Tel Sheem -- Hyacinth Beans from Soma

I was seriously waiting for something to get my blogging mojo back.

August had been surreal with a vacation to beautiful Banff and Jasper National parks(more on that later), short trips around the home state, a water park vacation to Great Wolf Lodge specifically for the kids, and lots of tea time with my parents while watching "Mahanayak" -- the Bengali serial people love to hate (yeah, yeah, I know!). I was getting used to vacations and summer.

Since my parents are visiting, the kitchen had also morphed largely into my Ma's domain and I rarely bothered to see how and why things were getting done. I even managed to watch a movie at the theaters with the husband-man, an event worth remembering simply because it is so rare in its occurrence.

You must understand that it is very easy to slip into a life of leisure, if you are already lazy like me. I could totally fit into the society of Roman Nobles in ancient Rome. It is very natural that I drifted.

But there was some magic that happened over the weekend, which triggered me back into the kitchen and back to the blog again. The magic would have never happened, if I did not have a blog in the first place. So the magic had a dependency on the blog and on you. Ok, so without going into the chicken and egg scenario, let me tell you what happened.

A blogger friend Soma, who blogs at Spices and Pisces and does a trillion other things, sent me a box of sheem and ucche, that is Hyacinth beans and bitter gourd for you, grown in her own garden. Soma has a very bright shade of green thumb and grows gorgeous vegetables. Her community garden pictures on Facebook, boasting of curvaceous laus(bottlegourd) and glistening sheem(flat beans) would make you love vegetables to the point of making you a vegetarian. She pours tons of love into her garden and the beautiful person that she is, she shared the love by sending me a box of her home-grown vegetables, by priority mail.

Once we got over the surprise part of seeing fresh vegetables from a box delivered by the USPS lady, the family spent next several minutes ogling at the vegetables. Little Sis was thrilled by the uniqueness of the whole act. "Mommy's friend sent her vegetables from Maryland," she told my Ma.

Then a discussion ensued as to what to cook with the sheem. Here, I must tell you, tender aka kochi sheem is not a given where I live. I don't even get sheem at the Indian grocery store and substitute all sheem dishes with sugar snap peas. My Ma, who is used to an abundance of sheem where she lives, proposed sheem bhaate or shorshe diye sheem or sheem er jhol. I didn't want to add shorshe(mustard) to this tender sheem as I feel the mustard sauce tends to overpower the natural taste of the vegetable.

The husband-man then proposed Tel-Sheem, without the mustard and with almost zero spices. Something that would be just fitting for a vegetable so fresh, tender, and grown with love.

So that is what I did

Tel Sheem

Lope off the tip of each Hyacinth bean(sheem) and then pull off the stringy part from the edges

Heat Mustard oil in a kadhai.

Now temper the oil with 1/4th tsp of Nigella seeds and 3 slit green chili.

Add the sheem to the kadhai and saute for a few minutes until each sheem glistens with oil.

Make a wet paste with
1/4 tsp of turmeric Powder
1 tsp of fresh ginger paste
1/2 tsp of red chili powder
1 tbsp of yogurt

Lower the heat and add add this to the veggies in the kadhai. Saute at low heat for few minutes.

Add a 1/2 cup of water, 3 more green chili slit through, salt to taste and let the gravy simmer to a boil. Cover the kadhai with a lid and check occasionally if sheem is cooked.

Once the vegetable is cooked and the oil has surfaced, the dish is done. Now for you to enjoy it with some steaming white rice.

This tasted so so good that I cannot thank Soma enough

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How to Make Luchi 101

Inspired by Sawan Dutta's Maachher Jhol videos, the girls were inspired to sing a Luchi song. They also roped in Didun(my Ma) and interviewed her on the luchi making process. It was a fun morning, very amateur, but fun. Years later when they look back on this, they will either cherish it or die of embarrassment. Already they have warned me , not to divulge, who in the family sang the song as it could jeopardize their future singing career !!!

