Thank You My Kitchen

This has been my kitchen for the longest time.8 years and 7 months to be precise.To be round and fair we can also say 9 years, given the few months that we had taken to close and move.

As a kid we moved houses and hence kitchens every 3-4 years. My father's job was as they said "transferable one" and we moved with the call of his duty. Since kitchen was not on the top 15 of my priorities those days it was amongst the things I missed least when we moved. I am sure my Ma had her own woeful stories about moving from large kitchens with huge windows to galley ones but of course then I never paid attention.

Now when I am the master of my own food, I can no longer say the same. I  remember distinctly the huge kitchen of the 1BR apartment I shared in Mumbai, the one in Bangalore which had a separate faucet for Cauvery water, the ample kitchens in the apartments in the US where I was thrilled to find the gas stove light up without a match stick. But of all these I love my current kitchen the best; the one that has survived me for all of 9 years, well almost. When I look back and count the years on my fingers this is the longest time I have cooked at a stretch and this is the longest time that this kitchen has been there to support me.

For 9 years or 8 years and 7 months to be exact, almost every morning I have been standing at the same spot, facing west towards the back splash that D had put up, making my tea. Some mornings it is so early that that the sky outside my window is still a slate gray and I have the kitchen lights on. On others, sunlight is streaming through the large windows facing south, bathing my little kitchen in light. I am always there at the same exact spot, the frayed red rug soft and almost tattered under my feet, the saucepan bubbling on the front burner of my gas stove.

In this kitchen I can close my eyes and reach out for spices and masalas in the wooden cabinets that abound. I know each of them personally. The liners on each of these shelves were cut and arranged by a dear friend 9 years ago and they still work well. The shelves were filled with jars, pots, stacks of  empty Yogurt containers exactly so with help of another and I have dared  not to change the order though I have had to throw out the yogurt containers on their insistence.Psssst...secret I still have some of them.

That cabinet, the one just above the sink hold my knick knacks that I use as props for the blog, the odd plate, the scalloped bowl, the lonely table mat. The bottom cabinet, the one right of the stove has colored plastic cups, lots of them, from IKEA. Those are the ones LS uses to make a juice stand or a coffee shop.

By the window, the breakfast nook as they say, is the table, a round wood top bought 12 years ago from K-mart. One of the first piece of furniture I owned in this country. We have had umpteen meals on that table for four. We have brought in extra chairs, rubbed shoulders and sat around it even when we had more than that for company. We have cut many cakes, lighted candles, arranged gifts and served buffet lunches and dinners right there. On most days I have arranged food on it and clicked pictures for the blog. And when we have been done with food, Big Sis has finished her homework on that same table while Little Sis has scribbled and made crayon marks on its surface.

My kitchen is more than a kitchen. For almost 9 years, it is the place which has seen my daughters grow, my friends come together to rejoice happy occasions and to share the not so happy ones, my mother and my ma-in-law cook their best dishes for their granddaughters. It has seen my Baba brewing the afternoon tea and my Father-in-law chopping vegetables. It has seen the husband man packing lunches for the girls and making scrumptious breakfast on the weekend. It has seen me and him fight, make up and argue.It has seen us admonish the girls, them speaking back and then saying sorry. It has seen spartan salads, rich mutton curries laced in elaichi and zafran, simple dals bubbling in stainless steel pots, turmeric stains from fragrant Ilish jhol, brown rice, white rice, sugary gokul pithe, puffed up and the ones that refused to puff white luchi, endless days of different varieties of pasta and lots and lots of pureed, mashed baby food.And it has seen me always.

Six years ago on a Fall evening it was here, standing in this kitchen, that I had resolved to start a blog. A food blog.

In a culture and environment ,where writing a blog, that too a food one is at the best considered a hobby, and any writing that does not come close to Marquez, Ghosh, Bibhutibhushan, Shibram or even Archer is considered frivolous; there have been times when writing up anecdotes and recipes with the hope that "someday when my daughter turns 22 will cook this " has seemed too far fetching. When I have waited for the girls to go to bed and yet again missed an episode of "Big Bang Theory" just so that I can take one more pic of Gajar Halwa, the whole process has seemed futile.

