Chirer Pulao aka Poha -- witth Oats ahem

Chirer pulao featured a close second in my "Most wanted School Lunch" list as a kid.

The winner was almost always the egg noodles.

Third and Fourth place were tied and was either a fried rice, savory french toasts or aloo paratha. Yes, my mother packed good lunches.

As far as I go Chirer Pulao is largely similar to a Poha, with small differences like the former does not have kari patta, is sweeter and is overall Bong. The experts may differ. My Mother made chirer pulao with a tadka of mustard seeds and finished it with lime juice and fresh coriander leaves. It would be a little sweet and tart. That chirer pulao would be studded with crunchy brown friend chinebadam pale on the inside, alu bhaja -- finger length potatoes fried and soft and soft green jewel like green pea motorshuti . It was a simple dish, I thought.

The first time I tried to make it on my own in the US, my self-esteem took a good beating. The chirer pulao turned into a chirer khichuri. And it all happened in the split second that I was searching for the mustard seeds while the poha was soaking. I did not know of a term called "mise en place" and I did not know I was using thin poha. It was the wrong kind. The thick poha stands a better chance of holding its own and is the poha of choice for Chirer Pulao.

Having survived that tragedy, I have been making the chirer pualo the way my Mother makes until that is this Monday.

This Monday I decided to add oats to chirer pulao. Why you ask ? Why not just let oats be and eat it as a breakfast cereal.

Well, while me and the husband eat a decent amount of oatmeal, the kids do not. They don't like the texture. Since I was making this for BS's school lunch, I thought why not make it a bit more healthy by adding steel cut oats. I mean people make oats upma all the time so why not this.I used only 1/4 cup of steel cut oats and 1 cup of poha and then cooked and rinsed the oatmeal to remove the slimy texture. The end result was pretty good if I may say so myself.

I was pretty impressed by my fine sense of culinary mix and match (ahem) and just when I was feeling a wee bit like Marc Samuelsson this conversation happened.

The husband(who was at work on Monday and would be back next day): What did you make today ?
Me: I made a Chire Oats er Pulao for tomorrow's lunch.It turned out so good.
He: Oats and Chire together ? ***Followed by Long silence ***
Me: Yeah, why ? It is really good.
He: Amake khete hobe na to ? I hope there will be none left by the time I return.
Me: !!#$%#$!!

But of course I did not let that bother me. The lunch was packed for BigSis next day and she did not complain.

For the recipe of Chirer Pulao with Oats check my blog for kids where I am storing lunch box ideas. 

Chirer Pulao or Poha

Steel Cut Oats -- 1/4th Cup (optional)
Thick Poha or Chire - 1 Cup

Vegetables

Potato - 1 medium
carrot - 1 medium
Green peas - 1/4 Cup
Cauliflower -- 8-10 small florets chopped if available

Green Chilli - 3-4 minced
Ginger - 1" knob minced
Onion - 1 small chopped

For Tadka

Mustard seeds - 1/2 tsp
Dry Red Chilli - 1

Other Ingredients

Peanuts- 1/8th Cup
Coriander - to garnish
Lime Juice - 1 Tbsp

Salt - to taste
Sugar - 1/2 tsp
Oil -- 2-3 Tbsp



Prep

Cook 1/4 cup of steel cut oats in boiling water for 8-10 minutes or as mentioned in package. The oat should be cooked but have a bite. Once cooked drain on a sieve and rinse out the starch with cold water

Chop 1 medium potatoes along the length or small cubes. Chop 1 carrot in small cubes . Defrost 1/4th cup of  green peas

Chop 1 small sized onion. Peel and chop 1" knob of ginger in julienne

Fry a handful of raw peanuts till brown and crunchy.

Keep 1 cup of thick poha ready. We are going to soak it soon.

Start making the Chirer Pulao

Heat Oil in a fry pan. Vegetable Oil or Mustard oil preferred but I often make it with Olive oil too.

Saute the potatoes with a sprinkle of turmeric till they are golden brown. Remove and keep aside.

Temper the oil with 1/2 tsp of Mustard seeds and 1 dry red  chilli

When the spices pop, add the onion and saute till soft and pink. Throw in the 2 green chilli chopped in rounds and minced ginger

Next add the carrots and green peas. Saute and then cover to let the vegetables cook.

When the carrot is almost done, add the potatoes and finish cooking them.

While the veggies are cooking do this:
Take a sieve
Put 1 cup of poha/chire on the sieve
Now hold the sieve under running water and soak the chire until they are soft.
You can also soak the poha in water directly but I often end up with soggy poha that way. The sieve and running water helps me control the exact softness I want in my chire.
Once the chire/pha is soft, squeeze out the excess water and keep it ready

Once the veggies are cooked, add the poha/chire to the frying pan. Add salt to taste and toss the poha so that the vegetables and the poha are nicely mixed. Add the cooked oats and mix well. Add a tsp of sugar and cook the whole thing for a few minutes. Taste and adjust for seasonings.


