Paneer is a household name in almost every Bengali family now. When it comes to having vegetarian platter a paneer preparation is always there; be it an occasion or just a simple dinner. But, even a decade back paneer was not that readily available.

The next best option was to make paneer at home. The paneer that is available in the market is processed and mixed with other binding agents like flour along with curdled milk to give it a tougher texture. The one that is made at home is softer and doesn’t have flour. This is called chana. Chana is milk curdled with lactic acid, like lemon juice and squeezed thoroughly to drain out the extra water.

Chana is the basic ingredient of almost all sweets that we eat, but if you are in a mood for something savoury to make with chana, chanar dalna is a very good option. Dalna is a type of Bengali curry with a rich and thick gravy unlike the ordinary jhol which is more watery.

To make the chana, all you need to do is boil about a litre/ quarter gallon of milk, it will give about 200gms/ 7 oz of chana. Once the milk starts rising pour in about 4 tablespoons of lemon juice or about 1 tablespoon calcium lactate. The milk will start curdling – the solids will separate from water. Drain out the water using a cheese cloth. Squeeze the chana well to drain out any excess water. You can also hang it for about an hour before you start using it. If there is any extra water in the chana, the cubes will fall apart as you cook.

Hot Tips – If you want more gravy in the dalna, then pour half cup more water. The chana cubes tend to absorb the water, so if you keep it for longer period, the gravy will dry out. You can cut the chana in any way you like, if you prefer diamond shape then go for it, or roll it between your palms to make small balls.

To curdle the milk, I prefer lemon juice as calcium lactate has a funny smell, and it doesn’t taste good when using the chana in curry.

More on chanar dalna from other blogs – Preoccupied’s take on the grandmom’s secret chanar dalna. Not exactly the typical Bengali recipe, here’s another way of preparing chanar dalna from Cookerefic.

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Brinjals or eggplants or aubergines whatever you call it there is always a fear of the itchy tongue and a swelling lips. Quite a large population suffers from eggplant allergy. But, allergy or no allergy you just cannot deny the fact that eggplants are so tasty. Whether it’s the begun bhaja (fried aubergine) or in made in to a curry like in begun morichut, eggplants are always a hit. And, who can deny the fact a bite of beguni with a handful or mudi (puffed rice) in a rainy evening brings back many memories.   

The brinjal and poppy is a very easy Bengali recipe. I have learnt it from my mom, and probably she from her mom. And stop worrying about grinding the poppy into a fine paste. This recipe works fine with a little grainy poppy seed.

All you have to do is soak the poppy for 8 hours or overnight and grind it with the rolling pin. The grainy paste gives a texture to the curry.  

Begun Posto

Indian, Side, Bengali poppy recipe, Eggplant recipe, Poppy

Cooks in 15    Serves 4

Ingredients

• 6-8 baby eggplants
• ½ cup poppy paste
• ¼ cup plain yogurt
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• ¼ teaspoon chilli powder
• 3-4 green chilli, slit
• 2 tablespoon mustard oil
• Salt to taste

Directions

• Slit the eggplants into quarters keeping the stalk intact
• Pour in the oil in a skillet and fry the eggplants
• In a bowl mix all other ingredients other than the salt and green chillies to a runny paste
• As the skin turns a darker shade of purple, pour in the paste and stir well to evenly coat the eggplants
• Season with salt and throw in the green chillies
• Pour in about a cup of water and cook covered till the eggplants are tender
• Serve with warm white rice or chapati

Print Recipe | Print Ingredients Only

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Cauliflower is one of the most versatile vegetables you can get out of a Bangali rannaghor (Bengali kitchen). Whether it’s a simple phulkopir tarkari (Bengali style cauliflower curry) or a cauliflower pickle – cauliflowers are everywhere, even in fish curries.

The gorging of cauliflowers starts from Durga Puja and extends till late March. I have seen mom cooking fulkopir tarkari as a part of the Prasad offered to Durga Ma on Ashtami (the 8^th day of the annual Durga Puja worship).  The simple cauliflower and potato preparation seasoned with cumin and ginger paste is just the right side dish for kichdi/ kichuri.

