Aloo-Begun-Bori-BokChoy er Jhol -- Bengali soupy vegetables

Broccoli, Eggplant,Bok Choy,Potatoes

"Kolkata te ajkal BokChoy paoa jaay", said my Mother. "Ar oi beguni bandhakopi, the purple cabbage". (You get Bok Choy in Calcutta these days. Also that purple cabbage)

"Where do you get all these weird things ?" I asked

"Reliance Fresh," said my Mother with an air of someone who is not astounded by a BokChoy or surprised by a purple cabbage.

"But why would you buy it? You get enough Bangali shaak as it is," I said.

"Arre, your Baba bought purple cabbage the other day. It had absolutely no taste. But Namita buys it all the time. She also buys basil, broccoli and zucchini," continued my Ma, her voice brimming with pride for her neighbor, Namita, who undoubtedly was a global food connoisseur.

Then my Mother went onto further elaborate about her very Bengali neighbor Namita, who makes pasta with sausage and fresh basil for dinner, sautes bok choy in olive oil and has no idea how to make a patishapta or kochuri.

Musur Dal er Bori

It was my turn to be surprised. Not by Namita. I care less if she cooks pasta and outsources patishapta.

But by BokChoy's entry in India. Bok-Choy had come into my life only 7 years back via Asian Farmers Market in the US and had started featuring regularly in the menu only in the last two years. The foremost reason I buy a bunch of baby BokChoy these days is because it hardly needs any chopping like other greens and also tastes pretty decent. Even then, I am not sure if it has enough merits to take over a culture rich with greens like Palong, Pui, Note, Methi etc. etc. I knew about the Broccoli taking over Indian market but even Bok-choy ? Really? I hope they grow them locally and don't fly it in from China like they do the garlic these days.

Fried Bori

But then again why not ? I think. If I can eat potol by the Atlantic why not BokChoy by the delta of the river Ganges.

After all the world is getting flatter and everyone is eating everything.

The only difference is unlike Namita, I make a jhol, a light soupy gravy with my BokChoy, just like the Alu-Begun-Bori'r jhol that my Ma makes. That Alu-Begun-Bori'r jhol is awesomeness by itself, or awesomeness with a squeeze of lime. And it is not at all necessary to add Bok Choy to it.

Many summer afternoons, some potol and fish would be added to this very staple jhol in our home. Come winter, it was sweet peas in their pods and cauliflower's turn  to grace the soupy gravy. The Dal Vadi or Bori would make it extra special. There were these larger sized bori called jholer bori which tasted fabulous when soaked up in the soupy vegetable gravy. The jhol had minimal spices and just a dash of mustard paste towards the end to add some zing. Since Bok Choy and also broccoli  is easily available and I like it for the reasons stated above, I tend to add them to this jhol. The jhol tastes as good.

Do try this, very quintessential Bengali dish. Healthy, flavorful and simple, it is the perfect example of how simple home cooked dishes can hold their own against rich curries and enevelop you in that warm fuzzy feel of home.

Alu-Begun-Bori-BokChoy er Jhol

What You Need

Baby Bokchoy -- about 2-3 bunch. Washed and chopped roughly, including the softer part of the stem. I discarded the tougher part of the stem
Broccoli -- 1 small head cut into large florets
Potatoes -- 2 medium cut in thick slices along the length
Eggplant -- 1 Japanese eggplant cut in 2" lenghts

Vadi or Bori(optional) - few, say about 8-10 small ones and 5 of larger ones

PaanchPhoron -- 1 tsp
Green Chilli -- 4-5 broken
Jerra or Cumin Powder --- 1 tsp
Mustard paste --  approx. 1 tbsp Mustard Powder mixed with 1 tbsp water to make a paste or 1 tbsp of fresh mustard paste

Mustard Oil -- 3-4 tsp

How I Did It

Heat 3 tsp of Mustard Oil in a kadhai

When oil is hot, add the bori and fry them brown and crisp. Remove and keep aside.

