Keema Matar or Keema Koraishuti

After a long long time I bought Goat keema today. Made fresh at the meat store.

It was natural that I would make a Keema Matar with it. What we call Keema Koraishuti.

That one dish serves a lot of purpose and also freezes well. So, today we are going to have just the keema matar with rice for lunch. Tomorrow, I will dry up some of it, add a boiled egg and make sandwich. On Wednesday I will defrost the portion I am freezing today, toss it with rice or something and concoct one more dish. If I am feeling particularly creative, I might also toss some pasta in it.

This is going to be an easy week. Good job Keema Matar.

The recipe is exactly same as my old one --  Keema Koraishuti. Only this time I used the pressure cooker.

Shorshe Salmon Jhaal -- Tomato Roshun diye

Jhaal in Bengali means hot. Not warm hot. Not "pink hot". But spicy hot.

But "jhaal" when in the name of a dish describes a gravy based dish (should have said curry, but don't want to add to curry culture) usually with mustard sauce that is thicker than a soupy "jhol" but not as rich as a "dalna". Confoosed ? Confused ? Okay forget it.

Jhaal and hot brings to my mind a very funny incident. I know a little girl, a neighborhood friend of my daughter who watches a little too much of Disney Channel. Well probably a lot of Disney Channel. If you are not a parent  or do not subscribe to cable, both good choice, you are probably at a loss here. "Disney" you think is all cutesy innocence, magic kingdoms and animated characters. Well, welcome to the Disney Channel on cable and spend some hours in the evening watching the shows they offer, and then come back and read this post. It is better for young kids  to watch back to back DDLJ than watch iCarly .

So any way this kid who watched a little too much of the channel, one day comes to my home in a new dress and tells me ," BM auntie, you know I am hot".

Being genuinely worried, I touched her forehead and said, "Do you have a fever ? your forehead is cool. You are not sweating either".

Balking at my ignorance, she exasperatedly said "No. Not that hot. Hot -- like in hot pink".

By now I had a grasp of what she had in mind, but knowing her for a long time and her obsession with the channel which probably led her to this imaginary self-obsession, I tried to play it down.

"Actually Hot in English language has only one meaning -- having a high temperature. And in some cases we use it for food which is very spicy. Never have I heard that being used to describe a person," I said, acting innocent.

Seeing that this was going nowhere and probably thinking of me as some bummer from an Indian village, she gave up on me. She also stopped all her preening and twirling and got down to more earthly business. "Can I have an oreo cookie ? Or two ?" she tried to negotiate.

"You can", I said. "But don't you say you are hot unless running a fever or feeling warm. You need to be older to understand different meanings of a word and only then use it".

Don't know if it had any effect on her but she is a good and smart child and I hope the self-obsession was momentary.

What do you do when faced with kids saying "grownup words" or acting "much older than their age" ? Do you give a stern scolding ? Do you sit them down and give them a lecture ? What do you do ?

Back to the food, this shorshe salmon is a quick dinner option on a weekday. All you need to make is the mustard paste. And then the best thing is, you make it different from the regular mustard paste. The way I do it, I make the mustard paste with mustard seeds, poppy seeds, green chillies, tomato and garlic, flavors which go very well with the stronger taste of salmon. If you don't want to do the jhaal,  you use the paste as a marinade and bake the salmon instead.

Else you make the Shorshe Tomato Salmon Jhaal.

Shorshe Tomato Salmon Jhaal 

When I buy salmon fillet I ask the skin to be removed. Then if I am making the jhaal I cut each fillet in 2x2 squares. Okay, maybe some other dimension but small squares or rectangles. Toss the pieces with turmeric powder, pinch of garam masala and salt and keep aside. For this dish I had two fillet of salmon

Soak
1 tbsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tbsp Poppy seeds
in a tbsp water for 30 mins

Make a paste of
the mustard + poppy seeds
2 fat clove of garlic
1 small tomato
2 green chilli
salt to taste 
with a splash of water


Heat 1 tbsp Mustard oil to smoking

Temper the hot oil with
1/4 tsp kalojeere(kalonji) and
4 slit green chilli.

Add the fish pieces and lightly fry till the fish loses its raw coloring.