Now, these cauliflower preparations are done with the florets. Most of the time we throw away the stem that comes along with the fulkopi. But, a very traditional and authentic Bengali recipe is with these stems of the cauliflower, fulkopir data chauchori/ chachori.

Chachori is a unique style of preparing curries. Mostly, the vegetables are mostly cut longitudinally and cooked with a concoction of spices, especially panch phoron if it’s a vegetarian preparation. For non-vegetarian ones like morola macher chachori onions, garlic are widely used. Any idea where the word comes from? In fulkopir data chachori the stems are cut to 1” long pieces and if they are too thick then the stems are cut longitudinally.

One of my friends once told that you Bengalis just don’t leave any part of anything – you eat everything. Yeah, it’s kind of true. From peels of gourd to flowers of plantain – Bengalis like to taste everything.

Ingredients: 

• Stems of one medium cauliflower
• 1 medium size potato
• 1 cup chopped pumpkin
• 1 cup chopped small brinjal, cut longitudinally in quarters
  
• 1 tablespoon panch phoron
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 2 tablespoon mustard oil

Preparation:

•  Boil the cauliflower stems till half done, then blanch in cold water to stop further cooking
• Heat oil in a wok, throw in the panch phoron. As the spices starts sputtering add potatoes and pumpkin pieces.
• Fry for sometimes, put in the spices and ginger paste and cook for 2-3mins more
• Add the half boiled stems
• Pour in water and cook covered till the vegetables are cooked
• Serve hot with warm rice.

Hot Tips – Panch phoron is a mixture of 5 different spices in equal proportion – fennel, fenugreek, mustard, nigella and wild celery.

Have you ever watched that scene from Dhanni Meye, an old Black and White Bengali movie starring Jaya Bachchan, then Bhaduri. In the middle of the hot and humid afternoon, this young bride with all her zeal to steal pickles climbs up the asbestos roof and picks up her favorite mango pickle from the jar, set in the sun for sterilizing. On seeing this, her mother-in-law shouts at her, but the young girl continues eating the pickle unaware of anything going around her.

This might have been just a scene from some almost forgotten Bengali movie, but I’m sure almost everybody has tried stealing pickle from the jar. Raw mango, lemon, mixed vegetable and the count goes on for the number of pickles you can get in the market. My grandmom always liked preparing her pickle rather than buying from some grocery store. Now, when I am thousands of miles away from home my exposures to pickles are limited to “Mother’s” or the “Homemade” brands.

Pickles had always been a compliment to go along with dal and fries  or even with saag bhaja. Other than enhancing the taste, pickles are nutritionally beneficial as they contain high amounts of Vitamin C (ascorbic acid), a very good antioxidant and are also high in iron, potassium and manganese. It is also considered as a good source of dietary fibers.

Suchismita, our guest for today has sent us a tasty and tangy recipe of achari alu – alu sautéed in achar/ pickle. If you are a potato hater, then you can replace it with paneer/ cottage cheese.

Suchismita, was born and brought up in Kolkata. Now, she has shifted to USA. Her passion for food and photography has made her to take the toll and explore the various combinations of ingredients. If you are in US or UK and searching for that taste in achar, then try out the various pickles in Amazon , they are pretty good or even the nearby Indian store. Check for another guest post (oler kofta) from Suchismita.

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 4 large potatoes cut to bite size pieces
• 1 onion, finely chopped (optional)
• 1 teaspoon nigella/kalonji/ kalo jeera
• 2-3 dry chilies
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 3 tablespoons of pickle of your choice
• 2 tablespoon vinegar
• ½ teaspoon sugar

 Preparation:

• Boil the potatoes till half done, peel off and keep aside
• Heat oil in a frying pan and toss the potatoes till lightly brown. Keep aside
• Throw in nigella, dry chilies, cumin
• As the spices start sputtering add the chopped onion and sauté till the onions turn pinkish in color
• Drop in the potatoes along with pickle
• Pour in the vinegar as you can smell the aroma of the pickle and spices coming out
• Add sugar and pour in little water to let the potatoes take in the spices
• Cook covered till the potatoes get soft

Hot Tips – If you are replacing paneer with potatoes then cut the paneer in 1” cubes, slightly fry the pieces and drop them in salted warm water so that the paneer gets soft and the salt gets inside the paneer cubes. You can also try it with baby potatoes.