Add a tsp more oil if needed to the kadhai and temper the oil with
1 tsp of PaanchPhoron
4-5 green chilli broken or slit

When the spices sputter add the potatoes. Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp of Turmeric powder and saute the potatoes for a minute

Next add the eggplant and toss with potatoes. Fry for couple of minutes until skin of eggplant starts softening. Now add about 1/4th cup of water, cover the saucier/kadhai and let the potatoes cook a little.

Now goes in the broccoli which you saute along with potatoes and eggplant. Follow with chopped bokchoy. Toss everything together gently and keep sauteing until you see the bokchoy wilt.

Now add
1 tsp cumin powder
1" ginger grated
salt to taste
and about 2 cups of water.

Mix everything well and add
1/2 tsp of turmeric powder
 the Mustard paste

Cover the saucier/kadhai and let it cook. In between, remove cover and check the water. You need a soupy gravy so add little more water if necessary. Once the vegetables are cooked, taste and adjust for salt.

Add the fried vadi or bori and let the gravy simmer for a minute

Serve with steaming rice and a quarter of lime

Musur Dal Seddho with Lime Leaf -- Boiled Red Masoor with Lime Leaf

Musurir Dal Seddho -- Boiled Red Masoor with no tadka

Little Sis will soon be five. A big milestone. For her. For me. I had never thought I am the kind of Mother who sheds tears at her children growing up. I always thought "growing older" was a nice thing to happen with children. I can only think of how nice it will be for BigSis to turn twelve and then welcome me home with a cup of tea at the end of the day.

Red Masoor in a beautiful bowl gifted by a friend and on a coaster gifted by a lovely reader from Australia

But now that Li'lSis is almost five and will soon be a Kindergartner, I panic. I have not been able to have  much time, where there is no one but only her and me. Like the ones I used to have with BigSis because there was no other child and I had quit work for a while.My time with her is usually shared by the elders sis or the Dad.And now with onset of school, I know it will never happen until she graduates college, and both she and me are on unemployment.

This has been a niggling thought at the back of my mind for a while now, and I had wanted to take off for a period, to be with only her before Kindergarten starts but because of various reasons it did not work out. Thankfully my work is such that I do get to spend enough time with her, even if it is not strictly one-on-one. She does not mind at all, this getting me to herself thing, as I think she sees enough of me, but it is my maternal instinct which triggers my pangs. I don't know if Moms with more than one child go through this phase or it is my PMS talking.

Of course the time that I do get with her, I try to multitask with things like...errmm... like drinking tea. So every request of a game from LS is preceded by "Tumi eita cha niye khelte paro" (You can play this with a cup of tea). Her games, mostly made-up,  are however very complicated. I often fail to grasp their rules which makes her lose patience.As a result I am always trying to find an excuse to not play those games. It is a circular problem.

LS doing the cartwheel after umpteen days of trial

She is also a very independent minded child and one with a quick temper. One of our close frineds has a nickname for her -- NDR -- "Naaker Dogay Raag" (temper at the tip of her nose) and it suits her fine. So one of these days when BS's BFF was having a sleepover at our home, I threw a random question to the kids
"Tell me something that you would like to improve in your personality this summer?", I said.

BS's 10 yr old BFF, M,  promptly said that she had a quick temper and she is trying to think happy thoughts every time she gets angry so as to cool her anger.

BS said the it was her personal problem and she did not want to discuss in public.

Inspired by M didi, LS too quipped that she wants to cool her temper by counting to 10 as I had suggested but it was not working, so she would try the happy thought method.

Few days later when I tried to remind LS that she needs to work to reduce her temper, she told me "But how can I think happy thoughts about you, if I am mad at you. You have to stop doing things that make me mad at you".
So now the responsibility has been offloaded to me. She is as smart as they come.

One of the things that most took me by surprise in the recent months was LS's ability to read. She reads almost everything these days from road signs to books. Though BS had started reading as early as 4, I had never thought LS had the patience to do so. Each child is different and since I don't sit with LS to make her read as much as much as I did with BS, I had assumed it would take her longer.