At the very end add juice of about half a lime and mix. Garnish with fried peanuts and chopped coriander.

Dida's Gota Sheddho -- traditions reborn

Before I go into the recipe of Gota Sheddho let me be honest and tell you that this is the first time I made it.

I had never made Gota Sheddho before. Neither has my Mother. It is my Dida, my Ma's mother, whose Gota Sheddho is what I remember today. Her Gota Sheddho was much in demand in the North Kolkata neighborhood she lived. Younger women who had turned new mothers would send out a request to her before Saraswati Pujo. "Mashima, amar jonyo ektu gota deben", they would say.  In the years that we lived in Kolkata, she would send it for my Mother too, in steel tiffin carrier boxes, the day after Saraswati Pujo.

The dish did not look appetizing with its dull brown black color and I never really wanted to taste it. It was supposed to be had cold and my Ma would implore me to have at least a serving of what Dida has sent.. "It is good for you", she would say. I would swallow it like I would a lot of other veggies at that age. Fast. Pushing the morsels at the back of my throat.  Refusing to taste it with my tongues or senses. I wish I had better adjectives to describe that dish my Dida cooked with love for the wellbeing of her children and then theirs. But I hardly tasted the dish and every year I wondered if the young women in my Dida's neighborhood had gone bonkers to send request for "Gota Sheddho".

"Why would anyone want to have Gota Sheddho ?", I often wondered.

The Five vegetables: Red Potatoes, Purple Eggplant, Green Sheem, Whole peas in a pod, Baby Spinach

Yesterday on my FB page, a reader asked if I had a recipe for Gota Sheddho."Nope", I told her. And there the matter rested. Until another reader came by and shared a recipe of her Mother's Gota Sheddho. Anuradha's Mom's recipe was simple like it should be and it instantly reminded me of my Dida's Gota Sheddho. I had a hunch that this was how Dida made it. Strangely, at that point, I did not remember it as the dull black unappetizing dish instead I remembered it as something my Dida cooked. It must have been good, I told myself, she was a fantastic cook after all.

So I called my Mother. I wanted to know the story behind the dish. Why was it had cold ? Why was it cooked at all on Saraswati Pujo ? Information trickled down and a tradition shaped up.

I did not have Masshkolai so I used Green Moong

Ma said, "The day after Saraswati Pujo is Sheetol Shoshti. Shoshthi is the goddess of  fertility and worshiped by Mothers as a guardian angel of their offspring. Sheetol==Cool. And on the day of sheetol shoshthi, cold gota sheddho that had been cooked the previous day, is to be had by Mothers worshipping Ma Shoshthi.

The way your Dida made Gota Sheddho was by boiling kali urad(the urad dal with skin) known as maashkolai in Bengali with five different vegetables in season which were to be added whole, little salt, sugar to taste, some pieces of ginger and drizzle of  raw mustard oil to finish off. The vegetables most commonly used were small red potatoes, small eggplant, sheem, whole green peas in their pod and baby spinach."

Okay, so the Gota Sheddho was cooked on Saraswati Pujo but had cold only the next day and it was done apparently for the long life of one's children.

My Mother also said that on the day of Sheetol Shoshthi, Dida wrapped the sheel-nora in a fresh new cotton cloth and worshiped it. It was the sheel-nora's day off and no masala(spices) were to be ground or made into a paste. Amazingly, the gota sheddho is cooked sans any spices also. Not even a speck of turmeric is added to it. I am not sure if this was as a respect for the sheel-nora but that is how the story goes.

Now that I think of it, there seems to be a deeper meaning to the whole thing. Saraswati Pujo heralds the advent of Spring and with Spring came many diseases in those days. So along with the prayers for well being of the children, the food cooked was something healthy and brimming with nutrients from the steamed fresh new vegetables and dals. A diet like that would keep any disease at bay, given that you had it every day.

Now, there are many different versions of this dish. Each home in Bengal has their own little touch to Gota Sheddho. I closely followed my Dida's recipe, as narrated by my Ma. But I had to adapt and make some changes. I did not have the black urad dal and so I used green moong. I used five vegetables but did not follow the rule of six parts or numbers of each. Also instead of the raw mustard oil I heated up mustard oil, tempered it with few dry red chillies and added that oil to finished dal.

I am not a ritualistic person and I did not do this with the religious goal in mind. Everyday I pray for my children's well being and I do not believe that having a cold dal on a certain Spring day would do any extra good. But I am sure my Dida and the women of their generations had their own reasons and nothing beats the fact that this is a dish brimming with nutrition. I liked it hot though. And a squeeze of lime made it better.