Bitter gourd or what we call karolla/karela is one of those vegetables which even veggie lovers try to avoid. A somewhat smaller in shape is the ucche which is quite hard to find in Kolkata, leave aside somewhere outside India. These two cousins with their bitter taste, avoided by almost all have a niche in Bengali cuisine. During my childhood, summer lunch always meant a bowl of alu-karolla sedho (boiled potato and bitter gourd) drenched in mustard oil or even the dudh shukto. While most of my friends hated these preparations, I was and am in love with this bitter vegetable.

I was in Spencer’s yesterday, when I got hold of some fresh karolla and there I was holding a couple of bitter gourd thinking of what to prepare with it. The first thought was preparing some fried karola, but then left the idea because of the amount of oil that comes along with it. Shukto is my all-time favorite, but then raw papaya is quite hard to find in Bangalore. Do let me know if you are aware of any place where you get fresh green papaya in Bangalore.

After some thinking and peeping into my refrigerator, I thought of preparing the tetor dal (pulses with bitter gourd). Tetor dal is my mom’s specialty. I have never tasted such mouth-watering dal anywhere. And, after all no restaurant not even Oh! Calcutta or some Bengali specialty restaurant will serve tetor dal, whatsoever. So, here’s a beginner’s guide to preparing the karola, lau and jhinga diye dal (lentils with three different gourds).

Serves 4

Ingredients:

• 200gms bitter gourd, cut into rings
• 1 medium size ridge gourd/ jhinga, chopped into rings
• ½ of a small gourd/ lau, cut to 1” size hemispherical pieces
• 1 cup yellow lentil/ mung dal
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 green chili
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• ½ teaspoon cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon ginger paste
• 3 tablespoon mustard oil
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

• Wash the lentils and start boiling with 2 cups of water
• As the lentils get half cooked, put in the ridge gourd and the gourd
• Heat 2 tablespoons of mustard oil in a wok and fry the bitter gourd till half done
• Add the fried karola to the boiling dal
• Once the vegetables are completely cooked, add the turmeric, and cumin powder
• Heat the extra oil in a deep bottom pan, throw in the bay leaf and cumin seeds
• As the seeds start sputtering, pour in the dal and stir once
• Keep over flame till the dal starts boiling
• Take out of flame, add a dollop of ghee (optional) and serve hot with warm rice and fries.

Hot Tips – If you are an absolute hater of bitter gourd, then just give it a miss .

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Summers in India bring intense heat and incessant sweat, but lots of fruits and some special vegetables too. In fact, there are some vegetables that you won’t quite relate to continental or for that matter any well-known cuisine outside India. One of such special variety is Potol (Patol), Parwal in Hindi and Pointed Gourd in English.

Potol is widely used in Bengali cuisine. Some famous ones are Potol Alur Jhol (Parwal Alu Curry), Potol Korma, some fish items such as Potoler Dorma (Fish stuffed Parwal), Potol diye Macher Jhol (Parwal Fish curry) and Potol diye Singhi Macher Jhol (made infamous by Pyalaram, a character in Tenida series). In fact, there is even a well known sweet prepared with Potol, called Potol Mishti.

Or simply, Potol Bhaja with Bhaat and Dal.

Without further ado, let us have a simple Potol (pointed gourd) recipe – Alu Potoler Tarkari, or Bengali style Pointed Gourd with Potato Curry.

Ingredients for Alu Potoler Tarkari

• 5-6 pointed gourd (Potol / Parwal)
• 1 medium size potato
• 1 medium size onion, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon ginger-garlic paste
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon chili powder
• 6-8 cloves of garlic
• ½ teaspoon garam masala

How to Prepare Alu Potoler Tarkari

• Lightly skin the Potol, and cut laterally into two equal halves. If its too large, then cut into 3 pieces
• Peel the potato and cut into medium square pieces
• Heat oil in a wok, and separately fry the Potol and potatoes till lightly brown. Keep aside
• Remove the mustard oil used for frying and pour in 1 tablespoon of oil in the same wok
• As the oil gets heated, throw in the onions and garlic cloves. Sauté till the onions turn pinkish
• Put in the fried vegetables, ginger-garlic paste, and all other spices except the garam masala. Season with salt
• Toss for sometime till the spices coat the veggies
• Pour in water and let it cook till the vegetables are tender
• Sprinkle the garam masala and serve with warm rice and dal.

