Monday, November 26, 2018

Tomato Kashundi Salmon -- salmon baked with mustard and tomato

Kashundi Salmon Bhapa
After oven

S
ince I have come back, from my short trip to India, I have been super jetlagged. The lethargy has seeped into my bones as has the cold, and so every day, I strive to find easy recipes to make for dinner.

Easy, Easier, Easiest -- has become my motto.

You might look at me with pity and cook your own very difficult chotol maach er muithya from scratch but that is not going to deter me. I will stick to my easy and quick recipes for now. My eldest daughter who takes baking very seriously thinks baking a cake from a box is blasphemy. She doesn't know about me. Yet!

So this recipe is an upgrade of my old recipe called Shorshe Salmon Jhaal. I mean it's an easier oven baked version.
And I don't know if Tomato Kashundi is a thing, given that Tomato is not a native of Bengal. I just made a mustard paste with tomato, garlic, green chili and called it Tomato Kashundi. It is a pretty good mustard paste but I don't think it has shelf life like regular Kashundi

We all love salmon and we love it more when it is bangla-fied. If you don't get salmon, don't fret, use any other fish that you use in a Bhapa recipe (steamed fish). No, leave Ilish alone. Use something like Bhetki, Basa or even Arh fish I think.

Before going in oven


Tomato Kashundi Salmon

When I buy salmon fillet I ask the skin to be removed. Then I cut each fillet in 3"x 3" squares. Okay, maybe some other dimension but small squares or rectangles. Toss the pieces with turmeric powder, and salt and keep aside. I had about 8 pieces of salmon fillet, each 3" x 3"

Tomato Kashundi is not really a thing but we will make it like this
Soak
2 tbsp Mustard seeds
1 tsp Poppy seeds
in a tbsp water for 30 mins -- to 1 hr

Make a paste of
the mustard + poppy seeds
2-4 fat clove of garlic (depending on how potent your garlic is)
1 medium tomato
2 green chilli
1 tbsp Mustard Oil
salt to taste
with a splash of water if needed

Pre-heat oven to 275 F. I have used a counter-top toaster oven for this dish so cooking time may vary with regular oven at same temp.

Grease an oven safe baking dish with few drops of olive oil (or any oil).

Arrange the pieces of salmon in a single layer

Next add the Tomato-Kashundi paste you made. Gently toss all of the fish pieces with the paste.

Chop a small tomato and arrange it on top of the fish. Add some slit green chili for color.

Drizzle 1tbsp more Mustard Oil if you want it more delicious.

Now cover the baking dish and put it in the oven. Set the timer to 30 mins.

After 30mins, the fish will be definitely cooked but the mustard paste will look little watery. If you are ok with it that is fine.
I want a clingy sauce. So I open the cover on the baking dish and put it back in the oven (lowered at 250 F) for 10-15 more minutes.

While serving add some fresh coriander leaves and few drops of Mustard Oil. So delicious.




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Saturday, October 13, 2018

Kashundi Narkol Mocha -- Banana Blossoms with Kashundi and Coconut

Last week my Mother, who was visiting us over summer, left for India. Just before she left, I brought home a mocha as I wanted to practically see how it is prepped. Yes, I had never chopped a Mocha before this. Blasphemy!

Mocha in Hawaii

Mocha, banana blossoms is a favorite vegetable in Bengal. In fact in Bengal, a banana plant is much revered. During DurgaPujo, she is the designated wife of Ganesha and lovingly addressed as "KolaBou". The raw banana is another favorite in Bengali cuisine and kaachakolar kofta is high up in culinary ladders jostling with the likes of kosha mangsho. The tender core of the banana stems, the apparent trunk, is another nutritious vegetable favorite in Bengali cuisine. It is is called "Thor", not the Nordic God, but as impressive.The flowers of the Banana tree, Mocha, often served as Mochar Ghonto or Mochar Chop represent the very pinnacle of niramish Bengali ranna.

