Chocolate and Almonds Puli

I do not have too many memories of Makara Sankranti celebrations at home, simply because it has never been a big deal. It is strange actually, considering how my family seizes every opportunity to celebrate. We are celebration fanatics and yet, unlike many of my friends, I do not have memories of my mother, aunts and grandmother staying up all night making the mandatory puli pithe, rice flour dumplings with a sweet coconut and jaggery filling, and paayesh, traditional rice pudding with date palm jaggery.

You see, the Hindu festival of Makara Sankranti, dubbed as Poush Sankranti is Bengal, is a harvest festival in essence. And in Bengal making prticular kind of sweetmeats with rice and date palm jaggery is mandatory on this day. And though every year we would feast on pithe and paayesh relatives and friends would bring over, I have missed the thrill of making them in one's own kitchen.

One of my  close cousin's birthday falls on Makara Sankranti, usually celebrated on January 14 (sometimes 13 or 15, depending on the Lunar Calendar actually) and we often spend the day at their place in Chandannagar, a charming town on the River Hoogly, a former French colony. My aunt makes the best patishapta, crepe rolls of sorts stuffed with coconut ad jaggery or sometimes with coconut and kheer, and ranga alur pithe (sweet russet potato dumplings in a syrup) I have had. At there place Poush Sankranti calls for double celebrations. So, typically the Sankranti cum birthday feast would comprise Korai shutir Kochuri, mashed and spicy green pea stuffed fried bread, Aloor Dom, Phulkopir Kosha, a spicy cauliflower curry and an array of pithe including the ones mentioned above. Finally there is a nolen gur enriched paayesh to round up the meal.

This time however I made some puli pithe at home, so I could send the recipe as my entry to KFB's event Poush Sankranti Specials. However, I drifted just a bit from tradition and gave the traditional puli a twist. There is no jaggery or coconut in this puli pithe, unlike a traditional puli which ususally comes with a coconut-jaggery filling. Instead there is chocolate and almonds. This one is special. And delicious. Not as sweet as the traditional pithe but pleasantly different.

Ingredients

Rice Flour : 200 g
Hot water : 180 - 200 ml
Cocoa Powder :  2 tbsp
Vanilla essence : 1 tsp
Chocolate chips : 50g + 100 g
Milk: 1 litre
Cinnamon stick : 1 inch
Sugar : 1/4 cup
Almond : 50 g (coarsely ground)

Method 

In a deep bottomed pan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and let he milk simmer and reduce to half.

In the meantime tip the rice flour in a large bowl. Sift in the cocoa powder, vanilla essence and mix well. Now stream in the warm water while stirring it in with a spatula.

Knead the dough. It will be hot so consider wearing gloves. Be careful. Once you have formed a soft dough divide into 15-18 equal portions and keep. Keep the dough covered with cling film at all times, exposure to air will make it dry in no time. It is important that you work fast.

Roll out each portion dough into discs, put a little ground almonds and a teaspoon of chocolate chips on one side of the disc, fold the other end in to form half moons, press the edges with your thumb to seal. Your pulis are made.

Now add sugar to the milk and let it simmer for a couple of more minutes. Now turn the heat level to high and add the puli one by one. Let them simmer for a while and once the pulis float to the top.

Fish out the pulis and keep no a plate.

Add the cinnamon stick and hundred grams of chocolate chips to the milk ad let it reduce to half  of what it is.

Add the pulis back into it carefully, let is all simmer for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat, sprinkle the remaining coarsely ground almonds and serve warm or cold.

Saag Murgh : Spicy Spinach Chicken Curry

 
I love spinach.  It is without a doubt that spinach is my favourite leafy vegetable. At home, one of the winter lunchtime regulars is a simple stir-fry seasoned tempered with mustard seeds, fenugreek and  dry red chilies. Sometimes it's finished off with a generous sprinkle of poppy seeds. I can polish off obscene amounts of rice with just that. Then there is the Palong Shaaker Ghonto - a classic Bengali dish, a medley of winter vegetables like spinach, radish,  pumpkin, etc cooked with few spices. I add spinach in my lentil soups and curries, make parathas and fritters with it, I like it in my pies with some crumbled feta, I love the quintessential Palak Paneer and then I like to add spinach to my meat curries and fish stews.