Please do listen and hope it will inspire you to roll and fry more luchis. The recipe is added at the end of the video. For more details on what exactly is luchi and the recipe in details please follow this recipe "Phulko Luchi and Aloor Dom"

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Big Sis's Double Chocolate Vanilla Cake

I had grand plans about the blog this summer. "I will post at least two recipes a week," I promised myself. Well, the summer is close to its end and I have done nothing. I feel exactly the way I felt when I was a fifth grader and only the week before the end of summer vacation I would realize that I had not done a single page of my Hindi handwriting homework!!! That last week would be gruesome when I had to find the shortest paragraphs and then write them down in jumbo handwriting to fill the pages as fast as possible. Thankfully, I don't have to do that for my blog.

So, there has been so many things that kept me busy this summer, that it flew by in a blink. Top it with the Presidential conventions and then the Olympics, it is hard to find time to do anything else.

We have been caught up in Olympics frenzy for the last two weeks. I am sure it is the same with you. Courtesy the daughters I am now well acquainted with the Fantastic five in the US women's gymnastic team. Little Sis is a very enthusiastic gymnast and so every gymnastic event is being duly followed. That one of them(Laurie Hernandez) lives only fifteen minutes away and another(Dipa Karmakar) is from my motherland has only added to our excitement.

It is amazing how many of the athletes have overcome both nature and nurture to achieve what they have. It is humbling to realize that it is neither genetics nor upbringing that can create legends.
It is also very reassuring to tell BigSis that she cannot blindly blame me if she is not growing any taller. Genes definitely has a role to play when it comes to traits but hey come on I am the Mother, I can defy science.

That it is definitely not genetics is clear from Big Sis's love for baking. While I always shy away from it, she appears to enjoy in its presence, reading through recipes, working on them on her own, conjoining two different recipes to make a new cake, using the hand mixer which scares me to death. Of course she is most smitten by rich, chocolate cakes and jumps into things like making "Ganache" with a panache, words which I don't even pronounce right.

For couple of years, she is the one who always bakes her sister's birthday cake. This year it was no different and she excelled herself. The cake was amazingly soft and delicious. It was really perfect. The best thing I like about her baking is that she cleans the kitchen after herself. All mess is taken care of as of the last bake. Things might change in the future but we will keep our fingers tightly crossed.

When I asked her to share her recent cake recipe on the blog, she very diligently wrote it down in varying fonts and colors. She also referred to the original recipes with links where necessary. I did not change a thing and am posting she shared with me.

Double Chocolate Vanilla Cake

A rich, creamy chocolate mousse sandwiched between two flaky layers of vanilla cake, coated with a luscious chocolate ganache.

Statistics

Total time ~ 1 ½ - 2 hours

Cook ~ 45 minutes

Prep ~ 1 hour

Yield ~ 2 round 9-inch cakes

Ingredients
The Cake

• 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 4 large eggs at room temperature
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• ¾ cup heavy cream

The Mousse

• 2 packages of store bought mousse
• 2 cups of heavy cream
• 1 cup milk

The Ganache

• 8 ounces (2 baking bars) chopped semisweet chocolate
• ½ cup heavy cream

Directions

For The Cake

To see the recipe this is based off of, click here

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F
2. Grease 2 round 9-inch cake pans with baking spray
3. Whisk 3 cups of flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, and a ½ teaspoon salt in a bowl until thoroughly combined
4. Beat 2 sticks of butter and 1 ½ cups sugar in a large bowl with a mixer on a medium high speed, until the mixture is light and fluffy, which will take a total of around 3 minutes
5. Reduce the speed of the mixer and beat in the eggs slowly
6. Beat in the vanilla at the same speed and scrape down the bowl as needed

**Note: The batter may look separated or as if it has curdled at this point of the recipe**

7. Mix ½ cup water with ¾ cup heavy cream in a bowl or liquid measuring cup
8. Beat the flour mixture into the butter mixture, alternating with the cream mixture until the batter comes to a relatively smooth texture
9. Divide the batter in two pans and bake for approximately 25 to 30 minutes
10. Remove the cakes from the oven when they are lightly golden
11. Allow to sit on a cooling rack for around 10 to 15 minutes before continuing

