bringing me solace" that I have in my About section, was well "bovine poop" to me. I never even dreamt that cooking could actually be therapeutic. Now eating was another genre altogether, that I loved. I sincerely believed Eating good was not only therapeutic but also pushed you closer to that non-attainable Nirvana.

It is not that I didn't know how to cook, I knew the basic dal, bhaat, macher jhol and also noodles and chili chicken. I did help my Mom to some extent around the kitchen but that was in fits and start and I wasn't one of those prodigies who bake cake at age 8 and biryani at age 12.Relatives in their right mind didn't often ask me to help out in the kitchen, for that I had that "prodigy cousin".

I started cooking for survival, once I moved out to my first job in Bombay. After a month of eating out, me and my room mate got a cute red clix stove and decided to venture out in the hitherto unknown land of homecooking. My room mate was worse than me, she claimed "she had never cooked before". So with my minimal repertoire, I started and every evening cooked either an egg curry or dal while roomy made rice.

There are mythical tales of my cooking from those days, which will make a nice story for a future post and so we shall hold onto them for now..

D, the husband on the other hand was a cooking geek, a freak of nature, the kind who chop vegetables in equi dimension and whose eggs boil just right each time, every time. He is and always was like Alton Brown (strictly cooking wise), very much into the techniques and science of cooking.

So while I was trying out new dunking techniques(another story !!!) in Mumbai and trying to cook with passion, he was creating a new following 998km away in another city. He was the self appointed chef of cooking morons who thought he was the domestic diva, just because he could make the perfect omlette and delicious chicken curry. I hope those morons learned survival skills on the way or got beaten up by their wife in later life.

Anyway to impress such people, this guy, the now husband twisted old recipes and created new dishes. One of them was Palak Burji, a spinach stir fried with eggs. This dish impressed me so much, that I decided to marry him and wrapped up my belongings and moved the 998km distance. Ok actually not this dish exactly but my cooking skills were so short of my own aspirations, that I was ready to marry any decent willing guy who would happily cook a good meal and clean up after that every evening and still maintain a decent paying day job.

That such "eagerness to cook & clean do not last forever" and "grass on the other side is always greener" and "people in glass houses...." is another proverb but who am I to complain, there is always Palak Burji aka Dim diye Palang Shaak and a guy who occasionally cooks and loads the dishwasher every night.

Egg-Palak Burji on toast for fussy 6 year olds

This Egg-Palak Burji is a very simple, yet excellent dish, too simple if you have frozen spinach 'coz that is the only way I have done this. If you leave the egg out, it is my Ma's plain old palang shak bhaja but she never had frozen spinach and she could also chop her spinach really really fine. So if you don't have frozen chopped spinach but can chop your spinach real fine you are good to go else pressure cook your spinach and coarsely mash it up before proceeding.


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Egg Palak Burji

Cook 3 cups of frozen chopped spinach in microwave for a minute or two. When the green is cool to touch, squeeze out any excess water. Note: If you don't have frozen spinach, you can use fresh spinach chopped really fine. Or you can cook the spinach in pressure cooker and mash it up coarsely

Heat Oil in a saute pan

Temper with 1/4 tsp of Paanch Phoron

When the spices start dancing around, add 2 cloves of garlic minced, 2 slit green chilli and quarter of a red onion chopped fine

Saute till the onion is brownish pink

Add the spinach and saute till spinach is no longer releasing water and is cooked. Note: With frozen spinach and microwaving this step is like almost pre-done. With fresh spinach which has been cooked in pressure cooker and mashed up, it might take a while for water to dry up

Move the spinach to the edges and add a little more oil to the same pan

Break an egg (or two) into it and vigorously stir till egg is scrambled up

Add salt to taste and combine to bring in all the flavors.

This goes excellently with some hand mate Rotis or Phulkas. I love it with Rice. For fussy 6 year olds, put it on a toast and garnish with some cheese.

Shaak Ghonto -- Greens with Vegggies

Only in New York

This summer we went to NYC a lot. Ok, actually only twice over two months but that is "lot" by us country bumpkins standard.

On our last visit we went to the Children's Museum (CMOM). I had a whole lot of expectations, very few of which were met eventually.

