Celery Chingri -- Celery with Shrimp

When I was a kid, I thought becoming an adult was the answer to all my woes. You could sleep in late, spend money to buy as many Archie comics as you could read not and you did not have to eat vegetables.

Little did I know what I was in for.

I mean being an adult is ok and everything but you never get to do the things you had imagined and you DO EAT vegetables. The worst part is you eat them even when no one is forcing you to and you even shop for them.

Take Celery. I never had tasted a celery until I started going to BS's pre-school kiddie birthday parties a couple of years ago. These would be at one jumping place or the other and kids would have pizza while all the parents were offered was carrot sticks and celery ribs with a veggie dip. I loved the dip, I thought the celery was an instrument to scoop up that delicious dip. To eat them was blah.

I would still get celery to put in a soup or something or to rot in the refrigerator until LS's Nanny last year said "Didi apnara celery'r tarkari khan na"(Didi don't you eat celery sabzi). She must have recognized me as the ideal candidate to go on a celery diet.

I got the celery and she made a dish, Celery Chingri, a sabzi with celery and shrimp. It really was good, way better than anything with celery could have tasted. Like it wasn't something to die for but it was decent and would make for a nice side dish and it had shrimps, so why complain.

At this point though, let me tell you, if celery is not a vegetable local to where you are, like if you are in Cambodia and you have never seen your Mom cook celery DO NOT go out and buy if it is overpriced. It is not worth it. In that case just eat the shrimp.

And what is the Paprika doing in the picture you might ask ? It is NOT in the dish, the dish has red chili Powder, no mild paprika. The Paprika is what a harassed BongMom gives to the toddler to distract, so that she can take a pic on an overloaded work night. The outcome is not good, the pic lighted with no fancy Lowell ego but plain-jane side table lamps does not exactly glamorize the celery and the paprika has been dumped on the beige carpet. If I never ever blog again you know why.

Entries for Of Chalks and ChopSticks is welcome until Friday June 10th, midnight simply because I have not posted my entry yet. Tee hee !! I am the Super Power at least this one time.


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Celery Chingri -- Celery with Shrimp

The Shrimp

If using frozen shrimp defrost else clean and de-vein. Sprinkle with little salt and turmeric powder and keep aside for 10 minutes. I had about 10-12 shrimps

The Celery

Chop the celery in really small pieces. Smaller than what you see in the pic.

The Celery Shrimp Sabzi

Heat Olive Oil in a saute pan

Fry the shrimp and remove and keep aside. When the shrimps are cool to touch, chop them in small pieces and eat a few

Add little more oil to the same pan if needed. Temper with 1 tsp of Paanch Phoron or Kalonji. If you have none of these use Cumin Seeds

When the spices sputter and pop, add 1/2 up of chopped red onion and little more. Fry the onion with a sprinkle of sugar till onion is pinkish brown

Add 1 heaped tsp of garlic paste and fry for say 1/2 a minute

Add 1 potato chopped in small cubes. Add 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder and fry the potatoes till light yellow

Add 1 tsp of roasted corriander powder and 1/2 tsp of red chili Powder.With a sprinkle of water fry the masala along with the potatoes.

Add about 2 cups of celery very finely chopped and mix everything well. The celery should be chopped thinner than shown in pic. Add salt to taste and cover the saute pan, letting the celery cook. Every couple of minutes remove the cover and stir the vegetables until done.

Taste for seasoning and adjust accordingly. If needed add a tsp of Garam Masala.

Add the shrimp pieces, give a good mix and serve with dal and other dishes.

Vegetarian Option: Instead of shrimp add fried pieces of paneer.

Begun Chirer Pulao -- Brinjal n Poha Pulao

I really don't love eggplants all that much. I like okra way better than eggplant. But you wouldn't know that. I have only one single okra post in all these years and several eggplant ones. In fact the frequency with which I am posting eggplant dishes you would think that is all we eat at home. But that is as far removed from the truth as is the earth from the moon or as is me from reality.

The reality is we do eat eggplants more than okra, for one it is easier to chop and cook and does well in mass production and everyone adores it. But not me or BS. I do not love eggplant more than okra. BS does not love anything but her little sis.

But this dish, the "Begun Chirer Pulao" is different. It is a very new thing, which I have never heard or had before. My Ma with her genius and her repertoire made this some weeks back. She says she got it from a book. Whoever was invited for lunch that day "oohed" and "aaahed" over it. The husband liked it a lot. In short this dish got so much recognition that every thing else paled in comparison. Now these are words I can rarely say about 90% of the other recipes I have posted in all these years.

So you see this is important. For one it is a very novel dish and Bengalis love novelty as long as it is not octopus in tamarind sauce. They love trying out new dishes if it is Bengali, Indo-Chinese, Thai, and maybe Moroccan, ok not Moroccan but might be. So because of the newness and the ease of cooking and the taste this dish is a big winner. I made it again over the weekend for some friends. Everyone suitably "oohed" and "aahed", and acted surprised, because who would have thought of cooking eggplant/brinjal with poha, really.


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Begun Chirer Pulao -- Brinjal n Poha Pulao

Suggested Oil: Mustard Oil. If Not: Canola or Peanut Oil Never: Olive Oil

Serves 5-6 adults as a side dish

Chop 2 medium sized eggplants in thick slices. Soak in water with little salt for half an hour OR if you are running out of time just wash them well. Remove from water and sprinkle turmeric powder and salt on the slices and let them rest for 15-20 minutes.

Heat oil and deep fry the eggplant slices. They should be almost like 99.5% cooked at the end of this and taste totally yum with some dal and rice. But NO you cannot eat them because the universe is waiting for your Begun Pulao and you must give them that.