For The Mousse

1. Beat two packets of store bought mousse with 2 cups of heavy cream on a low setting until the product thickens
2. When thick enough, add in a cup of milk
3. Beat on the high setting for 3 to 5 minutes until the product looks rich and creamy

*Tip: This mousse is great as a dessert on its own, especially when piped into small glasses*

For The Ganache

To see the recipe this is based off of, click here

1. Cook the 8 oz of chopped semisweet chocolate and ½ cup of heavy cream in a double boiler

*If you don’t have a double boiler, you can place a glass bowl on top of a pan of boiling water.**

2. Stir occasionally until smooth and warm, usually around 5 to 8 minutes

The Assembly

1. Take the cakes out of their pans and place them on the cooling racks - if needed, trim the tops so the cakes are all level
2. Spread a generous amount of the mousse on top of one cake layer ~ I used almost all the mousse I had made but it is up to how much of the chocolatey taste you want (the leftover mousse can be stored in the fridge for a while)
3. Gently place the second layer of cake on top of the layer of mousse
4. Drizzle the chocolate ganache over the cake
5. Then, spread the ganache all around and on top of the cake with a spatula
6. Lastly, you can top of the cake with a few sprinkles but it is just as good without
7. Cut yourself a big slice and enjoy!

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Chingrir Bora -- Shrimp Fritters

It was a hot, hot day today. Temperature soared to the 90s. There was not a speck of rain anywhere.

It was also the day of Ratha Yatra. The day in the month of Ashada, when the monsoons have arrived in the plains of Odissa and Bengal, and the day on which the deities of Lord Jagannatha, Balaram and Subhadra are taken to their aunt's house in a regal chariot.

My girls don't know much about Ratha Yatra. I must have told them sometime but they don't remember. I don't try either. It doesn't make sense any more.

I would rather they take to heart from Tagore's poem which was as apt in the times that he wrote it as it is now.

"Ratha Yatra Lokaranyo Maha Dumdham (The Ratha Yatra prgresses amidst throngs of people with much jubilation)
Bhaktera Lutaye Pothe Korichhe Pronam (The devotees bow down and pay their respect)

Poth bhabe ami dev ( As people bow down on the street while the Ratha is pulled, the road thinks he is the Supreme God) ,
Rath bhabe ami ,( The chariot pulled on Ratha Yatra thinks he is the Supreme God)
Murti bhabe ami dev ( The wooden idol on the chariot preens and thinks he is the Supreme God),
Haansen Ontorjami ( The Supreme Power merely smiles at this ignorance)"
-- Rabindranath Tagore


There was one aspect of Rath that I don't want to miss though. Papor Bhaja and Telebhaja, fried in the hot oil, celebrating Nature and the rains.

Though there was no rain and it was really too hot for frying, I did make some chingrir bora today. Ideally this bora or fritters is made with the very very tiny shrimp called "ghusho chingri". You can mash those with hand or make a paste on the shil-nora. I would never get that so settled for the medium sized shrimp which I chopped and then put in the mixie to make a paste.

Soak 1/2 cup of red Masoor Dal in water for half an hour.

Wash and clean 10-12 medium sized shrimp. If you have the smaller ones use a few more. In my case , I only had to defrost the shrimp.

Chop the shrimp in small pieces.

In the blender add
the soaked lentils
the chopped shrimp
3-4 green chili
sprinkle of water
and make a smooth paste.

Add salt to taste to this paste.

Add
2-3 tbsp of chopped onion
2 green chillies finely chopped
Chopped dhonepata/coriander leaves
1/2 tsp of Nigella seeds

Beat the lentil paste with a fork till everything is well mixed up.

Heat Mustard oil in a Kadhai or Frying Pan

Once the oil is hot, take a tsp of oil from the kadhai and add it to the batter. Give it a good mix.