But then every time when I am back in my kitchen, trying to make even a simple Khichuri and screwing it up, I have felt the excitement, the beat of the food, the urge to blog. Even when the dish is mundane and there is nothing exemplary about the aroma, I have enjoyed the process. I have loved to put in words, the food I cook and eat. I am not really a very outgoing person but I have loved to interact with everyone, (barring the ones who want to sell me viagara), who reads this blog. I have loved writing the book as much as I love this blog.And I have realized I have stuck to this whole goddamn thing for the simple reason that I love doing it.This love.I owe it to my kitchen.

And next week I will miss my current muse. Next programming for "Bong Mom's CookBook" will be from a different kitchen in a different home . Hope the new kitchen adapts me, nurtures me, makes me her own and brings the same joy to my family and friends as this one did.

Thank You My Kitchen. You will always have a special place in my life.

Moog Dal Chora diye Lau -- Lauki complemented with roasted Moog Dal

Today is not really a day to write about Lau. I have my sniffles. The temperature is more like Fall than Summer. There is no way that I need a vegetable to cool me down. I am cold already. But this recipe had been cooked and written way back in the heat of summer. With the surfeit of Lau in my blog around that time, I probably gave this a miss.I better post it I thought before the temperature drops further and eating bowlfuls of hot soup in warm jackets make much more sense than eating a lauki.

The lauly thoughts that both my daughters are having these days also pushed me to be done with all lau recipes for this year.

Couple days back, I was home with LS. The big sis was in school and we were supposed to go and drop off something at her school.

On the way to school LS said : Ami Didi ke shobcheye bhalobashi(I love Didi most)
Me, with a flutter in my heart: Ar amake ? (And Me?)
LS confidently : Tomake Medium !!

I did not dare to ask her to elaborate on this further. It was only a month back that she suggested that I live in a separate house and she would come and visit me only in the evenings. She had tried to assure me that it would be just fine and she would play hide and seek when she came by. You might be wondering about my maternal traits and what I do to that child but trust me I am okay and not really all that bad.
Honestly reading a lot of Mom blogs I often have futile hopes that the girls will spout niceties about me  which I can put on proud display here. That apparently is not happening.

But I will keep at it for looks like there is hope lurking somewhere.

Big Sis did have something nice to say about me by the way. For their Back to School night they were to write an autobiography. And on that night, we, the parents, were supposed to read it. Big Sis had "smart, nice and hard working" for her Dad and for me the adjectives were "nice" and "luminous". Now clearly I had expected something more than just plain nice; I love words like fabulous, awesome etc. as adjectives.But it was the luminous that actually threw me off.

Me: Why do you think I am luminous ?
BS: Errr...because you are bright.
Ahem. With the scarcity of compliments around here I will grab anything that comes my way.

Now to the Moog Dal Chora diye Lau which is very different from Lau diye Moog Dal.

Confused ? Con-foo-sed ?

Well in the latter, that is in Lau diye Moog dal, the dal plays the main role and the bottle gourd is just an add on. The recipe for that kind of dal is almost similar to the Tetor Dal , yellow moong dal cooked with bitter gourd and lauki, in our home.

In the former it is the bottlegourd--the lauki--which makes the dish with the dal complementing it. The Moog Dal er Chora means a sprinkle of Moog Dal which accentuates the dish but you can really call it by any other name and increase or decrease the proportion of lentils. Some homes use very little moog dal, literally a sprinkle and cook it along with the gourd while my Mother makes it this way. My Ma makes both of these very often and we like the Moog Dal Chora diye Lau a lot around our home.

Soma Chowdhury's Jhinge Motor Daaler Borar Jhol --- Guest post

This post is a first in many respects.

First, it is a dish which I have never tasted before. I love Motor Daaler Bora and I have done Borar Jhaal but never have I had a Jhinge Motor Daaler Borar Jhol.

Second, this is the first time I have a guest post by a reader on my blog. Usually when a reader sends me a recipe, I try to cook the dish and only then do I post it. Other than that it is only my Mother's and my close friend's recipe(Aditi's Biryani, K's Dal Gosht, T's Tiramisu)  which have been posted as is without any intervention from me. So when Soma sent me this recipe last week I was not sure what I should do.

I definitely wanted to cook it but with my current schedule, I was sure that a "Jhinge" or "Daaler Bora" wasn't going to happen to me soon. The pictures of the jhol attached to the mail were also fabulous and a whisper in my heart or maybe my ears or somewhere said that many a Bangali Poribar, aka Bong Phamily would benefit much with a recipe like this. So I asked Soma if she could write down the recipe post ready for me and sure she send me a doc with a perfect writeup.