My boyfriend on the other hand hates spinach. He refuses to eat anything that has spinach in it. I was shocked when I first found this out about him, I mean who doesn't like spinach...I think I even wondered if I was dating a normal person. Anyway, I have bullied him into eating spinach a few times. And today was one such day. I had some fresh spinach in the fridge and I decided to make a mean Saag Chicken with it and then my wicked streak came into play, I picked up the pone and invited him over for lunch. The moment I lifted the lid off my bowl of Chicken in a spicy spinach gravy, he crinkled his nose and said with a suspicious  nonchalance, "My stomach is hurting, I think I'll skip lunch." Moments earlier he had been going on about how hungry he was. Talk about grown men. But I wouldn't let go so easily. After a good deal of coaxing and cajoling, threatening and pleading, he sat down to eat.

An then he couldn't stop. In fact, he asked for a second helping and a third and swore he could eat spinach everyday if it tasted the way it did today. Okay I am bragging, but this recipe is really finger licking good. One of my absolute favourites. I love to have it with phulkas or crisp parathas, check it out.

Ingredients

Chicken - 1 kg 

Spinach (cleaned and chopped roughly) - 750 g 

Coriander leaves - 1 cup (packed)

Mint leaves - 1/4 cup 

Garlic - 10 cloves (large)

Ginger - 1 inch 

Onions (thinly sliced) - 2 large 

Cardamom - 4

Cinnamon - 2-3 inch 

Cloves - 4 

Black cardamom - 2 

Bay leaves - 2 

Cumin seeds - 1 tbsp 

Coriander - 1.5 tbsp 

Fennel - 1 tsp 

Peppercorns - 1.5 tbsp 

Tamarind extract - 2 tbsp 

Salt to taste 

A pinch of sugar 

Mustard oil - 4-5 tbsp 

Ghee - 1 tbsp 

Method 

Boil the cleaned and roughly chopped spinach and drain. Rinse under clean water and drain. Squeeze out excess water from the spinach and keep aside. 

Dry roast the peppercorns, fennel, cumin and coriander seeds and grind to a coarse powder. 

In a food processor pulse the spinach, coriander, mint, green chilies,  ginger and garlic with a little water. 

In a heavy bottomed pan add mustard oil and ghee and heat until hot. Reduce heat and add the cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves and black cardamom. Once they begin to exude their aroma, add the onions. 

Fry the onions until a deep golden brown. Add the pulsed spinach mix and fry until oil separates. 

Add the dry roasted spice mix, turmeric and red chili powder. Add the chicken and fry until oil separates. 

Add salt and then add warm water enough to cook the chicken through. Once chicken is tender and oil floats up, add a pinch of sugar and the diluted tamarind pulp. Mix well, cook for another two-three minutes and remove from heat. 

Egg-dunked Chicken Sandwich

There is something melancholy about a year coming to an end. In grand scheme of time it is undoubtedly insignificant, but somehow it is significant in the moment. Another year comes to an end today and I feel a little sad. I wonder why though. It has been a good year punctuated by moments of haze, and I am raring to whoosh into the new year, but this lingering feeling of loss remains. And the weather here in Calcutta, dull, grey and gloomy, is not helping. The only thing that could help get over this gloom and get into the party mode is great food. So, I made a special breakfast, the last breakfast of the year. And now that I have relished my Chicken sandwich dunked in eggs, I think this will feature on my breakfast menu recurrently in 2015. You could make this for a special New Year breakfast or brunch tomorrow. It is easy to make, the stuffing can be made in advance and it is delicious. The sandwich is inspired by the classic Monte Cristo sandwich, that usually has han, cheese and turkey between bread which is them dunked in an egg batter and fried. But it is quite different at the same time.

Ingredients 

Sandwich bread slices : 12
Tomatoes cut in thin discs : 2 large
Butter to smear on the bread
Eggs - 4 large
Milk - 1/2 cup
Salt and fresh cracked pepper to taste
Oil spray or white oil for shallow frying.

For the filling
Minced chicken : 500 g
Butter : 50 g
Nutmeg powder : 1/2 teaspoon
Minced garlic : 1 tbsp
Juice of an onion
Salt to taste
Coarsely ground pepper - 1 tsp
Milk - 1.5 cups
Flour - 1 tsp
Parmesan cheese - 4 tbsp (optional)

Method 

For the filling 
Marinate the chicken with onion juice, garlic paste and salt.

Heat butter in a pan. Add nutmeg. Once it splutters add the marinated chicken.

Fry the chicken until it begins to acquire a golden tinge.

Add milk, bring to a boil, reduce heat and cook until chicken is absolutely tender and the liquids have almost dried out. Stir from time to time during the cooking process.

Add coarsely ground pepper. Sprinkle the flour and mix well. Add cheese (optional) and remove from heat and keep aside.

For the sandwich.

Whisk eggs in a bowl. Add milk and whisk some more. Season well.

Remove the sides of the bread slices. Spread butter generously.