Once the oil is ready which you will know by putting in a small drop of the batter and seeing it bubble and rise to top, add small scoops of batter in the hot oil. Keep the heat at high and in a minute you will see the batter turning solid. Gently flip and let the other side cook. Reduce the heat to a medium-high(between med and high). In another minute turn it around again. The outside will be a golden brown by now. It will take approx. 3 minutes in all once the oil is well heated.

Remove the "chingri bora" with a slotted spoon and drain on a paper towel.

Serve as a snack with tea or have it with rice and dal.

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Shahi Tukda or Pauruti'r Ras Malai

I have not seen anyone use "regular white bread" in as many avatars as my Mother. It could be due to the fact that we mostly lived in small towns where buying sweets or shingaras for snack, or when an impromptu guest arrived, was not the easiest thing to do. It could also be due to the fact that we did not have a refrigerator(until I was in 8th grade) and so stocking sandesh and roshogollas for a guest who lands out of nowhere was not possible.It could also be due to the fact that my Mother had this amazing talent of making delicious edibles out of practically nothing.

One thing we did buy regularly was "a loaf of sliced bread". Buttered toasts appeared frequently with tea in the morning.But how much buttered toast can a Bengali household consume after all ? And so rest of the bread showed up at snack time in different avatars.

Neighborhood aunties dropping by for evening tea in winter, meant my Mother would make bread pakora by simply dipping slices of bread in a spiced besan batter and frying them in hot oil.

If it was hot summer, she would simply rustle up a paurutir dahi vada (bread dahi vada) with the yogurt spiced up with some imli chutney from neighborhood Jain Aunty.

For dessert, she would make paurutir malpoa(bread malpua) where squares of bread were fried crisp and then soaked in a sugar syrup until they became soft and melt in the mouth. My father was an avid sweet lover and he needed a dessert every day of the week. This helped!

The Shahi Tukda or Paurutir Rosh Malai was made only when guests came invited for dinner though. It involved a little more work in thickening the milk and making the rabri and so was not really impromptu. However once my Ma discovered "Gits Rabri Mix", even this became a super fast dish in her kitchen.

I did not know that this very simple dish that happened in my Mother's kitchen had a fancy name of "Shahi Tukda" and a fancier lineage, until our dessert connoisseur friend T served it one day. Her version looked fancier than my Ma's, who never bothered with garnishing and such.

As I searched for history of this dish, I learned interesting facts from here

"It is popularly believed that Shahi Tukray was a favorite of the Mughal emperors to break fast with in the month of Ramazan, thus the practice continues even today making it a very desirable dish at iftar, and a meetha famously served at the festive occasions of Eid-ul-Fitr and Eid-ul-Azha.

There are many who claim that Shahi Tukray evolved from Um Ali an ancient Egyptian bread pudding. Legend has it that a Sultan with a group of hunters was hunting along the River Nile when they stopped in nearby village for some food. The villagers called upon their local cook Um Ali to cook up a meal for the hungry guests. The chef mixed some stale wheat bread, nuts, milk and sugar, and baked it in the oven. And thus the delicious Um Ali came to be. Another legend claims Um Ali to be a victory dessert made to order by a succeeding king."

While Shahi Tukda owes its origin to the Mughal emperors, the royals of Hyderabad had adapted this dish to make "Double ka Meetha", probably named so as bread was called "double roti" in Hindi.

Whatever you wish to call it and however fancy it may sound, it really is the easiest thing to make. And isn't it a beautiful coincidence that I made it during the holy Ramadan ?

Maacher Jhuri or Crumbled Fish ~ with Tilapia or Cod

The first time I heard of a Maacher Jhuri was from Ushnish da's blog post. His was the classic recipe with Loitya Maach aka Bombay Duck. Loitya Maach was not a fish that was cooked in our home and I was not familiar with this preparation of Maacher Jhuri.

At this point, I will have to digress and share this very interesting information about Loitya...

