I have found that Masur dal post on my blog has become the most popular post. In most Bengali households masur or red lentil is the most important of all pulses served. Whenever there is some left out masur dal in the refrigerator my mom always makes the Sukhno dal (Bengali for dried pulses), though it can be prepared with fresh masur dal also. It is a best accompaniment of warm rice served at first of the meal. This preparation had been one of my favorite dishes in lunch. Its simple to cook and absolutely yummy.
Ingredients:
Masur dal (Red lentil): ½ cup
Onions (Peyaj): 2 medium sizes
Turmeric powder (Halud guro): ½ teaspoon
Green chili (Kancha lanka): 2
Mustard oil (Sarser tel): 2 tablespoon
Salt to taste and 3 cups of water
Preparation:
Wash the masur dal well and cook as instructed here
Simmer the dal for further 5 -6 minutes so that the dal gets absolutely dried up
Serve with freshly chopped onions and mustard oil
My tip: While simmering the dal to dry, constantly stir it so that it doesn’t get stick to the bottom of the vessel.
Poppy seed is an integral part of the platter in all Bengali households. Preparations with poppy seeds mainly include vegan dishes, but there are also some dishes where poppy seeds are used with fish or meat. The love for poppy seeds among Bengalis started hundreds of years ago. Alu posto is the most common form of poppy seeds use in Bengali cuisine, at times the potatoes are also replaced with ridge gourds, onions, aubergine, or even chicken.
The herbal concoction of the seeds is also beneficial in treating all kinds of nervous disorders. Apart from consuming poppy seeds in its raw form or toasted on bagels and sweet breads, a paste made from the seeds can be used as a poultice in obtaining relief from swellings and joint pains. Finely ground powder made from poppy seeds can also be consumed to treat insomnia and diarrhea. Apart from adding flavor to food, poppy fields also present an added advantage of providing health benefits to the human body. It also supplies essential enzymes and fatty acids as a form of nutrition. In ancient days, athletes would consume or blend of poppy seeds with honey entwined to ensure strength and good health. The oil derived from poppy seeds is used in various cosmetic preparations for the head and skin as balms and conditioners.
Ingredients:
Potato (Alu): 4 medium sizes
Poppy seeds (Posto): 3 tablespoons
Nigella seeds (Kalo jeera): 1 teaspoon
Green chili (kancha lanka): 3
Turmeric powder (Halud guro): ½ teaspoon
Mustard oil (Sarser tel): 1 tablespoon
Salt to taste
Preparation:
Make a soft fine paste of the poppy seeds and keep aside
Cut the potatoes into small square pieces
Heat oil in a wok over low flame, add the nigella seeds
Throw in the potatoes along with the turmeric powder, green chilies and salt
Pour in about a cup of water and let the potatoes get half cooked
Add the poppy seed paste and cook till the potatoes are well cooked
Pour in water if necessary
Take out of flame and serve with rice or chapattis.
With many types of rice, it really took me long to come up with the round-up. I would like to thank Hema and Easy to Cook for sending so many recipes for the event. Please let me know if I have missed out any of your recipes. You can see the first part of roundup for this event here. SGD of Whims and Wishes also wrote some words about this Harvest festival, and she was very kind to share her thoughts with us.
With so many recipes, it’s really hard to choose which one is the best. But still, it’s on you to select the best. So go ahead and choose your best recipe and write it down as a comment for this post.
I am so sorry that I was not able to post the round up for the event. Thanks to all for sending me those wonderful recipes and also for being patient. Everyday of the last month I got so many mails for the event. All the mails had so many different kinds of recipe. To tell you the truth the first time when the idea of this event struck I was not at all aware that I’ll get so many different types of recipes with rice or rice flour as the main ingredient. This is really unbelievable.
Snake gourd to me is a very peculiar type of vegetable. Its white and green stripes and more than 2 feet in length, it really looks quite similar to the reptile from which it has taken its name.
Hello to all my visitors. Today I am in a jolly mood, and so thought of having some fun with all my visitors. A couple of days back, my mom cooked up something and sent the pics to me. The pics courtesy my little sister, this she told me to specifically mention on my post when I upload the photos.
There was coterie at my home in Kolkata and so mom prepared this. The review that I got from all those who attended the party, was that the preparation was very innovative and very very delicious.
The task for you today is to guess what actually is the dish made of. There are two main ingredients in the preparation and it is purely vegetarian dish.
So put on your thinking caps and start tickling your imagination. I’ll put up the recipe tomorrow. Till then keep guessing.
No more thing, for those who guess it correctly there aren’t prizes to win. It is only to understand yourself how well you can imagine and distinguish the ingredients in your fridge and kitchen.
Legumes are a very important part of our meals. In my family, I have seen my mom cook dal for every meal. Be it an accompaniment for paratha, roti or rice, dal is always there. Among the all types of legumes found in the market, the one that is very popular in my family is the masyr dal, that too it is cooked in a very simple but special way. It tastes so good.
Masur dal is a lentil which is also a part of the legumefamily. Lentils have a very high percentage of proteins, and also essential amino acids like isoleucineand lysine. But, they lack in the other two essential amino acids, viz., methionine and cystine. Iron which is an important source of nutrition is present in high quantities in lentils and is adviced for pregnant ladies, adolescents or those who suffere from iron deficiency.