I had always shied away from cooking Mocha as I thought the chopping would be a difficult task. You see, chopping Mocha (banana blossom) in the seclusion of your own home, in isolation does not make sense. It needs a community to efficiently peel, remove stamen, and chop Mocha with efficiency and speed.

After this effort, I have realized that chopping 1 or 2 mocha is not that big of a hurdle and that amount of blossoms is enough to serve a family of 4. So take heart and go ahead.

I initially wanted to make Mochar Ghonto but I love some of those "kaala chana" in my mocha and I didn't have those. So I decided to make shorshe narkol mocha but was too lazy to grind the shorshe aka mustard paste. So use the bottle of Kashundi instead.



#howtoprepamochafromMyMa



It is time for my Mother to leave for India and now I realize that I haven't done any of the things I had planned to do with her.
.
I did not jot down recipes or make videos of her cooking.
.
Instead I just ate the variety of food she cooked without thinking of a recipe, cooked for her, sat down with her every evening drinking copious amounts of tea, joined her in her hangout with her friends(my neighbors) ,watched movies and saregamapa on Zee Bangla with her, took a vacation together, argued, disagreed and restrained myself from interfering when she spoiled my daughters😜
.
And then I panicked!! Hey where are those videos I wanted to shoot? Where are the step by step photos of recipes?
.
My mom balked at me "Oi shob ami parbo na"( I am not doing any of those things).
.
Really Ma? You can cook kochuri for your granddaughters and not tell me how much turmeric you put in your Maacher Jhol? You know how important it is to measure a piece of ginger before you chop!!
.
My mom rolled her eyes 🙄 and walked away.
.
The only thing I achieved is getting her to demo -- HOW TO PREP A MOCHA ( Banana Blossoms )
.
This I needed for myself. Or Lord help me, if I ever buy a pretty looking #bananablossom and know nothing to do with it except put it in a vase or shove it up somewhere!!!
.
So here's the one and only video of my Mom instructing on #howtoprepmocha.
.
Statuatory Warning: Wear one of those plastic gloves unlike her and make sure you have lots of time to spare. 😅



Tuesday, October 09, 2018

Easy Garlicky Chingri -- for Dugga Pujo


Durga Pujo is not a time to cook your own food. I mean ideally Ma Durga does not cook on these five days. Neither does Lokkhi, Saraswati, Ganesh or that Karthik? Maybe Baba Shib does, but then again I am not sure.So why should you , tell me?

And then if you do cook, who is going to eat it? I mean after eating bhoger khichuri at the pujo pandal, tons of phuchka just outside the pandal, egg roll on the left of the pandal, mutton biriyani only a few steps away from the pandal, fish kobiraji ordered by phone from the pandal, how will you eat the food cooked at home?
Thus it has been logically proven that there is ABSOLUTELY NO-NEED to cook during the Pujo days. QED!

But for us mere mortals, living away from such overdose of pandals, life is difficult.

Durga too understands our problem and mostly visits us only during weekends. During the week she is "chakki pishing and cooking dinner". Our relatives back home smirk at our plight and thank their stars that they did not go and get a visa stamped. They rustle their heavy silks, bite on their kashundi smeared fish kobiraji, pat their heavily powdered nose and lament, "Aha, ki koshto, Ashtami teo ranna korte hochche re?"

We look away from their kashundi-fied selfie, take deep breaths, think how claustrophobic the crowd in the pandals would make us feel and how all that phuchka can end in nothing good but gelusil and choan dhekur. "Jak baba, eikahnei bhalo achi", we reassure ourselves and contemplate on ways to make a mid-week Saptami dinner more interesting.

And then when the fall air carries with it a fragrance of wood smoke, we carelessly let our minds wander away to the pujo pandals of our childhood where amidst the heavy fragrant smoke of Dhuno, Ma Durga's face came alive with gorjon oil and after hours of fasting for anjali, steaming hot Khichuri in shaal pata doled out at the back of the mandap tasted no less than amrito.