"The origin of the term "Bombay duck" is as interesting as uncertain. One popular etymology relates to railways. When the rail links started on the Indian subcontinent, people from eastern Bengal were made aware of the great availability of the locally prized fish on India's western coasts and began importing them by the railways. Since the smell of the dried fish was overpowering, its transportation was usually by the mail train. The Bombay Mail (or Bombay Daak) thus reeked of the fish smell and "You smell like the Bombay Daak" was a common term in use in the days of the British Raj. In Bombay, the local English speakers then called it so, but it was eventually corrupted into "Bombay duck". Nonetheless, the Oxford English Dictionary dates "Bombay duck" to at least 1850, two years before the first railroad in Bombay was constructed, making this explanation unlikely"

Done? Now, let's continue.

Maacher Bhorta was something I had tasted though. Around that time, Little Sis's babysitter, a Bangladeshi lady would stay with us during the day taking care of Li'l S. M Didi was not much of a cook and dismissed most of my requests regarding cooking, with an off handed remark about how she was a working woman back in Bangladesh and hence never wasted her time in the kitchen learning to cook a biriyani or korma.

However she was very particular about the food that she ate and preferred cooking a fish dish for herself in her own typical way. Mostly she would request me to get a packet of frozen fish like kechki, mourala or loitya for her. Her typical fish dish everyday would be some kind of a jhol with onion, potatoes, tomatoes and the fish, which she put in the curry without frying it like we did. She would often make a fish curry with long slices of uchhe(bittergourd) and onion. Most of her fish dishes were unlike anything we were familiar with and the husband-man, who is not a fish lover by any standard, usually stayed away from M Didi's fishy dishes. For me, the fish lover, the story would be little different. I would often succumb to those fishes and would share a little of M Didi's obscure fish curries. They were very different and I even grew a fondness for fish cooked with uchhe.

M Didi would sometimes make a "maacher bhorta" , with onion, tomatoes, garlic and lots of dhonepata and green chillis. Since she did her cooking mostly during the day and wasn't keen on discussing recipes and such stuff, I never quite found out the fish she used for her bhorta. Her bhorta was like a mashed fish and definitely very tasty.

Now since we do not buy a lot of the frozen fish from Bangladeshi stores, I first tried Ushnish Da's recipe with a fish called whiting or more specifically smelt-whiting, which is found in the Asian stores. It was an instant hit at our home. More than M-Didi's bhorta, which was moist and soft in texture, my jhuri was drier, a texture both the husband and my older daughter took to.

Soon after this I had a dish called "Bacalhau A Gomes De Sa" at a Portugese restaurant. It was salted cod with onions and potatoes and tasted close to the "maacher jhuri" (albeit without the umami that jhuri offers). And then a light bulb went on in my head!!!

I started cooking maacher jhuri with the fish fillet like Tilapia or Flounder or Cod. I also add some shrimp for good measure. It was a dish, that is fast and easy to cook and this the most tastiest avtaar that a Tilapia fillet could ever take.

Bati Charchari with Love

I made a different kind of bati charchari yesterday, one very different from what my mother makes. She makes it mostly with potatoes chopped in long, slender, finger like slices but mine was more like this. I had green beans, cauliflower, pumpkin, potato, potato peels(aloo'r khosha), and even peels from the pumpkin.Though traditionally a bati charchari would be made in a steel container with a lid (a bati),  which was then be put in  a pot of boiling rice, I make it in a kadhai and it tastes just as good.
With some tauk er dal with green mangoes, it was perfect for a day which showed promises of getting warmer.

Revisiting a recipe from the past

My grandparents lived in an old rambling house in a nondescript para(community or development) in North Calcutta (now Kolkata). The house was old, it's days of glory being long over.As appendages were added on to it and banyan trees took roots in its crevices, the house tried desperately to hold on to its rich past.

In this house my maternal grandparents came to live after retirement as a part of a large "joint family", a term as rare these days as those old houses in North Calcutta. My Ma's three uncles and an aunt along with their offspring, some married some not lived under one roof, their kitchens separated but their roof united. There were some undercurrents among its residents for sure but on our annual visits every winter the whole house and the family came together and welcomed us as one.