 Dida's Gota Sheddho -- my version

The day before cooking, soak 1/2 cup of Green Moong (1 Cup if you want more dal type) in water. Actual recipes asks for Black urad aka maash kolai. 

The next day, in a big pot, add the soaked dal. In my case this was the pressure cooker.

Along with the dal add the following veggies whole. No chopping or cutting. Makes life easy.
Small Red Potatoes
Small Round eggplant
Whole peas in their pods
Sheem
Baby Spinach with stems
Ideally each vegetable should be added in six-es. But I did not follow this rule

Add enough water to the pot to cover the veggies and dal.
Add salt to taste.
Add 5-6 whole green chillies
Add a tbsp of grated or minced ginger
Note: Instead of only ginger you can use this -- 1 tsp of fennel seeds(mouri) + 2" inch piece of ginger, pounded in a mortar-pestle. Amazing flavor.

Cook till dal and veggies are done. Since I did it in a whistling pressure cooker, I did it for about 5 whistles at low medium heat.

When done, dry off excess water if you wish. Add sugar to taste. Drizzle some mustard oil. Serve hot or cold.
Instead of raw oil, I heated 1-2 tsp of Mustard Oil (more if you want, I keep oil low) in a separate kadhai. Tempered the hot oil with 4 Dry Red Chillies. Added the Oil+Red Chillies to the cooked dal.

This dish also goes to Jaya's event  "I cooked Gota Sheddho in my Indian pressure cooker and it did not blow up in my face".

Pasta with Roasted Peppers, Greens and Ricotta

Today was one of those days. The kind of day when you have a long To-Do list and nothing on it gets done.

Wait. Actually that is not today, that is everyday.

But while everyday, I just push off the today list to tomorrow, "today" some of the things on there had to be done. Simply had to. And one of them was to get Valentine's day gift or treat or some such thing for LS's class. Yes, for a class of four year olds who care the sheeshkabob about Saint Valentine. All they I am sure want is some colored candy which unfortunately I wasn't going to give.

Now all these years I have never sent gifts to school on V day. I have sent treats for the party but not individual gifts for the kids. "We just did this for Christmas. Why again in February?" was how my general train of thought went.But this year in a moment of weakness (or maybe it was the moment when I was busy clicking a food photo)I promised LS that I would send goody bags on Valentines Day. I promised but did not lift even one of my fat fingers towards that promise until I made the TBD list for today. "Buy V G.Bags", was scrawled on it along with several other illegible stuff which may  have included "Go to Gym" or may not.

To keep that promise, I came home; took a shower; drank tea with one several Marie Biscuit; quickly made a Pasta with roasted sweet pepper, spinach and ricotta because the tub of ricotta in the refrigerator was inching towards its expiration; donned a jacket and then rushed out to the nearest available store that sells stuff that can qualify for "V G.Bags". Thankfully the husband was around to take the kids to their taekwondo class and I could scratch that from my list.

So the main thing is, I donned a jacket and rushed out. When I say donned a jacket, I "donned" it on whatever I was wearing at home while sipping tea and cooking pasta. If you know me or in the case that you don't, it is high time you understand the way I function. I do not sip tea or cook pasta in designer wear. Forget desinger wear which I don't even own, I actually prefer drinking tea and stirring pasta in tracks which have been through the wash cycle so many times that they are now super comfy and in t-shirts so frayed at the edges that they might work better to mop my counter than covering my body. The only reason I like winter, is zipping up that jacket hides my wardrobe inadequacies in most places.

Comfortable in the super cape power of my jacket I breezed through the aisles of the store trying to figure which pack of valentine cards will give most bang for my buck, all the time feeling like I was being hit by a cold draft. But there was too much on my mind, like Winnie or Dora,  to pay attention to drafts and winds.

Finally all set, when I was at the checkout, the young guy at the counter was extra nice and kind of treating me like he would an older senile lady. You know, how you are extra nice and gentle and sweet when you encounter a ninety year old who is slightly woozy in the head. Well she has a reason, her sleep medication is doing that. "What is my excuse", I thought. It was then that I glanced down and what do I see ? The jacket that I had so confidently zipped up at home, had somehow unzipped midway and split up exposing my threadbare tee and holey pants. I surely looked like someone whose upper storey needed some repair work. Struggling with that zipper did not help at all and I quickly gathered my stuff and walked to the car. Fast.

Now I need a foolproof jacket. That tee and track pants are here to stay,

That said this Pasta with Roasted Red Peppers ,Greens and Ricotta was pretty good. A pinch of Garam Masala and some garlic made it better. It was inspired by a recipe in NY Times and will be packed for school lunch tomorrow. Of course it works perfect for a dinner too.

The recipe is in my kids' blog where I am storing lunchbox ideas.