While you may heard of having chicken kofta or mutton kofta or may be the raw banana kofta, kofta prepared with yam (ol in Bengali) is quite an unique preparation. When Suchismita posted this recipe in Cook Like a Bong Facebook page, I just couldn’t help myself but request her to use it as a guest post here.

Koftas originated from Middle East, it being a variation of the more known meatballs in the Western countries. As the preparation touched the Indian shores, each state started turning this meat preparation into a different. The Bengalis were at pace and you can find a varied version of koftas ranging from potatoes to paneers and from mutton to beef.

Ingredients:

For kofta:

• 200gms yam or ol
• ¼ cup gram flour
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 teaspoon chopped ginger,
• 1 teaspoon chopped garlic,
• 1 tablespoon chopped green chilli or red chilli powder,
• ½ teaspoon cumin seeds
• ½ teaspoon whole garam masala
• 1 teaspoon sugar,
• Salt to taste

For curry:

• 1 large potato, cut into 1” squares
• 1 medium onion, sliced
• 1 teaspoon ginger garlic paste,
• ½ teaspoon turmeric powder,
• 1 teaspoon red chilli powder
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 Bay leaves
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 teaspoon sugar,
• Salt to taste
• 1 teaspoon ghee,
• ½ teaspoon garam masala powder

Preparation:

For kofta:

• Boil the yam in water, mash the boiled yam
• Add the chopped onion, chopped ginger, chopped garlic, chopped green chilli ba icche hole red chilli powder, sugar, and salt and mix well
• Roast the cumin and garam masala, and grind to a fine powder
• Sprinkle the roasted spices to the mashed yam, add the gram flour
• Make a dough
• Make small balls of this dough
• Heat oil in a wok and deep fry the yam balls, take out and drain out the excess oil using a kitchen paper

For curry:

• Half fry the potatoes and keep aside
• Throw in the bay leaves and cumin seeds in the same oil, as the seeds start sputtering add the onion, and sauté
• As the onions turn brown, put in the ginger garlic paste, chopped tomatoes, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, sugar. Fry till the oil separates
• Add the potatoes
• Pour in about 2 cups of warm water
• Season with salt, cook covered
• As the potatoes get cooked, add the koftas and cook for some more time
• Sprinkle the garam masala and pour in the ghee
• Take out of the flame, and serve hot

I’m a little confused with the actual English for ol/wol. If you know please share.

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Spring is here and so are the thousand colors of nature. Every nook and corner of the street is filled with red, yellow, orange blossoms. Though with the heat rising in Kolkata, there’s not much feel good feeling about this time of the year but still there is a grand festival coming up in just a few days from now. Yes you have guessed it right, its HOLI time. Holi, the National Festival of India is celebrated throughout the states of the sub-continent and West Bengal too is not far behind. The main attraction of holi, or doljatra (as we Bengalis like to say) is the Boshonto Utsav or Spring Festival in Shantiniketan. Thousands gather at the Viswa Bharati grounds on the day from all over the world.

Thinking of colors, the first thing that comes to mind is red, green, blue and yellow.  Remember those days in school, the houses had these names and everybody used to fight with the other houses – Yellow, yellow dirty fellow or the first love letter you wrote – roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you. Do you have any other such poems or phrases, you used to throw, then share it with us!

Thinking about a colourful preparation I scratched my head but nothing authentically Bengali came to mind. So, thought of mix matching the Western with the Eastern. And, there it is the result – paneer kofta in thick poppy paste with slices of red and yellow bell pepper to spice and color it up.