So while we watched Chitrahar and snacked on alur chop ar muri lazing around at Baro Dida's (Eldest Grandma) ornate teak bed, we ate egg roll at Ful Dida's (Flower Grandma) fancy dining table. The main meals were always at my own Dida's(my maternal grandma) kitchen though and we wouldn't give those up for anything.

My Ma's aunt or pishi, C Dida, had lost her husband at an young age and lived in this house along with her four daughters. She was a proud soul and instead of being dependent on her brothers financially she worked as teacher at a nursery school and lived within her meager means to bring up her four daughters impeccably. One of her daughters pampered me a lot and so I would spend a considerable portion of my time at their room or tag along with her wherever she went.

Many mornings during those vacations, I would go and sit in their small kitchen while C Dida made breakfast. Their small but squeaky clean kitchen with a shiny pump stove and minimal utensils exuded a charm that no gourmet kitchen ever has. Their breakfast too was extremely simple, left over ruti(chapati/roti) lighty fried with little oil to a wafer like crispiness was served with bati charchari. I loved that simple breakfast so much that most days I would have that sitting on their red-oxide kitchen floor, still damp & cold with early morning moisture.

I don't know what makes an indelible impression in a child's heart, the stinging coldness on one's bottom, the hot off the tawa ruti mingled with the sharpness of mustard oil in a bati charchari or the love of near ones but those mornings of two and half decades back are etched in my childhood memory and bati charchari and basi ruti bhaja( fried leftover chapati/roti) is still a favorite on my food list.

My Ma too would make a Bati Charchari often and the only time I would have ruti for breakfast at home was when it was accompanied by a large serving of bati charchari.

On this post the other day, a reader Boishakhi, reminded me of the delicious yet simple Bati Charchari. She also mentioned how she adds other vegetables to this dish. That is what I have today. And so while my Ma's and C Dida's bati charchari had only potatoes, this has carrots and sugar snap peas in it. A sprinkle of glittering red middle eastern sumac makes the dish more international than you can imagine.

I am sending this off to WHB #190 hosted by Laurie from Mediterranean Cooking in Alaska. This event was started by Kalyn of Kalyn's Kitchen and now has a new home at Cook Almost Anything at Least Once


Read more...

Bati Charchari

Prepping the veggies: Peel and chop two medium sized potatoes in 1" long pieces. Peel and chop carrots similarly. I had about 1 and 1/2 cup of chopped carrots. Wash and keep whole 10-15 sugar snap peas. The snap peas are optional and you can use any other vegetable. I have also made this dish with a mix of green beans, cauliflower, pumpkin, potato, potato peels(aloo'r khosha), and even peels from the pumpkin Note: Ideally the vegetables for this dish should be cut thin and small, so that they all cook at the same rate.

Start Cooking:

In a heavy-bottomed deep pan heat 2 tsp of Mustard Oil

Add 4 hot Indian green chili, slit halfway

Add all the veggies

Add salt to taste + 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder and mix well

Add 1&1/2 to 2 cups of water and mix well.

Cover and cook without any stirring till veggies are cooked and water dries up. If needed add more water for cooking

Once done, add 1-2 tsp of Mustard oil on top before serving

I sprinkled some sumac for its gorgeous color but this is totally optional as it is not a native ingredient for this dish.

Note: I have not used Red Chili powder, tomatoes or coriander since my Ma wouldn't. I also went a little low on the oil. You can adjust these according to taste.

Deepshikha's Bengali Goat Meat Curry in Oven -- at Smokies

This Spring Break we went to the Smoky Mountains -- the Great Smoky Mountains. One of the few national parks in the east coast. I am a sucker for National Parks and after our Yellowstone trip last year, my secret desire is to visit all of them. Does not seem like that will happen in this lifetime with the money and time I have at my disposal but that does not mean I won't try.