So handing over this post to Soma Chowdhury, a reader of this blog,  for her and her only Jhinge Motor Daaler Borar Jhol. She sent me this recipe last week and I have posted it in her exact words.. Do welcome her and remember that all the delicious pictures here are Soma's and copyrighted.

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Last week it was my husband’s birthday and he asked me to make some of his favorites. Jhinge (aka ridge gourd), which was on the list, is unfortunately not one of my most beloved vegetables (although I love most others except this one and kakrol (teasle gourd)). I have tried many times to acquire a taste for these but have failed. As it was, the jhinge-motor daaler borar jhol was on his list and as it was his birthday, I couldn’t refuse.

The jhol (gravy with watery consistency) is very light and delicate and mostly eaten at my in-law’s place during summer months to alleviate the scorching Calcutta heat. The jhinge/ridge gourd supposedly has cooling properties and is easily digestible. It is hard to tolerate spicy and rich food during summer, so people come up with lighter recipes with fewer spices which are easier on the stomach. When I was in India I never thought that I would grow to love cooking, but I do. As I live far away from home, I miss the comfort food cooked by my mom and my mom-in-law. I try to learn the recipes which are very special to both the families. Whenever we eat something which they used to cook, my husband and I share the memories at our dinner table. Day before yesterday when I served the jhinger jhol, he became nostalgic and said “if I close my eyes now, I can feel the dinner table, the summer heat and all of us eating together”. To me that’s a big achievement.

I never thought of sharing this recipe because I do not write a blog. But when I made it, I felt like I should share it with Sandeepa. Being a Bong myself, I like her blog and how she writes about the food, the history behind it, the simple, clean recipes and her sweet sense of humour. I thought she would appreciate such subtle delicacies, and I was right. The moment I emailed her, I got a positive reply. To my surprise, she asked me to write down the recipe with a little story behind it to post it on her blog. I was overjoyed.

As I do not follow exact measurement while cooking, I had to think hard to write down the tea spoon and table spoon measurements. I took the picture in a hurry this morning before coming to work.

So here is the recipe and hope you all will like it.

Jhinge ar motor daaler jhol: ( Ridge gourd with lentil fritters)

Ingredients:

    Split pea lentils/motor daal -- 1& 1/2 cup

    Cornstarch 1tbsp.
    Three medium sized ridge gourd. Peel and cut into 1/12” pieces (cylinder).
    Potato two medium sized (optional), cubed.
    Kalojeere/black cumin seed/kalonji ¼  tsp.
    Green chili 5-7 nos.
    Turmeric ¼ tsp
    Salt to taste
    Mustard oil 1&1/2 tbsp.
    Vegetable oil for deep frying the fritters.


Cooking procedure: 

Soak the washed lentils overnight or minimum 4-6 hours. Grind it to a coarse paste.

Add cornstarch, salt to taste and chopped green chilis. Mix well.

Heat up the vegetable oil, make small balls (a little smaller than a regular lime) with the lentils and deep fry them. Remove the fried balls or bora and soak the excess oil in a paper towel or any absorbent paper.

Heat up the mustard oil. It should be smoking hot. Lower the temperature and then add the kalonji (if the oil is too hot, the kalonji will burn and give a bitter taste). Sauté for few seconds and then add two slit green chilis. Sauté until you can smell the nice aroma of the kalonji and green chilis.

Add the potatoes (if you are using them), sauté for few minutes (don’t fry them) and then add the gourd pieces. Add turmeric, sauté for 2-3 mns. more and then add water.

Cover the pot and let it boil. Cook it on medium flame for several minutes. Uncover and add three more slit green chilis and salt to taste. Let it boil on medium flame for few more minutes until the vegetables are completely cooked. Check the consistency of the jhol (gravy) and taste for salt. It should be a very thin watery consistency but the raw taste of water should be gone by now.

Add the bora/fritters and boil for two more minutes and then turn off the flame. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes and then serve with plain hot rice.

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Similar Recipes:

Borar Jhaal -- A spicy gravy with the lentil fritters

Daal er Bora -- My recipe of Daaler Bora made with Motor + Masoor Dal. Also I have done the bora in an abelskeiver pan with no deep frying