Ingredients:

For the kofta:

• 400gms of paneer or cottage cheese, mashed finely
• 4 teaspoon gram flour or besan
• 1 tablespoon ginger paste
• 2 teaspoon chilli powder
• ½ teaspoon sugar, preferably brown sugar
• Sunflower oil for frying
• Salt to taste

For the gravy:

• 4 tablespoon poppy seeds
• 1 tablespoon sesame, ground to a fine paste with the poppy
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• 2 red and yellow bell pepper diced coarsely
• 2 tablespoon sunflower oil
• Few black pepper
• 1 teaspoon turmeric powder
• 1 teaspoon garam masala
• 1 teaspoon clarified butter or ghee (optional)
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

• Mix all the ingredients required for kofta excepting the oil and make a soft dough
• Prepare small balls each having a rough diameter of 3cm
• Heat oil in a wok and deep fry these balls in batches, keep aside
• Heat a wok with 2 tablespoons of fresh oil, throw in the cumin seeds, as they start sputtering add the bell pepper and toss for a minute or two
• Add the turmeric powder and season with salt and black pepper
• Pour in the poppy and sesame paste and cook till the oil separates
• Cover the gravy with 2 cups of water and stir well, cook covered for 10-12mins, check the seasoning
• Put in the fried koftas as the gravy starts boiling, cook for 2-3min more and take out of flame
• Serve hot with chapattis or rice

Hot Tips – Koftas tend to dry up the gravy, so if you are a gravy person try putting in more water or else, take out the koftas after cooking and serve the gravy and koftas separately.

Further Reading – Bengali Style Matar Paneer, Palak Paneer with a Twist

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Missed my swimming lesson yesterday and so was desperate to put the evening to good use. I received the book yesterday from Kwench, and not having cooked for a while I decided to start with what a Bong outside Bengal craves for – The Oh-so-Awesome Rosogolla.

The Giant Rasgulla

Satarupa’s book on Indian sweets starts off with the unputdownable (yeah Telegraph, I borrowed your subtitle, but I hope you would take it as flattery) Rasogolla. Since the book looked pretty handy, I thought of starting off sequentially. But then it would have been too Bong for comfort. The next one was Rajbhog and I chose it immediately. Satarupa calls it The Giant Rasogulla, with a little different texture. Followed instructions to the T and ended up with this:

Rajbhog

You can search the internet for several videos, recipes and prep styles for Rajbhog so would include just the basic style (without the jazz).

What you need (Ingredients of Rajbhog)

Note: I prepared 12 giant balls (no pun intended ) with these. So, if you want more/less, extrapolate the figures accordingly.

• 250 gm Paneer (softer the better. If you find Chhana, or Chhena, all the better)
• 60 gm Khowa (not many stores would give you this amount though)
• 1 tsp flour (maida), 1tsp semolina (suji), 1 cardamom (you just need the Elach, or Elaichi, seeds)
• 1 kg sugar (yes, you need that much Chini for the sugar syrup)
• 750 ml water (hopefully, you have one of those 1 litre mineral water bottles at your house, it would help in the measurement)
• Edible Yellow color (or, 1 gm saffron, or Kesar, if you have some extra dough. Mind you, not many stores would give you 1gm of this costly stuff, so be prepared to be set back by 150 odd rupees. Else, edible colors work just well. What do you think they give you in the Sweets shops anyways?)
• 1tsp rose water (if you already have all the other stuff at home, but not this one, don’t worry too much about it)

How to make Rajbhog (preparation steps of Rajbhog)

• Ensure that the Paneer doesn’t have too much water (yeah I know that sounds a little moronic), and knead the Paneer with your palm well until it becomes smooth.
• Then mix 1tsp (maida) and 1tsp semolina (suji) with the kneaded Paneer and knead again
• Make 12 smooth balls, and ensure that there isn’t any crack
  • Tip 1 (For Beginners): at the start you may not know the optimum size of each ball, so don’t worry. Once you start making a few Golas, you would get a hang of how much Paneer to put in each Gola.
  • Tip 2 (for all) : if you want the Rajbhogs to look yellow, while kneading the Paneer, mix some edible yellow color with it

Slightly kneaded paneer

Smoothly kneaded Paneer

Paneer balls

Now, that we have Paneer Golas, we need to make some Khowa/Cardamom balls and put it inside the Paneer Golas. Lets get started.