Place stuffing on the buttered face of six slices. Top it with tomato rings. And then cover with the remaining slices of bread, Press the sandwiches gently but firmly. Cut each sandwich diagonally to make triangles.

Now place the frying pan on heat. Grease it well with white oil or use oil spray. Now carefully dip each sandwich into the egg batter and shallow fry until both sides are golden. Or fry to your liking.

Serve with some fresh cut salad.

Mad about Melbourne

Hi Guys, This post is my entry for a contest by Tourism Victoria on IndiBlogger.in.All I had to do was answer this....and boy did I know exactly why! 

What's your reason for falling in love with Melbourne, the most livable city in the world?

Wish me luck since this is the first contest I am entering as a blogger. 

 If I win the contest I could go on a trip to Melbourne! But there is something in it for you too. Read on 

I still have the pair of Koala Bear earrings my aunty Tutu brought me as a gift from Australia when I was nine, may be ten, years old. Aunty Tutu is my mother’s best friend who shifted to Australia after marriage, and her yearly visit to India has been the top annual attraction of my childhood years. Aunty Tutu’s accounts of life Down Under, the description of her suburban home on the outskirts of Melbourne, the backyard barbecues and wild macaws that visited her garden from time to time, are still brilliant and vivid in my memory. “Melbourne is the place to be,” Aunty Tutu would state categorically, “you guys must visit us soon,” she would urge my parents.

My parents invariably made promises, assuring Aunty Tutu that a trip was on the cards. They said it in such earnest that I too believed that I would be on a plane to Melbourne soon. In my mind I had imagined chasing kangaroos on the roads of Melbourne and cuddling Koala Bears in Aunty Tutu’s backyard. Come on I was only a child. But that trip never happened.

However, my desire to visit Australia, especially Melbourne, continued to linger at the back of my mind. And now, right at the top of my Things-to-do-before-I-die list is to explore Melbourne’s bustling food scene. Melbourne is all about gorgeous, delectable food – from tiny cafes tucked in narrow lanes to chic fine dining destinations, rustic backyard barbecues to groundbreaking culinary experiments in Michelin starred kitchens, celebrity chefs and ingenuous rookies – Melbourne has the world eating out of its palm. With a culinary fabric as rich, I have no doubt that Melbourne is the most livable city on earth. Add to that a crazy love of sports and the arts.  In fact, I say, it is the place to be.

My desire to sit on that plane to Melbourne returned with a renewed vigour following my fixation with the MasterChef Australia. The show of course needs no introduction. My obsessive love for food is no secret, and MasterChef Australia is all about glorious food. But that was not it. It was also about glorious judges, who in turn were glorious chefs. My favourite – Gary, of course. Gary Mehigan is a gorgeous man who cooks gorgeous food and one of the reasons why I would love to visit Melbourne is to eat at Mehigan’s gorgeous restaurant in Moonee Pond - The Boathouse. The food he serves is simple but stunning, just the way great food should be. I would happy to sample a simple wood-fire pizza at Gary’s. And I can always hope to bump into the man himself!

But The Boathouse is only one glittering strand in Melbourne’s mind-boggling culinary fabric. There are culinary giants like Shannon Bennett, Frank Camorra and others taking the city’s gastronomic reality to fantastical heights. Oh how I would love to crunch into Camorra’s signature Anchoa, hand-filleted Cantabrian Artisan Anchovy on croutons with smoked tomato sorbet, sitting in his very own MoVida. And what I could give to dine to a view like the one offered from Bennett’s Vue de Monde, located on the 55^th floor of the iconic 63 floors high Rialto building.

 It’s not just about, sophisticated gastronomy, I cannot wait to explore the lanes of Melbourne to make my own culinary discoveries that I would be proud of. Or spend an afternoon at one of the cafes in the beautiful Federation Square. “Melbourne won’t disappoint you,” a friend who has lived in Melbourne for a couple of years assures. Or merely explore the fresh produce at local markets – the meats especially! The best part about the city’s food culture, often dubbed as fickle, is its diversity. Melbourne has food from all over the world and for all budgets.

And, between all the eating in Melbourne, sneak in  a trip to the Yarra Valley to sample some superlative wine and with it some great food. And while in the area why not hop onto the Puffing Billy, the century old steam engine that chugs through the picturesque Dandenong Ranges. In fact, other than food, there are innumerable attractions in the city of  Melbourne and its surroundings in Australia's south-eastern state of Victoria. Read more about it here.

And now a contest for my readers too. Answer this question and stand a chance to win a exciting gift voucher. 

Which of these places would you want to visit in Melbourne and why? 