But the Great Smoky Mountains did not happen out of my love of National Parks. It happened because that was the place decided for a mini reunion of our college friends from twenty years back. It happened millions of whatsapp chats, several hangout sessions late in the night and couple of Google spreadsheets later.

Each hangout was peppered with more serious issues than the last. Luchi or eggs and bacon at breakfast? Pathar manghso on Saturday or bbq? Cookies with tea or muri-chanachur? Pasta for kids or Maggi? Yes we are very focused like that.

Finally a beautiful 8 bedroom chalet in the mountains was booked, food items from goat meat to mustard oil, maggi to maacher chop were packed, and we were all ready for the 12 hour long drive to Tennessee.

If I am honest my first impression of the Smokies as we entered Pigeon Forge was that of deep disappointment. I had Yellowstone and Grand Canyon on my mind and had not expected traffic jams and departmental stores from Wal-Mart to Macy's at the throes of a national park. The fact that we reached on a Friday which was a holiday could have contributed to the throng of crowd.

The deck with the beautiful view

Once we managed to cross all the traffic lights and crawl onto the mountain roads, the traffic peeled off and feel of the forest came back. The path up the mountains had several switchbacks and took scary sharp turns. The trees grew closer and the air turned crisp. My faith in national parks was restored.

It was early spring and the trees were mostly bare except for the light green haze of budding new leaves and splashes of spring flowers here and there. After going through a couple of wrong turns and several phone calls to friends who were already at the chalet, we finally reached the house with a truly "breathtaking view". The Mountains rose right across from the house, its peaks swirled in the typical bluish haze that is quintessential to Smokies.

The kids had lot of fun on zip lines and horse back rides. We went to Jayell's Ranch where even the little ones could zip line on a shorter trail

It was much fun meeting friends after so many years, getting to know their kids, the better halves and generally indulging in what we call in Bengali as "bhaat" -- meaningless banter. Food and adda were the focal points in the backdrop of the mountains. It was fun to see the kids bond with their new friends and have  a great time of their own.

While we were discussing the menu in the days leading to the trip, and trust me it would always end up without a consensus, there was the question of how to cook the goat meat. Should we carry a Pressure cooker ? Will the kitchen have a large enough heavy bottomed pan to cook goat meat for twenty people ? Will Donald Trump be the president ? Should we move to Canada ? You know that kind of questions on which no consensus can be ever reached.

Smokies has lots of pretty waterfalls. We did the Laurel Fall and Grotto Fall hike. Each were approx. 3 mile round trip and easy hike with kids

At this point when everyone was arguing over chat and not really listening to anyone else, our friend from Ohio, Deepshikha said, "We will do the Panthar Mangsho(Goat Meat curry) in the oven. You don'y need anything else except for a largei-ish aluminum tray".

This was so profound that we all just stayed quiet until I mustered to courage to ask "if it tasted good". I shouldn't have. Asked that is. Deepshikha and Biplab are trailblazers in Ohio, investing a lot of time and effort in their local community, doing Durga Pujo and throwing lavish parties with tons of food. They KNOW how to cook mutton in oven and make it taste as good as kosha mangsho.

শুভ নব বর্ষ -- Shubho Nabo Borsho

If I had total free rein, this is what I would eat on Poila Boishakh to start off the New Year

Posto Bhaape in Microwave

Because it is Posto and it reminds me that the greatest joys come from the simplest things

Narkel Moshla Potol

Because this is the best time to eat Potol while it is still tender and eminently edible. You get done with it on the first day of Boishakh and then you are a free bird.

Mator Dal Sabji Diye

Because it reminds me of Mother Earth

Dim Kosha

Because there is no day that a Dim Kosha cannot make better

Doi Maach with Salmon

Because salmon is a fish I always have in my refrigerator and it goes so well with the Bengali recipe of doi-maach reminding me that I am lucky to celebrate two New Year days in a single calendar year.

Goalondo Steamer Fowl Curry

Because it tells me that even when you think there is nothing new to be done, no quest to pursue, you find treasures in the ancient ones.