Now take 1 cup of Poha (or Beaten Rice) and fry them crisp in oil. IF you are not my Mom and you are like me and you like to pretend that you do not like deep frying toss the 1 cup of Poha with droplets of oil and arrange them in a single layer on a baking tray. Put in the oven at 350F till the poha turns crisp.

Heat some more oil in a heavy bottomed pan. Temper the oil with
1/4 tsp of Hing/Asafoetidia,
2-3 small Bay Leaves
and 5-6 small green Indian chili that have been slit.

While the oil heats, in a bowl add 1/2 cup of thick yogurt and beat. To it add
2 tsp of ginger paste,
1/2 tsp of Kashmiri mirch,
1/2 tsp of Red Chili powder(optional),
1/4 tsp of turmeric powder,
a little sugar and mix well.

Switch off the heat and wait for a minute. Add the yogurt to the pan and mix. Put it back on low heat after one more minute. When you see the oil seeping out of the side of the masala add about 1 cup of water. Add salt to taste and let the gravy come to a boil. Add the fried eggplants and mix gently so that the eggplants are well coated with the masala. Let it simmer till the gravy is thickened. Note: If you have a fear of yogurt curdling add a tsp of besan or gram flour to the yogurt and mix well so that there are no lumps. Now add everything else to the yogurt and add it to the pan

Add the fried/roasted crisp Poha and mix with the eggplants.

Sprinkle 1 tsp of Garam Masala powder on top and serve. Goes well with Rice or Roti. Tastes best when served in a couple of hours time or at least same day.

Moroccan Lentil & Carrot Soup -- Indianized

Sometimes I feel I am the right parent at the wrong age or maybe the wrong parent at the right age. At least never the right parent at the right age.

I am so archaic in comparison to the new age hip parents that sometimes I feel I should have paid heed to the ever well wishing relatives, you know the ones who wanted me to get married young and have kids early and keep a fast every alternate Saturday. If I had my kids really really early, early as in right after ummm high school, I might have aimed for grand kids now and then I could at least be the cool grandma instead of the uncool Mom.

Why did such wisdom dawn so late, you might ask. Well because it was only last week that I came to know of TogetherVille, a social networking site for kids under 10. I didn't even know the terms "social networking" and "kids under 10" can be uttered in the same breath.But apparently teeny-tiny kids need a social network and right after school these teeny-weeny kids need to jump onto the internet to connect to friends over the internet and discuss social life and maybe exchange vacation photos and show off Dad's new Mercedes. It is all very safe and protected and Moms/Dads who need to be on FB for their kids to be on Togetherville are raving about it.

Me? I said, I am old. I think the best way for my kid to "social network" is hop across to a friend's place. Naturally, by just going out of the door and knocking on the neighbor's door if you have a neighbor like mine or premeditated, with some effort on the parent's part, by setting up a time&date for play with friends not exactly next door. But definitely NOT online.

I think kids need to play with friends in real, they need to just go and get some un-organized play, not necessarily a sport, in a jumping-hopping-little pushing-running way. That is how they connect if needed after school, where I am guessing a lot of "social mingling" should get done.

But why would a 6 or a 7 or a 8 year old need to connect to someone, anyone ONLINE ? For the life of me, I am unable to understand this whole Togetherville thing. How uncool of me. How deprived my kids are. And on top of this I make them eat Moroccan Carrot Soup. Yikes !!!

And honestly I have nothing against Mark Zuckenburg or Mandeep Dhillon or Pope Benedict except admiration and a tad envy. I even think Zuckenburg is cute if anyone is hearing.

We have a big bunch of carrots at home, thanks to organic carrots becoming easily available in our price club. This time it was too much though, way too much carrots to anyone's liking. So, I decided to make a carrot soup and most sounded like bleah until I chanced upon this one. The "Moroccan" did it for me. I also added some Lentils, because I love them. I love lentils so much that if given a free reign I will put them in pretty much everything, even dessert. Ok not dessert because I love my dessert more dearly than the lentil.

I also added Garam Masala and Green Chili and did everything to make it the most Indian Moroccan Carrot lentil Soup ever.Morocco are you listening, next time please can you include Garam masala and Green Chili and some Paanch Phoron in your cuisine ? Please, pretty please, I love your food.


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Adapted from this recipe

Moroccan Carrot & Lentil Soup

Heat 1 tbsp of Olive Oil

Add 1 cup of finely chopped red onions and saute till they are soft. Add 2-3 cloves of garlic minced

Add 2 cups of thick slices of carrot and saute till the carrots start browning a wee bit.

Add about 3 tomatoes from a can of whole peeled tomatoes or use 2 medium fresh juicy tomatoes chopped. Saute the tomatoes till they are mushed up and there is no raw smell.

Wash and add 1 cup of brown lentils. Mix everything well together and add about 3-4 cups of water.

Add about 1 tsp of Garam Masala Powder, salt to taste and cover and cook.

In 20-25 minutes the lentils and carrots should be done. Add 1 tsp of honey and mix well. Adjust for seasonings.

Cool and puree in a blender with 2 green chili. Ok, chili is optional. When you puree, save 1/4 of the soup sans the carrots in the pot. Put back the blended soup back in the pot and simmer at low heat.

Dry roast 1 tsp of cumin in a skillet till fragrant and grind to a fine powder. Add this roasted cumin powder and 1 tsp of Paprika to the blended soup. You can add 1 tsp of Lime Juice if you want, I didn't.

Ladle the soup in bowls and serve the soup with a dollop of yogurt.

For a carby version, tear a slice of wheat bread and toss with olive oil, roughly chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Toast in the oven till crisp. Dunk in the soup.