As a child I used to love the Nehru Children's Museum & Birla Technology Museum in Calcutta. At each of our annual winter visits to the city, my Baba would take me and maybe a cousin or two to the museum, the zoo, the planetarium and the RBI building. Don't ask me why RBI, I vaguely remember it had an escalator which we loved to ride.

Those museums were a delight to visit. I am speaking of late seventies/early 80's and even then these museums were set up with recording studios where you could record your antics and then watch them on the tele, with voice activated doors which would open when you hollered "hello" and many such things.

This museum(the CMOM) sadly had very little to offer over all of its four floors. The second floor was for some reason totally devoted to Dora and Diego and that too with a lot of pieces missing. There were things like fire truck and mail van but not much hands on stuff.The basement was a little interesting and they do have workshops which might be good. But for a half day visit we didn't get to do any workshops. Does anyone know any interesting Children museum in NY-NJ-PA area ?

The girls had fun though. The littlest one was just happy to toddle all around the place and to pick & poke at all sorts of random objects. The older one was happy too, doing largely nothing and running around the little one. As I saw they were mainly glad to move about unrestrained, throw stuff around and make a mess without their Mom hollering "Clean up"

And boy, was I happy to be home, back to our little green patch in the suburb. It is official, I don't like a city, at least not for an extended period of time. I imagine myself being happy and content in a farm in some remote corner of the planet (ok a farm with all amenities & cheap labor), maybe it is just an idyllic dream , who knows.

For now the little veggie patch will do, where we , D has spent enough energy, money and carbon footprint to grow exactly one zucchini, plentiful squash blossoms, loads of cherry tomatoes and 20 okra to be precise. Oh and lets not forget pui saag/shaak or pohi greens or malabar spinach which have been totally paisa vasool (worth the money). Planting the stalks (as suggested by Soma), resulted in fast climbing stalks of tender, fresh, glistening pohi greens. They looked so pretty that we didn't even want to cut them down.

With these greens I made a saag/shaak ghonto. My Ma would do this with spinach and call it palang shaak er ghonto (spinach cooked with a medley of vegetables). I thought "Why not Pui". For the Palak saag er ghonto my Ma used a spice paste which she called dhone-jire-ada bata (whole corriander-whole cumin-ginger paste). Actually she used this particular paste for a lot of stuff.

Early morning, her kitchen help would sit on the kitchen floor with the shil-nora, a flat pock-marked square black slab of stone and on it would make pastes of all kinds of spices. As she moved the mortar on the flat piece, her bangles tinkled and made music with the jarring noise of the stones. Deftly she would sprinkle some water, gather the spices with her fingertips and roll the mortar until a smooth amalgamation of spices was born.

The sharp smell of the fresh spices and the the jarring noise of stone hitting stone closely followed by the milder, sweeter flavor of tea marked the beginning of a new day back home.

This forgotten paste is what I used for this ghonto, a simple mix of vegetables and greens, the flavors of the veggies only lightly enhanced by subtle touch of spices. And I forgot this dish also goes to dear blog friend Indosungod's Chard Challenge.


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Shaak er Ghonto

Prep

Make the dhone-jire-ada bata. This is basically a paste of whole cumin, whole coriander and fresh ginger. My Ma's kitchen help used to make this using the shil-nora, the flavor would be very intense and the color a dark ugly shade of brown

I make it this way. In my mortar I add 1/2 tsp of Cumin powder, 1/2 tsp of Corriander powder and 1 tbsp of grated ginger. Then I make a smooth wet paste of the above with the aid of little water. The flavor is not as intense but will do

Chop Potatoes, Pumpkin and Zucchini in almost similar sized cubes. I had 1 cup of each. You can also add brinjal and radish

Wash and clean and then chop the greens. Spinach works very well for this recipe but I have used Pui Saag or Pohi greens. I had about 500 gm of the greens

Start Cooking

Heat Mustard Oil in a Kadhai/Frying Pan. White oil will work too though Anita might not agree

Chaunk/Temper with 1 tsp of Paanch Phoron and 3 Dry Red Chili

When you see the spices dancing around, add 1 cup of cubed potato. Saute with less than 1/4 tsp of turmeric for couple of minutes.

