Thursday, July 9, 2015

Mourola macher korai chochori

Nothing much to write about this recipe.


 
Mourola mach or anchovies are my husband's favorite. I usually make churchura or mourola mach with alu, peyaj and begun. Obviously these recipes have been repeated so many times that we were bored of them.
 
I was searching frantically for something new yet easy. Something spicy.
 
Then I came across this recipe in the Bengali food magazine Hangla Hneshel.

Some little tweaks here and there...and there it was. Spicy dry stir fry. Hope  hubby likes it!!



Servings: 4

Ingredients:

About 300gm mourola cleaned and gutted.
half tsp. haldi
5 green chilies chopped
1 medium and 1 small onion chopped finely
1 tsp. finely chopped ginger
1.5 tsp. garlic paste
1 tsp. chili powder
2 tsp. mustard paste
1 tsp. poppy seed paste
2 tbsps. oil
Salt

Recipe:

Take a big plate (Thala). Mix everything together evenly.

Let it rest for some time.

Take a wok, grease it with oil and heat up.

Spread the mixture evenly in the wok and lower heat. Do not cover.

After few minutes, turn the mixture and let the other side cook. Continue this till the fish is cooked and oil comes up on the surface.

This should not go totally dry. The mixture should have some moisture. Serve with a sprinkle of coriander leaves.

Tia's Paneer ala Anushka Sharma



Tia, my kid sister has a knack to cook all not so Bengali recipes...Bangali khabar is for the house wives she says. I am sure she will understand the lack of logic behind her thought some day...but as of now she refuses to cook Bengali food.

Anything which can be made in a jiffy is her forte... Pastas, aromatic rice dishes,Prawns and chicken dishes which do not take ages to cook....nothing that should take more than half hour to finish off.

I, on the other hand, like creating all the elegant recipes. I love all my mochar ghonto, borar dalna, dhoka and muri ghontos....and also the biriyanis and pulaos...even if they take ages to make.

So we get into these fights....where she champions her 5 minute recipes and I keep on bragging about traditional recipes and tell her off for taking the easy way out.

Tia found out about this Paneer recipe in a cookery show featuring Anushka Sharma. The actress said her mom cooks this for her all the time. I refuse to believe her although....Paneer with cream and cashew does not gel well with a tending towards size zero woman I say. Otherwise she would need a BMR touching the sky.

Anyways, this recipe my sister liked instantly....If Anushka can cook it in 20 minutes straight, then definitely she can cook it in lesser time...absolutely her kind of recipe.

I sniggered when I heard about this...which good paneer dish other than a stir fry could be cooked in 15mins? Paneer recipes had to be creamy and had to be simmered on low flame to bring out the creaminess right? Even paneer bhurji takes more than 15mins to prep and cook.

Then she insisted to cook it for us that night. Ohh! I was bowled over by this one...creamy it was...not overly spicy neither too mild...just right in taste..it was an epiphany I guess...I would have never believed otherwise that creamy goodness of slowly cooked paneer could be recreated in 15mins following a recipe which had just 10 ingredients.



Tia had a smug look on her face which was screaming "I told you so" on my face.

Since then this has been my savior. Whenever I am in dearth of time, someone comes down for dinner suddenly this is my go-to dish. And it never fails to impress.


Servings: 4

Ingredients:

About 300gm paneer chopped into 1.5 cm cubes.
1 tsp. cardamom powder
1.5 tsp. ginger paste
half tsp. haldi
half tsp. Kashmiri mirch powder
1/3 cup. tomato puree
2/3 tsp. garam masala powder
5 green chilies chopped
1 tbsp. cashew paste
2 tbsps. cream and a tsp. to garnish
1.5 tbsps. oil
Salt

Recipe:

Heat oil. Add the cardamom powder followed by ginger paste. Once the rawness of the ginger disappears, add the haldi and Kashmiri mirch powder. Sprinkle some water.

After few stirs add the tomato puree and cashew paste. Follow that with the garam masala powder. Once all masalas are cooked properly add the paneer, chilis and salt. I add a pinch of sugar also.

Add the cream, give it a quick stir and let it bubble for a min.

Garnish with cream and some coriander maybe. And voila!!

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Borboti Bhaji....Gujrati style



Its been ages now I guess. As I mentioned, being mother to a hyper-active 9 month old is a full time job....add an IT job to it and you have hell broken loose. Exactly what had happened to me. With audits going on at work, daughter down with cold, I felt I needed 48 hours days. I wouldn't even speak about nights...I am dreaming about sleeping like a child for 8 hours some day. That's a luxury currently :(

Lets come back to the recipe now.

I have a friend at work....Sudipta...a total foodie....a pork and beef addict like I am....only difference being that she could survive happily on Maggi for days.. not that I couldn't, but she just refuses to cook properly. She would do a daal and dheros bhaji with a sad face if she had to. But I feel bad for her poor hubby and for her as well. I still coax her to learn cooking...she actually tried cooking banana flower and even Paneer tikka one day. She is improving I guess.

This recipe, being so simple and yet so tasty, is to inspire her. Go on Sudipta, cook some more!!

For me, inspirations come in all shapes and sizes and from all directions as well. My mom, grand-moms, mother-in-law obviously top the list. Then there are others....friends, friends' moms, neighbors, aunts, restaurants, magazines, cookery shows, even the chowmeinwala near my office or Bapi Da's momo shop at Karunamoyee. All of them count.

I am not so much fan of how my mom cooks borboti or long beans, with potato in a tomato gravy. So I always avoided it.

This I learnt from my Gujrati neighbors. Now the Parekhs happen to be more than family. They virtually feed me and my sister when ma is not at home. Which is why I am so fond of whatever they cook I guess. A hungry stomach is fond of any food they can get hold of. Well jokes apart, the eldest Parekh wife, whom we call Boro Aunty cooks like a goddess and unfortunately likes to hold to her secrets. This is the only recipe I could get hold of and even after cooking this one at least hundred times, I fail to get the same taste. Seems she has cheated on me this time as well.



However mine comes out a close second to hers...so I could do with sharing mine with all of you. I am sure even those who hate string beans will fall in love with this recipe. I can have this every day and in every meal of my life and still not get bored with it.

Servings: 4

Ingredients:

About 500gm String beans or borboti.
1 tsp. asafetida/hing
1/2 tsp. baking soda
2/3 tsp. ajwain
1.5 tsp. chilli powder
1.5 tsp. dhania powder
2/3 tsp. garam masala dowder
1.5-2 tbsp. oil
Salt

Recipe:

Chop the beans into 1/2cm or even smaller pieces.

Heat oil in the wok. Add ajwain, followed by hing and baking soda. Follow this with the beans and salt. Give a stir and cover. Put on low heat.

The string beans will release loads of water. Once it begins to dry up, add the rest of the masalas and just a sprinkle of water. Cover again and put on low heat.

Once the beans start looking like a mash and dries up, take it off heat.

I like this with rice and rice only...but I guess the health freaks could try with roti. I warn you it wouldn't taste the same though.


And there you have it. Enjoy with your rice.