My Shepherd's Pie : Christmas special

As a child I would spend a lot of time with my maternal grandparents, especially with my grandfather. I call him Dadun, and he is without a spec of doubt my 'favourite person in the whole world'. He is an excellent storyteller — he can hold you captive for hours together with his tales and animated reminiscences. And as a child I have spent many an afternoon in the magical world Dadun conjured, especially for me. And while I thoroughly enjoyed the tales of deadly demons and ferocious animals, dark, forbidding jungles and haunted dungeons, the stories I loved the most were the ones from his own life.

Dadun stayed in England for a few years, back in the 50s and then he travelled the whole of Europe and parts of Africa before returning to India. And I have grown up on a steady diet of stories from his travels and his stay in England (the reason why I was adamant on going to a British University, England was the fairytale land of my childhood). I have heard the same stories again and again and have never grown tired of them.

Among the stories Dadun shared, the ones I loved the best were the ones that had Ken Shapcott in it. Ken, Dadun's best friend in England, a brother really, one he still remembers and misses dearly. His parents had lost their hearing ability after a shell was dropped near their home during the Second World War and Dadun still refers to them as Mum and Dad. They called him John and would often introduce him to their friends and neighbours as their other son. And then....there was the story about the Shepherd's Pie Ken's Mum would make for my grandfather every time he visited them.

The first time I heard of Shepherd's Pie... I must have been 5 or 6 then and even since I have been smitten. Somehow, I only tasted it much later in life,  but the words were music to my ears. I found a strange sense of comfort in Shepherd's Pie. I had decided that it was the ultimate comfort food long before I had tasted it. And somehow I have always associated it the most with Christmas. Every Christmas, year on year, I have craved Shepherd's Pie.

 I finally had it for the first time in England, at one of the cafes on campus. And the first time around I was a little disappointed. The dish was a tad too bland for my taste, perhaps. I have had it a few times after, and a few of them were memorable eats. And considering my obsession with adding my own little elements to a dish, I trumped up my own version. It is not authentic to the T, but the idea is pretty much the same and it is delicious. Mine has a generous layer of spiced meat topped with cheesy and buttery mashed potatoes to which I add some herbs to add some more flavour. I even add some raisins to the meat for that sweet and tangy surprise. And I love it.

May be this Christmas you could try Shepherd's Pie my way. I am sure you'll be as merry as you can be.

 And here's wishing you a Merry Christmas! 

Merry Christmas!!!!

 My Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients 

Minced mutton (keemah) - 750g
Finely chopped onions - 1 cup (packed)
Garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Tomato puree - 5-6 tbsp
Carrots - 2 (grated)
Thyme - 2 tbsp
Oregano -2 tbsp
Sweet paprika - 1 tbsp
Dark raisins - a handful
Red wine - a splash (optional)
Boiled potatoes - 6-7 (large)
Butter 100g  + 50g
Salt and pepper to taste
Sugar to taste
Parmesan cheese - 1/2 cup (grated)

Method 

In a  deep pan heat 100 gms of butter and add the chopped onions. Fry until it is translucent and only just begins to catch colour.

Add the garlic paste and fry. Next add tomato puree, grated carrots and cook for a minute or two.

Add the minced meat. Remember to keep the heat high all the while. Stir vigorously. Add sweet paprika and sugar. Fry the meat on high heat until it is brown and the juices have dried. Add a splash of red wine, the herbs, raisins and season well. Stir around for a couple of minutes and take off heat.

Now mash and blend the boiled potatoes with the remaining butter, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. Also you could add some herbs to the mashed potatoes.

Pour in the minced meat into the baking tray and even it out to make a thick layer of meat. Top this layer the mashed potato, even it out  with a spatula and then with a fork play around with the surface giving it your own design.

Preheat oven at 200 degree centigrade and then slide in your baking dish chockablock with delicious meat and mashed potato. Bake at 200 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until the top is a beautiful, scrumptious golden.

And what you get is a delicious Shepherd's Pie, a little different but all the more delicious!!!!

Shorshe Fish with an Asian twist

               For every Bengali worth his machher jhol and bhaat, Shorshe Bata diye Machher Jhaal has a special spot. It is cooked in every house and every house has their own way of cooking it. And even in the same house it is cooked in different ways. For instance, the tempering could change, some prefer paanch phoran or others vote for kalo jeere (kalonji) — the two produce markedly different results. Then you could make it soupy or makho makho, a drier version. Sometimes you add onions, sometimes just tomatoes, at other times both and if you desire, neither. I like a particular version with potatoes, cut in thin strips. And loads of green chillies.

            My didun (mum’s mother) is the best at making machher jhaal. And if you could ever taste it you would agree. Yeah, I know, everyone has this one person in the family, who makes a particular thing better than anyone in the world. But then I have never had a machher jhaal as good as hers and neither has anyone else in the family. It is not like she uses a secret ingredient or something, it’s just her way of doing it I guess, or she sprinkles pixie dust on it.

            Anyway, talking about Machher Jhaal, it’s a favourite at my place and it is made every single day. It is a constant on the table every night. I have experimented a few times with the Machher Jhaal just to avoid monotony; I have tempered it with curry leaves and mustard seeds, I have put in raw mangoes, and on one occasion I had put in maple syrup. But let’s not get there. Last evening, I was up for another experiment. I wanted to give the archetypal Machher Jhaal an Asian twist. Of course the idea occurred owing to the fish sauce and Kaffir Lime leaves that was still in the fridge.