 CONTEST ENDS JANUARY 4 12 NOON

Please note this is a Tourism Victoria Contest on Indiblogger.in 

THE CONTEST IS NOW OVER and the WINNER is Hemaaa 

Nolen Gur'er Kanchagolla

I still remember Moni Dadu. Moni Dadu was a friend of my paternal grandpa, a younger brother of sorts actually. They lived in the same neighbourhood in Serampore, a former Danish colony on the river Hoogly in West Bengal, where our ancestral house is. I haven't told you about my paternal grandpa before. That is because I have no memories of him. He died when I was a year old. I have grown up hearing about his life from my grand ma and the others And from Moni Dadu. Perhaps that is why I remember him so vividly. About Moni Dadu, now. His name was Moni Shankar De, a humble man of modest means but one with a big heart. And even after my grandfather passed away he maintained the tradition of his annual visit, and always looked out for our family.
After my grandfather's death, however, he always came around the day of his death anniversary. And his conversations were invariably restricted to reminiscences of his time with my grandpa. For years it had been the same, he came on the first or the third of December, in the afternoon, he wore the same white dhoti, a white shirt and a brown sleeveless sweater, spoke of the same things, asked the same questions, and left in the evening, 7 o clock sharp, every time. Another constant was a huge box of sweets from my grandpa's favourite sweetshop, the legendary 160 year old Felu Modak Sweets in Rishra, the town adjacent to Serampore. That was for me the highlight of his visit.
Felu Modak's  sweets are stuff of legends and their Gutke sandesh, especially the ones infused with date palm jaggery or Bengal's fabled Khejurer Gur, made only during the winter months, is cult stuff. Moni Jethu always brought the gutke sandesh for us. The problem was - I only got to eat a couple. After all we are a big joint family and we shared. I was not too happy sharing the gutke though. It is difficult to stop at a couple.
One time when Moni Dadu came visiting, my aunt made the mistake of giving me the entire box of gutke sandesh to keep in the kitchen. I obeyed. I went into the kitchen, kept the box on the kitchen counter, turned around and was just about to walk away, when the thought occurred. I can always pop in one gutke, from my share of two. So I did. The problem however was, I didn't stop at one, neither at two. I have no clue wht had gotten into me, but by the time I came back to my sense only 5 or 6 gutkes were rolling around in the box. I was terrified.
I have always been a commendable actor and I can cook up stories alright. So I ran down the stairs, panting more than I should have and screaming at the top of my lungs, "The cat, there is a cat in the kitchen," The plan was to convince every one that the cat had eaten 30 odd gutkes. Our kitchen, back then, was on the fourth floor, a roof top kitchen actually, and a cat had been the least of our worries. I do not  exactly.remember what followed but I do remember the feel of my mother's merciless fingers wrapped around my ears as she draged me past Moni Dadu into my grandmother's room and I also remember the slaps she planted firmly on my cheeks.

Anyway, so much for Nolen Gur'er Gutke. My other nolen gur favourite is the kanchagolla. A soft, moist cottage cheese sandesh infused with the goodness of nolen gur. And a couple of days ago i tried making it at home. It was bull's eye at the first go and I couldn't be happier. My cousin said it was as good as store-bought and I was ecstatic. Now date palm jaggery or Khejurer gur comes in various forms, the hard 'patali', the smooth, runny golden syrupy version referred to as 'jhola' or 'poira' gur and also a thicker, grainy version - nolen gur. In my recipe I used the thick grainy nolen gur. 

Ingredients  (Makes 8-10)

Milk - 1 litre
Calcium lactate
Nolen Gur (thick grainy variety) - 3 tbsp + 2 tbsp
Condensed milk - 2 tbsp
Raisins - 8-10

Method

Bring the milk to a boil, and while the milk is bubbling away, add the calcium lactate and let it boil until the milk curdles producing chhena and water separates.
Strain  the water and the give he chenna a nice rinse under cold running water.
Tip the chhena onto a large tray and knead it until smooth. Add the nolen gur (3tbs) and knead some more so that it is uniformly infused. Finally add the condensed milk adnd mix well.
The mixture will be a little wet. But that's how we want it.
Now heat a heavy bottomed pan and add the chhena mixture into the pan, lower the heat and let it cook for approximately 10 minutes, stirring continuously. Once the gur releases it smoky aroma and leaves the sides of the pan,  and the chhena is somewhat dry, remove from heat. Be careful not to overwork the chhena or you will get extremely dry and the sandesh would turn out brittle.
Add another 1 tbsp of nolen gur and mix well. Sculpt into 8-10. equal balls while still warm and top it off with a raisin and a smidgens of gur..