Add the zucchini (~ 1 cup), saute again for couple of minutes and follow suit with the pumpkin(~ 1 cup)

Add the dhone-jire-ada bata and saute for 3-4 minutes. If you like it spicy add a little red chili powder now

Add the chopped pui saag (pohi greens) or spinach and give a good stir. Add salt to taste

The greens especially the pohi will release a lot of water which you want to dry out. Also the veggies will get cooked in this water. Keep cooking with intermittent stirring till the water has all evaporated into thin air and the veggies are cooked

Taste and adjust for seasoning. If the pumpkin is sweet you don't need to add any extra sugar, else a little sugar will enhance the taste

Similar Recipes:
Pui-Chingri -- Pohi Greens with Shrimp



Shubho Mahalaya to all my readers

Pui Chingri -- Pohi Saag with Shrimp

“On the subject of spinach: divide into little piles. Rearrange again into new piles. After five of six maneuvers, sit back and say you are full.”
Delia Ephron from How To Eat Like A Child

There was a phase last year when I was unable to cook. We outsourced to a local bengali caterer and between him and D managed to feed the family okay. This guy however was pretty monotonous with his menu, he had some 4-5 items which he would repeat over the weeks and after a month you would think that alu-posto, dhokar dalna and charchari were all there is to a bengali menu.

To satisfy my cravings for authentic vegetarian bangla food a friend came to the rescue and would send over a little of whatever she cooked each week. Now she is a damn good cook and has a vast repertoire of Bengali recipes, she also likes to cook and eat well and prepares a full 6 course meal for dinner almost every day. No doubt that food from her kitchen was much awaited while the caterer's supplies languished in the refrigerator.

She used to make this Pui Chingri (Pohi Greens with Shrimp) which I fell in love with. I am sure my Ma would make it the same way but I was a typical kid regarding food choices and so though my Ma would force greens down my throat I don't have fond memories of them. Now with age I am not scared of my greens any more and even the slimy Pui has joined my list of favorites.

I have also learned greens don't make you stronger, it takes much more to grow into a person of character and strength, the 5 serving of vegetables merely sustains you in that journey.

"There was a Young Lady of Greenwich,
Whose garments were border'd with Spinach;
But a large spotty Calf,
bit her shawl quite in half,
Which alarmed that Young Lady of Greenwich."
Edward Lear, English artist, writer

Pui Shaak or Pohi Saag has the scientific name of basella alba and some other fancy names like Climbing Spinach, Malabar Spinach etc. Basella alba is a fast-growing, soft-stemmed vine, reaching 10 m in length. Its thick, semi-succulent, heart-shaped leaves have a mild flavour and mucilaginous texture.

Typical of leaf vegetables, it is high in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and calcium. It is low in calories by volume, and high in protein per calorie. The succulent mucilage is a particularly rich source of soluble fiber, thought to remove mucus and toxins from the body. The plant is also a rich source of chlorophyll. You can apparently grow this plant from the stems/stalks and with tips from Soma I have planted some of those stalks in my backyard

This dish goes to WHB # 185 hosted by Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook

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Pui Chingri/Pohi Greens with Shrimp

This is a very simple and approximate recipe and serves about 3-4 people

Prep: Devein and clean shrimp if fresh. If frozen defrost shrimp and remove the tail. Toss about 8-10 shrimp with a little turmeric and salt and keep aside for 15-20 minutes

Wash and clean the pohi greens(I had about 1lb) and chop in small pieces. Chop the stems too.

Start Cooking

Heat Mustard Oil(or any white oil) in a Kadhai

Fry the shrimp till they are a light golden yellow. Don't fry them too much, they get tough. Remove shrimp and keep aside

Fry 1 small potato chopped in slices till it is light golden in color. Remove and keep aside

Temper/chaunce the oil with 1/2 tsp of Paanch Phoron and 4 slit green chili. If you cannot stand the heat of green chili ignore

Once you get the beautiful flavor of paanch phoron add the greens along with the stems

Saute and let it cook

You can cover and cook to make it cook faster, but frequently remove the cover and give a good stir. The greens will release a lot of water which you want to dry up. Slimy pohi doesn't taste good.