Aam Pudina Chaatni

Because it is so very green and fresh just like the notun bochor

I would not make any dessert after this but would love to finish off with a bowl of Nolen Gur er ice cream

Because sometimes you need to put up your feet and take a large scoop


Have a lovely start to the Bengali New Year tomorrow

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Neem-Phol aka Grandmother's sweet

Sometimes families have recipes no one has heard of. Not recipes already around, that they make in their own special way and give a special name like "Dinajpurer Mangshor Chaap"(I don't know what it is but honestly I saw this on a menu). Nor are they the one time wonders I make almost every other day and forget soon after.

These are recipes that have been handed down with careful instructions from one generation to next and are cooked periodically or on demand. They are much cherished and yet, no one outside the family has ever heard of it. It has not crossed anyone's mind to ever talk about it.

I was introduced to one such dish, well not exactly a dish, but a sweet picker-upper at my in-law's home. I think it was one of those times, when we were leaving for the US after a short vacation. The last two days of a India vacation invariably ends in gathering edible stuffs that we can carry across oceans in sturdy samsonites. While I usually rush around in those last hours buying Mukhorochak chanachur, Mongini's cheese straws and Sunrise mustard powder, the husband-man reaches out for specialities found only in his small town. It is his duty to get "lero biskut" and "madoan kat kati" -- tiny square pieces of spicy biscuit with hint of sweetness .

In addition to those, there are all kinds nimkis and narus that my Mother is frying and rolling until the last minute and stuffing in steel containers called koutos. So among all this jars and packets and boxes that we had to carefully wrap and tuck in, there was my Ma-in-law with one more. A glass Horlicks jar filled with with tiny balls,not exactly spherical but ovoid in shape and deep brown almost black in color. Each were the size of a fat pea and had fine white crystals of sugar on them.It wasn't anything I had ever seen before.

The husband-man's face lit up at the sight of that jar. "Neem Phol!!!" he said with a child like glee.

Neem phol?? Fruits of the neem tree whose leaves are famous for bitter taste and medicinal properties?? The nomenclature itself shut me off. The husband-man has this uncanny love for all things bitter and so I thought his Mother had gathered one more of her son's favorite bitter fruit and made something with it. I was not at all excited to say the least.

"Try it," said the husband-man. It was his favorite apparently.

I was hesitant but my curiosity made me pick up a single one to give it a try. And surprise! It was crunchy, sweet and very very addictive. Reminded me of the "murki" that my Dida used to make and carry for us in similar glass jars. The murki was lighter brown and softer while this was denser and had a crunch to it. It was very hard to stop at one and the jar had to be snatched away from me, else I would have finished it all.

Since then, a jar of "neem-phol" is a staple along with the nimkis, narus and chanachur we pack from India. I have never tried to get a recipe for it though. I kept procrastinating and relying on the jar from India. Last year when my in-laws came visiting, as usual there was a jar of "neem-phol" tucked besides the achhar and bori. Little Sis, opened it and had one.Soon she was having more and was utterly smitten by what she called "Thammir mishti". When it was time for my in-laws to leave, Little Sis wanted to make sure that there was more of that mishti for her. So "thammi" was coerced into making another batch of "neem-phol". And though I have never tried to learn how to make neem-phol earlier, I stood around to follow the steps so that if LittleSis ever asks again and this jar is over I can make some more.

Though at her own home, my mother-in-law makes it with khoya-kheer, here she made it with store-bought khoya aka mawa. They were basically small balls of kheer, deep fried and then tossed in thick sugar syrup.

High in cholesterol and sugar. Utterly delightful in taste. Isn't that how it is always ?

"Where did you learn this recipe from?" I asked the ma-in-law. 

She said, it was her mother's, who made it mostly during poush-parbon. Once all the pithes, pulis and patishaptas were done and still some of the "khoa-kheer" remained, her mother would make these little balls of delight with the remnant kheer. 

"And why did she call it neem-phol?", I asked expecting a long story. 

"It looks like neem phol, fruits of the neem tree, that is why," she said simply