Next add the mustard paste you made. Lower the heat and mix with the fish till fish is a pale golden color. Do not over fry fish or crisp it. Add warm water enough for gravy, salt to taste, cover the pan and let the gravy simmer.

The gravy should be on the thicker side and clinging to the fish. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Oven baked Begun Bhaja -- and a book review

Definition of "Bossy" according LS with real life example -- "Bossy maane....bossy maane. Ei je dhoro tomar ei room ta clean korar kotha. Kintu tmi korcho na. Ar tumi amake bolcho clean korte jate tumi araam kore cha khete paro. Tar mane tumi Bossy."

She says, "Bossy means...well bossy means. Ok, lets take you. It is your job to clean this room(at this point she looks at me pointedly). But, you don't do it. Instead you tell me to do it so that you can sit and drink your tea. That means you are being bossy".

Point noted.

Everyone knows that a Bong loves his or her Begun Bhaja. Slices of purple eggplant, tossed in turmeric powder and salt and then shallow fried in hot oil. With a good quality eggplant, the flesh of the fried being is so soft that it is not wrong to call it "buttery". Growing up, the begun bhaja was a standard side with dal and rice and a fish curry in my and many Bengali's home. I never liked it nor did I spare any thought towards it. It was that one more bhaja served with dal.

Today, I do not make  a begun bhaja all that often simply because I don't want to do the frying, an eggplant sucks up oil fast and is as much a gas guzzler as a Hummer H1. I would rather eat a begun pora than a bhaja, I claim.

And then a reader(if you are reading this and had suggested this oven method please leave a note brilliant Lavanya Krishnan) said that she does it in the oven. "Click". Went the rusted switch in my brain. I chopped the eggplant, tossed them with turmeric, salt and couple tsp of olive oil and popped them in the oven.  They came out near perfect like a bhaja.

Then to get more experimental I dusted them with cajun seasoning and sprinkled some paprkia.

Next I wanted to rub them with cinnamon powder and nutmeg. But I restrained. This far and no further was the mandate. "Don't mess with my Begun Bhaja",  was a familiar cry around home.Hah! tell me who is "Bossy" around here.

Traditionally the Begun Bhaja is fried. In Mustard Oil. As in this Begun Bhaja. In the oven version I used olive oil instead of Mustard but you can use the latter too.

Wash 1 slender japanese eggplant in water and pat dry

Chop the japanese eggplant in rounds, each 1/2" thick.

Toss the slices with
1 tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp Olive oil
salt

Grease a baking tray. Arrange the eggplant slices on the tray. No piling or overlapping.

If you have a cooking spray, spray the surface of the eggplant slices. Or else you can smear them with drops of olive oil.

Pop in an oven. I used a toaster oven where I baked them at 300F for about 30 mins. After 15 mins from start I turned the tray and sprayed the slices once more. Towards the end, I flipped the slices, sprayed with little more cooking spray and did it for 5 more minutes.

Oven temperature and timing will vary. The larger oven temp should be about 350F. Also depending on the quality of the eggplant timing will vary. Just check that the slices are not getting dry and take them out once they are soft and cooked. If they are getting dry but not cooked, cover the bake tray with a aluminum foil and then bake.

Sometimes I might brown them further on a greased fry pan on the stove after they are done but mostly that is not necessary for this variety of eggplant

Now that we have the begun bhaja out of the picture and you saw the simple psychology that made me happier to bake them as opposed to frying them, I will introduce you to Scott Haas, food writer and psychologist. Yes, a deadly combination.

In his newest book, Scott explores what goes on inside a chef's mind in the back of a professional kitchen. Intriguing, haan ? Wait and hear the rest. In the book, "Back of the House-- Secret Life of a restaurant" Haas looks at famed Boston restaurant Craigie on Main, where chef Tony Maws basically gave him free reign to observe for the past year and a half. If you want to know what inspires a chef, if you want a peek into the racing drama in a restaurant kitchen and want the drama to unfold like a novel, this book is for you.

Now available on Amazon

I have my own copy which I am not going to share  but I would be very happy to send a copy of this book to one of the commenters in this post.. Winner will picked by random.org and book will be shipped in US only.