Imagine the surprise when a child who would read 4 letter words at the most was reading Peter Rabbit with words like "garden" and "wanted" with ease and saying aloud "New York & Company" or "Banana Republic" at the stores. It seems magical to me, that something clicked in those tiny brain cells and now she can figure out words without me saying "Chunk" or something like that. These days she peers over my shoulder and reads words from a book I am reading and feels very chuffed about it all. The deal now is we sit with a book and she reads few lines while I do others. She is not yet a "passionate reader" like BS, but she is great at emoting the lines she reads, complete with exclamation and question marks, which makes reading a lot of fun!

Talking about emoting, she has this knack for acting out songs etc. and if in a good mood, the sisters sing and act out songs all the time in the car. And after "Despicable Me 2", creative songs with "bottom" have been featuring more regularly in there.

She will soon be a fabulous five and I will be a Mom with two public school going kids. Sniff. Sniff. Clearly, this is taking me some adjusting and comforting which means a Red Masoor Dal in my book.

Now for the recipe of Musur Dal Seddho which I made with MLLA(My Legume Love Affair) in mind. Now, honestly, I love my legumes too much, so much that I have a whole chapter on Dals in my book and a Dal is had almost every day in my home. So when Susan of The Well Seasoned Cook, decided to giveaway two copies of my book for her the 61st edition of her event MLLA hosted by Aparna of My Diverse Kitchen, I was overjoyed.

Since I could not decide on what to cook for MLLA from Mango Dal, Chholar Dal, Dal er Bora or Musurir Dal, I resorted to the simple Musur Dal Seddho or Boiled Masoor Dal with green chilli and raw mustard oil perfumed with lime leaf, the one that is done without any tadka or "tempering" or "putting life and spice in my Dal" as I say in my book

This is the easiest form of Musurir dal that I do. The last moment what-shall-we-have-for-dinner kind of Dal. Green chilli, raw onion, drizzle of mustard oil and few lime leaves make it exemplary.

With some Rice it is bliss. With some salad and Papad , it is healthy eats.

I am sending this dish to Aparna for MLLA this month, started by Susan and managed now by Lisa.

Recipe updated with option for a variation

Rinse 1&1/2 cups of Red Masoor in running water.

In a sauce pan put the
rinsed lentils 
about 4 cups of water
1 tsp of turmeric
2 green chilli finely chopped
salt to taste( go with less salt as you can always adjust later)

In a small variation which turns out fabulous, add thinly sliced onions and chopped tomatoes along with all of the above and then set to boil

Keep the heat at medium and let the dal simmer. The Dal will simmer and froth. So be careful. Because if you are like me and get too engrossed in the kids playing "Just Dance", the dal will spill.
Solution: Use a deep sauce pan. Stir infrequently and keep a long handled wooden ladle immersed in the saucepan.

When the Dal bubbles over, give some stir and you will be good to go. If you want the Dal more soupy, add more water.

In about 25-30 mins, the lentils will be almost cooked.
Now
add couple of lime leaf, 
2 more green chilli finely chopped 
1 tsp of Mustard Oil
and cook for about 5 more minutes.
Adjust for salt.

If I don't have lime leaf, I also add mint leaf to get a mint flavored Musur Dal.

Garnish with finely chopped raw onion, coriander leaves if you have them and a squeeze of lime juice.

Keema Stuffed Tomatoes -- sleight of hand

Years ago when I was a cooking novice and the new friends I had made in the US were something of a culinary genius, this dish had come into being.

No, it was not their recipe. Rather it was my attempt to match up to their amazing homemade rosogollas, fantastic chorchoris and perfect biriyanis. To invite these culinary genius friends to my then home, a one-bedroom apartment, and then to feed them a dinner that would be fitting to their expectation, needed hard work or sleight.

I went with the latter. Hard work was over rated.

I think it was also a take off from Sanjeev Kapoor's Khana Khazana, the only food show I knew about and watched before I landed in the US.

