MySpice -- Ginger

Ginger, a important part of my everyday cooking and hence life. Though referred to as a root it is actually a rhizome i.e. it is actually an underground stem of the plant Zingiber officinale. It Originated in China and went over to be cultivated widely in India and Southeast Asia.

Though in the Western World Ginger is most often used used for food that is sweet like ginger cookies etc. for me Ginger is a spice I use with most of my vegetarian and non-vegetarian cooking, even the quintessential curry has ginger as an important ingredient. In her everyday bengali cooking something that my Ma uses most is Jeere-Dhone-Ada bata. And this is a paste that a grinder does not do justice to, it needs loving human hands. The kitchen help who comes in every morning to do the dishes and help my mother knows this and makes wet paste of the three spices Jeera or Cumin, Dhone or Corriander Seeds and Ada or Ginger in the Shil Nora, a stone grinder which has to be seen to be understood. My Ma uses it fresh or at the most for the next day in most of her gravies. And the taste of such food, ahhhhhhh..., there are some things that the heart says better than my keypad...

Ginger in my everyday cuppa is another love relationship I have with Ginger. Ginger Tea or Adrak Chai boosts me early morning and refreshes me after a hard day's work.

How I Do This

Heat water and milk in the ratio of 2 : 1 in a kettle
When it comes to a boil, add freshly grated ginger
Let it come to rolling boil
I like a strong tea, so I add a teaspoon and a little of Brook Bond Red Label tea (this is CTC or crush,tear & curl tea)to it. This tea tastes good flavored with ginger.
Let it soak for a couple of minutes
Add sugar if you want
Strain with a strainer and enjoy it hot


Ginger has several medicinal effects too, so raise your cup to Ginger today...

My Ginger for JFI post will follow soon, hope I will be able to post by tonight

26th January -- Republic Day of India

Jhanda Uncha Rahe Hamara

Chamke Uska Sada Sitara...

Baishali's Spicy Egg Bake

The husband-man is a good cook, ummmm... actually a pretty good cook. In fact when we got married he was the better cook of the two. Over the years, fueled by all that competition I honed up my skills and became a decent cook, he on the other hand for lack of competition and reduced kitchen time offered to him, remained at the same level. So though he could have become the Master Chef if he had worked his way up all these years, he is just a very good cook and a very decent helper around the kitchen now. He does get a chance to show his culinary brilliance for Saturday Breakfasts and when we have friends over for dinner. He whips up just one dish, which my friends "oooh" and "aaahhh" over while I sweat and prepare the rest six which they take for granted, that's what friends are for anyway.

I have nothing to complain though because he understands the difference between sauté and fry and cooks up nice meals when given a chance. Whoever said "Bong" guys can't cook, is mostly wrong. It's just that some guys cook and some don't, nothing to do with bengali and non-bengali. But it's a common refrain among bong women that bong men are too pampered and don't know their way around the Kitchen. My Dad is clueless when it comes to cooking and my Ma used to say that "Ghoti" men (i.e bengali folks who are originally from West Bengal) are incompetent cooks while "Bangal" men (i.e. bengali folks whose ancestors trace back to East Bengal) are good at cooking. The husband-man being the quintessential "bangal" has lived up to the name :)

So this Spicy Egg Bake is his recipe which he learned from one of our friends, Baishali. Every time this dish is prepared, he does it, not once have I prepared this, even if friends call up asking for this recipe I put him on line. It's time I thought we put it on paper and you girls (and guys) can go "wow". It’s easy, great to eat and perfect to serve for dinner when you have friends and family over.

Update: Edited to add photos from Dec, 2017. The husband-man no longer makes this. The onus is now on me. But it is  a simple recipe to follow. Updated with some changes and lots of photos.

Read more...

Spicy Egg Bake

What You Need

Eggs ~ We used 12 eggs. Brown or white doesn't matter though I like brown eggs better

For masala
Onion ~ 1 medium
Cilantro or Corriander Leaves ~ 1/2 a bunch . Choose a fresh green aromatic bunch
Green Chillies ~ 8-10
Ginger ~ 1/2"

For Sauce
Heavy Cream ~ 1/2 pint . This dish is always prepared at our home when guests are over for dinner so always heavy cream has been used. Try to use a lighter cream if you prefer, can't gurantee the taste though
Tomato paste ~ 1/2 of a 6oz can of Hunt's tomato paste
Salt

Oil

How I Did It
Make green masla for stuffing
Finely chop 1/2 onion, 5 green chillies and the 1/2 bunch of corriander .

Make a thick paste of coriander and green chili in a blender with very little splashes of water. You can add a little olive oil to help make the paste.

Prepare the Eggs

Boil and shell eggs

Cut in halves length wise

Take out the egg yolks

Mix the egg yolks with the
green masala(coriander + green chili paste)
finely chopped onion,
and salt.
Mix nicely with your fingers or masher, whatever you are comfortable with, so that it is an uniform paste.

Put back the masala in each egg half in place of the yolk as shown in the above picture. You don't have to over stuff it, some of the masala should remain for latter use

For sauce
Finely chop 1/2 onion, 4 green chillies and the 1/2" of ginger in chopper or blender
Heat Oil in Kadhai/Frying Pan
Add the above onion-chilli-ginger paste and fry till golden. Add the remainder of the yolk & masala mixture (remember the one used for stuffing the eggs).
Add the tomato paste and cook till the oil separates and there is no more raw smell. Add a little sugar.
Add the heavy cream and mix thoroughly. At this point sauce will be pinkish in colour
Bring it to a boil
Add salt and let it simmer at medium heat until the mixture reduces to consistency of a thick sauce

To Bake

Take a baking dish.

Put 2 tbsp of sauce at the bottom

Put the eggs the yolk side up in a layer. A single layer is preferable. You can do 2 layers if required

Pour the sauce over the eggs in the baking dish, making sure that sauce coats all the eggs well. The sauce would be thick so they wouldn't be dunked in the sauce but uniformly coated with it

Heat Oven to 350F and bake for half an hour or till the top surface of the eggs are carmelized to a nice brown colour

Enjoy the eggs by themselves or with Pulao or Roti. You can be creative about the stuffing and change or experiment with other ingredients too.

Why Corriander Is Good For You

Though Coriander is believed to have originated in the Mediterranean area, and in southwest Europe, both the leaves and seeds of this plant are widely used in Indian cuisine
Coriander has been used as a folk medicine for the relief of anxiety and insomnia in Iranian folk medicine. Experiments in mice support its use as an anxiolytic.
Coriander essential oil showed a delay in E. Coli growth, suggesting possible agricultural anti-bacterial applications.
Coriander seeds have also been used to prepare a traditional diuretic in India . The diuretic is prepared by boiling equal amounts of coriander seeds and cumin seeds. The extract is then cooled and consumed as a diuretic . Source is from wiki
I am sending this dish over this weeks WHB started by lovely Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and this week hosted by Ed of Tomato
Trivia: There is a website I Hate Cilantro which has more than 1200 members all of whom say No to Cilantro