• Mix Khowa and Cardamom (Elaichi) seeds and divide into 12 portions (I made 12 balls).
• Stuff one portion of the Khowa/Cardamom mix into each Paneer Gola, and roll the balls into your palm so that the Paneer covers all the Khowa
  • Tip 3 (For Beginners): if you don’t, while boiling the Golas in sugar syrup, the Khowa would drain out. It happened to 2 of my Golas.

The Khowa balls

Preparing sugar syrup

Okay, now we need to prepare sugar syrup and then boil the Golas in it. Lets do it.

• In 750 ml water, put ½ kg sugar and boil it. When the sugar seems dissolved, pour another ½ kg sugar and continue with the heat. A while later (say 5-7 minutes), you have Sugar syrup with you.
• Put your Golas one by one into the heated sugar syrup and continue with the boil. You’ll see that the Golas increase in size (I mean they will get puffed).
• Continue for another 7-8 minutes and you might see some crack appearing on the Rajbhog’s surface. Remove them from fire.
• Add (rather sprinkle) 1tsp rose water
• You’ll have let the Golas soak in sugar syrup for a few hours (say 3-4 hours) before you can have them.

Tada, your Rajbhog is ready.

Expert Eater Challenge

Try having one Rajbhog in one mouthful J. If you can, send us a photo, we’ll publish it here.

Eating Rasogolla

While the entire world is busy dieting and maintaining a good figure, we Bengalis can’t just get rid of our sweet tooth. Come January and here’s another reason to celebrate the genetically transmitted sweet loving characteristics of Bongs. The reason this time is simple – Sun (Lord Surya) has come to visit the house of his son, Saturn (Lord Shani) – yes, you have guessed it right its Makar Sankranti held each year on 14^th January. This day celebrated as Poush Sankranti (sankranti meaning end of a month). There is a whole range of sweets prepared especially for this occasion, named as pitha – these may be steamed, boiled, or even fried; the main ingredients being rice flour (rice grains ground to fine powder), jaggery (the golden harvest of winter in entire Bengal) and coconut.

This day is celebrated throughout India in different ways; it’s the time of harvest. You can search an array of recipes from throughout India in the Harvest the festival of rice event round up part I and part II.

Our guest, Dipanwita Sarkar was good enough to share a recipe of bhapa pitha with us. If you don’t like it that sweet you make it like savory dumplings.

Ingredients:

• Rice flour 2 cups
• Grated coconut 2 cups
• 1 cup jaggery
• Hot water for kneading the dough

Preparation:

• Make a dough with the rice flour and boiling water [Boiling water is important otherwise pithe will break]
• Heat a wok, and mix the grated coconut and the jaggery with continuous stirring till it becomes dry. Keep aside and let the filling cool.
• Now make very small balls from the dough and press each ball with your finger to make a small bowl shape to put in the filling [The thinner the outer the tastier the pithe but be cautious that it should not break.]
• Put the filling and close the bowl in whatever shape you like. [You can give a triangular shape with frills at the borders. Be creative give different shapes for different fillings].
• Steam the pitha in a steamer/rice cooker or simply place the pitha on a sieved bowl and place it over boiling water.
• It takes almost half an hour to be fully cooked. [So pour water accordingly. Make sure water doesn’t touch the pitha.]
• Check at intervals. First it feels sticky, but when it feels dry, then it is done.
• Remove and keep open for 5mins to evaporate touches of moisture on it. Then you can store in a casserole or enjoy steaming hot pitha then and there.
• Serve pithe with liquid jaggery.
• 
  

Hot Tips – You can prepare savory pithe similar to this. Just replace the coconut and jaggery filling with vegetables (Dipanwita has used potato and cauliflower) or even minced meat or chicken. If using vegetables cook the vegetables with ginger paste, chili powder and/or tomato puree and coriander leaf. Dry out excess water while preparing the filling. You can also use mashed peas for the filling. Cook the mashed peas with roasted cumin seeds and red chilies. Serve the savory pithe (steamed dumplings) with coriander dip.

Further Readings – Patishapta, Chaler Payesh

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