        So I gave a little twist and the result made everyone very happy. The fragrant lime leaves and the pungent mustard oil, hit it off from the word go. With piping hot rice, this dish was just the thing to liven up a cold winter evening.

Ingredients

Bekti (cut in cubes)- 500g

Paanch phoran – ½ teaspoon

Green chillies (whole) – 2 - 3

Turmeric Powder – ½  tsp + 1 tsp

Red chilli powder - 1 tsp

Kashmiri Chili Powder – 1 tsp  

Kaffir lime leaves – 2-3 cut in thin strips

Tomatoes (chopped) – 2

Garlic (finely chopped) – 1tsp

Mustard paste -  3 -4 tbsp

Red and green chillies (chopped)

Mustard oil (as required)

Fish sauce – 1 tbsp

Salt to taste

Method

• First marinate the fish with salt, turmeric powder (1/2 tsp) and chilli powder for 10-15 minutes.
• Heat oil in a kadhai and lightly fry the pieces of fish and keep aside.
• Now, in pan heat around 2 tbsp of oil, ones the oil reaches the smoking point, add the paanch phoran and whole green chillies and reduce the flame immediately.
• Once the aroma of the green chillies and paanch phoran fill your nostrils, add the garlic paste and the tomatoes. Also add the Kaffir lime leaves. Add a pinch of salt and cook till the tomatoes are turn mushy and finally oil separates.
• While the tomatoes are being done, in a small bowl take the Kashmiri chilli powder and the turmeric powder, add a few table spoons of water, mix and keep. Pour it in once the tomatoes are done and oil separates and stir for a couple of minutes.
• Now dilute the mustard paste with a little water and pour it in. Add salt.
• Finally add the fish carefully, as also the chopped green chillies, cover and cook on low heat for a few minutes.  Round it off with fish sauce and serve piping hot with plain steamed rice.

PS. This is a tip I picked from Didun, whenever you grind mustard, add a pinch of salt and a couple of chillies to it, to avoid it getting a little too tart. In fact, sometimes mustard paste could even taste bitter.

Again in this recipe I have used Bekti, but you can use any fish you want to. 

Malaysian Chicken Curry

I was 19. And it was my first trip abroad. And talking of a cherry on the cake – I was going to travel with a friend, no cautious father, no nagging mother nor a petulant, almost-teenager brother. Of course, we tried to overlook the fact that my friend’s father was travelling with us. We had worked out a plan around this tiny glitch. The destination was South East Asia – of course you already guessed that.

Now my friend was not really interested in food. She was weaving her dreams around designer shops and nightclubs but I was drooling, even in my sleep thinking about all the amazing street food I would wolf down in Bangkok, of Malaysian curries and Singaporean noodles. 

However, Bengalis irrespective of the fact that they are famous for their fabled wander lust, have a tendency to look for their aloo-posto bhaat and machher jhol no matter where they go. Not all of them, but most of them.  And I don’t mean to demean any community; in fact I hear it is a pan-Indian problem, every community has their fare share of such people. No offense meant. For me, it would be a nightmare, no matter how much I love; in fact I am obsessed with it, aloo posto. Anyway, so we were travelling with a tour company who took no chance when it came to food. So in Bangkok we were served chicken tikka and butter paneer, everyday, while in Singapore we ate at a Bangladeshi restaurant and in Malaysia, a South Indian restaurant. They made sure we remained connected to our culinary roots, much to my dismay.

My brother, the same petulant guy I mentioned early, only he is older now. And grouchier, I think, went to Bangkok recently and came back with foodie-tales that had me slobbering and drooling all the while. I cursed my  stars at the thought of my trip to the South East. So I have been pondering over the idea of cooking something Asian and finally got myself to try this Malaysian Chicken Curry.

I usually do not cook Asian food except the occasional Chinese, but to say, I officially turned a fan of cooking Asian food. I already loved eating it of course. The smell of lemon grass and Kaffir lime leaves, the creamy coconut milk and the spices, it is so satisfying! 

And the meal that followed this evening, was even more satisfying. A slavoursome curry, but so light on the palette. Do try it. 

Ingredients

• 1 tbs peanut oil (I used vegetable oil)
• 2 brown onions, cut into wedges
• 8 (about 800g) chicken thigh fillets, cut into 3cm pieces
• 4 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 4 star anise
• 400ml coconut milk
• 1/2 cup (125ml) chicken stock
• 2 tsp grated palm sugar
• 2 tbs fish sauce
• Finely shredded kaffir lime leaves, to serve.

Curry paste

• 4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
• 4 long fresh red chillies, seeded, finely chopped (seeds optional)
• 2 stalks lemongrass, white part only, finely chopped
• 1 tbs finely grated fresh ginger
• 4 purple Asian shallots, finely chopped
• 1 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
• 1/4 cup (60ml) peanut oil (or vegetable oil)

1. Place all curry paste ingredients in a food processor and process until a smooth paste forms. Season with salt and pepper.
   
2. Step 2 Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes or until onion softens. Add curry paste and cook, stirring, for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add chicken, lime leaves, cinnamon, star anise, coconut milk and chicken stock. Bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to low and cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes, or until sauce thickens and chicken is tender. Remove from heat. Add palm sugar and fish sauce; stir to combine. Taste and season with sugar and fish sauce.
   
3. Step 3 Spoon among serving bowls. Top with lime leaves and serve with rice, if desired.
   
   
   

Recipe courtesy Sarah Hobbs http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/19844/malaysian+chicken+curry
Thanks Sarah, wherever you are for such an awesome recipe.