When the greens is almost done add the potatoes, salt and 1/4-1/2 tsp of Red Chili Powder. Mix well and cook till potatoes are done

Add the shrimp and mix well with the greens

Serve with hot rice

MuloShaak or Radish Greens

My weekend visits to the local Farmers Market, leaves me rejuvenated. When I was new to the US, I used to go to the ShopRites (US Grocery chain in our area) or the Indian stores for getting my veggies & fruits, but after I discovered the Farmers Market, it was a different story.

I try to go at least once a week to buy veggies, mostly the greens like Spinach, Bok Choy, Brussels Sprouts etc. and the Fruits. It is the greens that attract me here, for the rest I am ok with the other grocery places, but the greens here are so vibrant and earthly (not organic though, for organic WholeFoods Market is another great store but it's a bit far from my place and a bit pricey) that I always buy them here. If you are in the US and there's a farmers market in the neighbourhood do try it out if you haven’t already, they won't be glossy and well packaged but they will taste good and cost you less.

This reminds me of the weekend market we used to go to on Saturdays when we were in Koramangala, Bangalore. It was near Hosur Road, I think it was called Madiwala (??)and there would be all these people selling & buying and the place would be thriving with life. With my knowlede of kannada stopping at "Stop Mari" (a phrase I often used with the auto drivers), I would happily bargain and return home with a loaded bag. It was also a good place to get Fish.

So this Saturday as I was wandering around my Farmer's Market (ok not mine, someone else owns it) I came upon these beautiful bunches of radish, the radish were small pinkish red balls and they were hanging from the green leafy bunches. I brought them home for 1 dollar a pair. Now, normally I would have just cut the radish, tossed them in a salad or ate them raw. But now my Ma is here, yehhhhhhhhh and though I don't let her do the daily cooking to give her a little rest from all the years of cooking that she has done for us, you know how Moms are. She has just arrived and yet she cooks something during the day so that I don't have to cook when I get back from work but get to eat the goodies


So, my Maa sat down, chopped up the leaves real fine, kuchi-kuchi as we say in Bengali and made Mulo Shaak. A very nice, easy, healthy recipe. I never wanted to eat it growing up and only today I appreciate this dish. Maybe am getting old :)

Mulo Shaak or Radish Greens is a typical way a Bong eats his greens. Spinach or other greens are also coked in almost similar ways. This is usually eaten as a second course in the traditional Bengali Lunch.

What You Need

Bunches of radish with nice green leaves ~ 2 bunches. The variety I got is known as Red Globe and popular in US

Green Chillies ~ 2/3

For Phoron:
Kalo Jeera or Kalonji ~ 1/2 tsp
Shukno Lanka or Dry Red Chillies ~ 2/3

Salt

How Ma Does It

Chop the radish greens (stems included) real fine, in small pieces
Also cut some of the radish about say 4 small ones into fine pieces
Heat Oil in Kadai/Frying Pan
Add Kalo Jeera(Kalonji) and Shukno Lanka(Dry Red Chillies) as phoron
Sauté the radish pieces
When they are little soft add the greens
Cover and sauté till they are soft.
Add salt
Dry up all the water
Serve with Rice or Roti



Enjoy your holidays wining, dining and feasting. I am off on a 3-day break to Lancaster County , PA to visit our Amish neighbours. Shall resume cooking and blogging once I am back :)

Trivia: Radishes were first cultivated thousands of years ago in China, then in Egypt and Greece. Radishes were so highly regarded in Greece that gold replicas were made. Are you kidding ??

Masoor Dal with Bok Choy

I love my Dal, not the “Dal Dal pe Chiriya baithe…” kind of Dal but “Meri Ma ki Dal ki kasam” kind of Dal :-). This reminds me, does anyone know how to make Ma ki Dal , like if I make your recipe of “Ma ki Dal” won’t it be “Tumhari Ma ki Dal” when I serve it and vice versa , is there a global one, like “Sab ki Ma ki Dal” ? Ok, that's it. Enough PJ’s on a dull day and let’s move on to my daily dose of dal.