So instead of matching a roshogolla by attempting a chomchom, I made Keema stuffed tomatoes. They were easy to make for a crowd, looked pretty and tasted delicious. No one was complaining.

And then as I learned to cook the other stuff, this tomato was slowly forgotten. By forgotten, not as in 'how-to-cook" forgotten, for this is so easy to make that you can't forget even if you try to. By forgotten I mean, the way simple recipes like postor bora or borar jhaal are being forgotten by Bengali households and there are queues outside restaurants in Kolkata to eat them.

The stuffed tomatoes were brought recently back at a friend's request and I have made it several times in the last few months.

In this recipe I have stuffed tomatoes with a chicken keema stuffing. You can substitute keema with soy granules or use only potato stuffing for a vegetarian option. The best part I like about it is that the dish can be broken down in 3 parts and each done on a separate day while the assembling is all you need to do on the day of the party. You can even cook the stuffing a week ahead and freeze to be used later. So if like me you want to do minimum work and yet create a great starter dish for any gathering this summer, these stuffed tomatoes are the way to go.

And in all this stuffing issue don't forget the book. Sorry for the plugin but there is no point writing a book if you don't read it.

There have been some more lovely reviews by some of my favorite people from the blogosphere -- Eve's Lungs and Kichukhonn.
There has been a beautiful review by Saee who blogs at My Jhola in the Gourmet Table.
I am so very proud that another favorite blogger The Mad Momma has my book on her "Book List", the list which I actually refer to get books now and then and right now have Wife 22 on her reco.

"Bong Mom's Cookbook" has also consistently been at #2 in Popularity on Flipkart and Amazon has only a few copies left for you to order.

Now back to tomatoes and this is how the recipes goes. The measure of the keema given was used to stuff about 20-25 tomato halves i.e 10-12 whole tomatoes.

Prepping Tomatoes

Buy firm tomatoes on the vine a day before the dinner/party.

Wash them well. Pat Dry

Cut the tomatoes in half. With a spoon scoop out the pulp. Store the pulp in a separate container to be used as pureed tomato.

Salt the tomato innards, invert them on a plate or flat tray and leave them in the refrigerator for an hr or more.

While you are prepping the tomatoes, also make the keema stuffing. The keema is made exactly like the way I make it for the Bengali Keemar Chop

Make Keema Stuffing or Pur

Start off with 1 lb of Chicken Keema

Heat 2tbsp oil in a fry pan.

Add 1 medium sized onion finely chopped and fry till it is soft and pink with browned edges.

To above add
1 tsp ginger paste, 1 tsp garlic paste, 
1/2 tsp Cumin powder, 1/2 tsp Coriander powder, 1/2 tsp Red chili powder(more to taste)
and saute for a minute

Add the chicken keema. Add salt to taste. Mix well and cook the keema with the spices until keema is no longer pink and is cooked. Sprinkle 1/4tsp of Garam masala. At this point taste and adjust for seasoning.
Cook the keema with frequent stirring so that the keema is broken up into granules.

Once the keema is done, cool. 

Meanwhile boil 2 large potatoes.Once cooled, peel and mash with salt to taste.

Next with your hands mix all of the the following 
mashed potatoes
the prepared keema
a clove of garlic minced
3-4 green chili finely chopped
little beet noon or rock salt
a pinch of sugar

You can also add chopped coriander and mint leaves if you want.

Stuff the Tomatoes and Bake

You can stuff  tomatoes the previous night or on the day of the party.

Take each tomato halves, stuff with the prepared keema and level with your fingers. Arrange them on an oven safe tray, the stuffed side up.

Drizzle generously with olive oil and bake them in a pre-heated oven at 350F for 30 mins or until you see the tomatoes sag and their skin starts getting wrinkled.

Towards the end, take out the tray from the oven and garnish each tomato with shredded parmesan or cheddar cheese. Put them back in the oven for 5 mins to allow cheese to melt.

Top each tomato with the Cajun Shrimp for more oomph. Serve hot.