Chhanar Dalna | Chanar Dalna -- Bengali Cottage cheese cubes in gravy

Chhanar Dalna | Chanar Dalna -- Bengali Cottage cheese cubes in gravy

Chanar Dalna a Bengali delicacy | Chhanar Dalna

Chanar Dalna or Bengali Paneer Curry is usually made with homemade chhana/paneer in a light sweetish curry with potatoes and spiced lightly with garam masala.

Summer vacation starts today in my part of the world. More than two months of long, languorous, warm days stretch ahead. Last week Big Sis's school had a small ceremony marking their moving up to sixth grade which is middle school. She and her friends were pretty upset to bid good bye to their teacher and there were much tears and hugging. Come September we will be adjusting to a whole different school routine, attitude and hormones. Little Sis also moves to first grade and there will be another school and routine for her too. Hopefully no hormones there. But we will think of all that later. For now, we will only think of long lazy days.

I love summer vacations, even when they are not mine and my daughters'.

Now, as I have said many times, BigSis loves Paneer. This is probably the one thing in food, toward which her loyalty has not wavered over the years. Paneer in Chanar/Chhanar Dalna , Butter Paneer or Palak Paneer. She loves them all.

Bengali Chhanar Dalna

In most other case, her food choices have changed, taking its own shape, gently molding the menu I try to set. While as a child she used to love her "Chicken Jholu Bhatu" these days she does her best to avoid all kinds of meat. She is no longer fond of fish and eats egg just to get by. I have no idea where she gets here vegetarian traits from but her love for aloo posto, tauk er dal and kadhi sure comes from me. And yes, her love for Paneer is an almost exact replica of my love for Chhanar Dalna.

Chhanar Dalna and Posto would be a staple in our home on Fridays. It would also pop up twice or sometimes thrice in the course of the week but if it was Friday then it was almost sure that Chhanar Dalna was on the menu. There was a reason behind this. On Fridays, my Mother kept a fast and therefore did not cook any meat or fish on that day. For some reason unknown to me, she felt that one day of not having any protein would render us weak and feeble. Trust me, there was not a sign in my health to make her believe such. But she steadfastly did. And according to Bengalis that protein can never ever come from a "dal" or lentils.

So, my Mother made Chhana. Dilligently. Week after week. She boiled whole milk and squeezed lime juice in it until the milk had a rent and tore apart to form blobs of white cotton like milk solids suspended in a greenish whey. She then drained the whey out on a piece of starched white cloth, usually cut from one of one of her old saris and washed and dried to act as a cheesecloth. That paneer or chhana then rested under the weight of our black stone nora until all the water was squeezed out.

Chocolate Lava Cake -- for Father's Day

Yesterday, Big Sis made Chocolate Lava Cake. For Father's Day. LS was supposed to help her make it but she didn't. The day before she had done the grocery run with me getting the supplies so probably she felt she had done her part.

Thankfully, though it was Daddy's Day, BS made four lava cakes, one for each of us.

I wouldn't have helped her otherwise.I love cakes with soft gooey chocolate-y centers.

And if I had not helped her, those Lava cakes would have been perfect. But then who is perfect ? Not me atleast.

In my usual "not-glancing-at-inconsequential-details" nature I put the oven temperature at the regular temp for all cakes. Only when the cakes looked ah-well a little under-cooked did we realize that Lava Cakes require a higher temperature of around 425F. That helps to cook the exterior fast while the inside is still soft and gooey. Yeah, basic science.

So, anyway we raised the oven temp and let the cakes bake for few minutes more. This time they came out perfect. Almost. I mean they would have had a more gooey center had I not acted "oven-temp-know-all" in the first place.

B is for Beguni, Begun Bhaja and Bori

For the next letter in the A-Z of Bengali Cuisine, B, most of the readers said Beguni, a very popular Bengali snack, where slices of eggplant are dipped in a chickpea flour(besan) batter and deep fried.

Beguni -- a very popular bengali snack

Eggplants or Brinjals are known as begun in Bengali and so all things that are cooked with begun came a close second and third in the B-series.

Begun Bhaja -- slices of eggplant shallow fried in oil.

Begun Pora -- Roasted eggplant Bengali style

I could not leave Bandhakopi'r Ghonto out of the B series though no one really mentioned it. But trust me, this cabbage dish is very much a part of the Bengali culture and household.

Borar Jhol -- Lentil fritters in a gravy is another of my favorite dish with the letter B.

Another important part of Bengali cooking that starts with a B is "Bori". Bori is a sun-dried lentil dumpling made of ground lentil paste. The ritual of "preparing bori" called "bori deoa" is (or rather was) an age old custom among Bengali women during the autumn and winter months when the sun was warm and strong but not scorching. Women of the household led by the most senior member would bathe early at dawn and then immerse themselves in the task of bori making. It was a ritual made almost sacred with its demands on sanctity.

Large quantities of lentils were ground on the sil-nora, then seasoned and whipped early in the morning. Then large expanse of a washed and dried cloth, usually a washed and dried sari would be set out on the terrace, its edges secured by rectangular pieces of red brick. On this cloth, the women would put scoops of the lentil paste, ensuring a peak at the center of the dumpling. The couple of times I have been involved in this activity dates back to the times my grandmother was around. I remember her telling us to make boris with sharper center peaks, the incentive being that the one whose bori had the sharpest peak would have a sharp nosed husband.

For us children, the main task however was to keep away the birds and crows from pecking at the dumpling while they dried in the sun. Once the dumplings had soaked in the autumn or winter sun and dried to a crispy brittleness, they were gently picked from the cloth and stored in containers. On days when fish or other vegetables were rare, these boris would be fried a crispy reddish brown and served as a side with dal or dunked in the broth of "jhol".

I have never tried making them at home and always depend on the stash that friends carry from India. My Mother will never ever carry "bori" or "pickles" during travel as she thinks it brings bad luck during journey!!! But a blogger friend KichuKhon makes them in the oven and it might be a good try for anyone attempting it at home

Bori in the Oven from KichuKhonn

In some regions of Bengal, bori making is more of an art than a mere ritual. The patterns and designs are so exquisite that these are called "Goyna Boris" or "Noksha Boris" as the lentil dumplings have beautiful patterns like jeweleries. There is more about these boris in the blog Homemaker's Diary-Goyna Bori.