Ok, so let me reiterate I simply love Dal, maybe not all kinds but most kinds. I think every region in India have their own choice of Dal, like in the Northern Region, Arhar Dal or Tur Dal is very common as a regular dal for everyday dal-chawal, in the Southern Region Arhar still holds strong being the Dal for Sambhar (correct me if I am wrong). In Bengal, the most popular Dals are Red Masoor, Yellow Moong and Chana Dal or Cholar Dal. Everyone eats the other kinds of course but I am talking about what you would cook everyday. Check out this site to know about all these dals or lentils in detail.

For me, I simply love Red Masoor Dal or Musuri’r Dal as I would say. Now Masoor Dal is generally made on its own and not cooked with veggies or greens in a Bengali home, it’s the yellow moong dal which is allowed to socialize with the veggie family.

Some years back I think I had first seen Sanjeev Kapoor cook Red Masoor Dal with Green Spinach or Palak and when I tried it, it turned out to be pretty good indeed. It was also a nice way for me & my family to get our daily dose of greens. My little one who is not exactly a veggie fan, eats this unaware and I am satisfied.

With the recent Spinach scare, I thought of an alternative and tried out Bok Choy the green much loved by the Chinese. I don’t know if it was the healthy benefits of Bok-Choy or the fact that “eating Bok-Choy keeps Chinese women thin” theory of mine which egged me into trying this rich green leafy vegetable.

So I made Masoor Dal with Bok Choy (as an alternative to Spinach) and I tell you it is very very good.

What You Need

Red Masoor Dal ~ 1 & 1/2 cup of dal washed
Onion ~ 1 small finely chopped
Tomato ~ 1 medium chopped
Garlic ~ 1 clove finely chopped
Ginger ~ grated about 1 tbsp
Bok Choy ~ I used 3 bunches of small Bok Choy nicely chopped
You can use spinach instead and it tastes as good, even better.
Green Chillies ~ 3/4 your choice, chopped. I didn't use any because this was also my daughter's dinner

Turmeric powder
Jeera or Whole Cumin Seeds ~ for tempering
Salt

How I Do It

Pressure cook the Red Masoor Dal with Tomatoes and a pinch of turmeric.
Since I have separators in my pressure cooker, I cook dal in one and the chopped bok-choy in the other. You can also pressure cook them together
Heat oil in Kadai/Frying Pan
Temper with the whole jeera.
When it starts sputtering add the chopped garlic.
As soon as you get the fragrant smell of garlic rising add the onions. Take care so that the garlic does not burn.
Saute the onions with a little sugar added until they turn a nice pink with a hint of brown
If you have steamed the dal and greens separately add the greens now, not the water only the greens and sauté else jump to next step
Mix the cooked dal (if it has the greens in it fine) well with a whisk so that the dal is all nicely mashed up and you don’t see the individual entities i.e. the dal grains. Now add it to the Kadai/Frying pan
Add the freshly grated ginger
After you have cooked them for a few minutes, add water to get your desired consistency.
Add Salt and allow the dal to come to a rolling boil.
I don’t like this dal to be very thick, but not very watery like say Rasam either. When your dal has reached the consistency you want, you are done.



Friday night this was our simple dinner, rice, masoor dal with bok choy and Cajun catfish baked with tomatoes. The Cajun Catfish was cat fish in Cajun marinade bought from the super store. I browned the catfish a little in a frying pan and then simply baked it with olive oil and tomatoes.

All this Bok-Choy compels me to discuss an author of Chinese origin I have grown to love. She is Amy Tan and her first book I read was "The Joy Luck Club". I loved it because of the interplay between immigrant Chinese mothers and daugter. Recently I bought "The Kitchen God's Wife" from our library book sale for a mere 5oCents and I liked this one too, albeit "The Joy Luck..." I liked better. Maybe because I am an immigrant mom with a little daughter, I could foresee the feelings, the tension I would face when she is growing up.

Trivia: Masoor Dal is considered as aamish or non-vegetarian in a traditional Bengali household. It is never offered during Pujas, whereas yellow Moong Dal is popular as offerings or as an ingredient for the prasad prepared during Pujas. Would love to know a plausible reason.