Each day of the year flies off so fast that its hard to believe that we have crossed 365 days and even more on leap years between to New Year celebrations. The winter sets in with loads of happiness. Christmas and New Year rings the bells for enjoyment and merriment. It is the time of harvest in India. US celebrate it as Thanks Giving, but that is couple of months before hat in India. In India the harvesting festival is celebrated with much glory. It is called by different names in all over India – Nabanno, Makar Shankranti, Pongal are just a few to mention.
While most of the Hindu festivals are followed according to the lunar calendar, the Sankranti festival is celebrated in accordance with the solar calendar, and so the date never changes from the English date of 14th January. It is the day when the Hindus believe that the Sun god begins ascending to the Northern Hemisphere.
The Puranas say that this is the day when the Sun-God visits the house of his son Shani, though the son and father do not get along nicely. So this is day has an important significance of father son relationship.
It is also said that this the day when Lord Vishnu ended the terrorism of the Asuras and buried their heads under the Mandar Parvat. So this day also stands for the end of evil and begins an era of righteousness.
In Uttar Pradesh this day is called “Khichdi”. Taking a dip in the Ganges is thought to be auspicious on this day. The Magh Mela is celebrated during this time of the year in Prayag, better known as Allahabad.
In Maharashtraand Gujaratit is celebrated as Sankranti. Sweets made of sesame seeds and jaggery are distributed among families. Married women are invited to their relatives’ houses and are offered utensils. Especially in Gujarat kite flying is a marked for this day.
Lahari is celebrated in Punjab where families gather around a bonfire and throw in sweets, sugarcane and rice. The next day of Lahari is Maghi. This day is marked with the famous Bhangradance in Punjab.
Bihufestival of Assamis celebrated on this very day.
Bengalsees a huge swarming of devotees from all over India and also abroad to take a holy dip at Sagar Islands, where the Ganges meets the Bay of Bengal.
Andhra Pradesh celebrates it as a four day festival. The Teluguscall it the Pedda Panduga, naming each day as Bhogi, Sankranti, Kanuma and Mukkanuma respectively.
As mentioned above, almost every state of India has its own way of celebrating this festival. It is the day of celebration and bringing home the newly cut harvest from the fields.
Every year my mom prepares different kinds of sweets all made of rice or rice flour. So this time I thought of celebrating it in my way, with you all.
Prepare anything where the main ingredient is either rice or rice flour. The preparation can be vegan or non-vegitarian, depending upon your choice. You can also take some idea from the following recipes.
Send in your entries to bengalicuisine@gmail.comwith the Subject as “Harvest: The Festival of Rice”, with the following details.
NAME:
BLOG NAME:
BLOG URL:
POST NAME:
POST URL:
Attach a picture of the preparation in jpeg, jpg
The last day for receiving all entries is 31st January 2009. No late entries will be entertained. I’ll post the round up on 2nd February.
Feel free to use the event logo, and put a link on your blog for this event. If you want to send any old posts then please update it with the event logo and a link back to this announcement.
Those of you who don’t have a blog, send in your recipe along with a photo of the dish to the above mentioned e-mail id.
It would be nice of you if you can also add your memories related to this time of the year, also post photos if you have decorated your house for the event.
There is no limit to the number of entries you can send, so put on your aprons and start preparing.Happy Cooking and Happy Eating.
Drain the excess water out of the dal and keep aside.
Cut the onions in square pieces, and the chilies into small ringlets.
Heat the oil in a shallow wok.
As the oil gets heated throw in the onions to sauté along with the garlic.
As the onions become tender, add tomatoes and chili, sauté for 2 more minutes.
Add the mugh dal, turmeric powder, salt and toss well.
Add little water if necessary and in between mash the dal properly.
Now add the Kasturi Methi to the preparation and mix well.
Scramble to eggs in a separate frying pan with little salt and throw in to the Tarka preparation.
Take it out of flame as it gets dried up.
Tarka with roti, curd and onion
It tastes best with roti or paratha and a little bit of curd and onions. You can add chicken or mutton keema, or anything of your choice. Tarka also tastes good without adding any other non-vegetarian items to it. So, you can have it without any other supplementary to it. Catch you soon, till then Happy Cooking and Happy Eating.
Banana is one of those plants which can be used in various different ways. From its stem to the flowers and the fruits to the leaves everything is in use. Banana flower, what we call mocha in my mother tongue, Bengali is a delicacy to have. It is prepared in different ways, using various ingredients.
After coming to Bangalore I had never seen banana flowers sold in the market. The last time when I went to my nearby supermarket, there was a whole rack of banana flowers being sold. I just couldn’t help myself and brought one of them back home. My mom cooks it in many ways. I started thinking of which one would be most simple and easy to cook. She puts in gram seeds (chola), even small pakoras made of lentils. But due to lack of time, I cooked it with potato and nothing else. As you all know Bengalis just can’t live without potatoes, so that was a simple choice for me.
The preparation turned out petty well and all my friends who came home that day had only one thing to say, “You made me remember my mom”. I remembered watching Ratatouille, when the food critic too remembered his mom having had the dish. That is always the best part of cooking an authentic dish from Bengal.
Banana Flower - a potrait
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Banana Flower (Mocha): 1 medium size
Potato (Alu): 2 medium sizes
Turmeric Powder (Halud Guro): ½ teaspoon
Chili Powder (Lanka Guro): 1 teaspoon
Cumin Powder (Jeera Guro): 1 teaspoon
Garam Masala Powder: ½ teaspoon
Clarified Butter (Ghee): 1 teaspoon
Mustard oil (Sarser Tel): 1 tablespoon
Preparation:
Take out each flower from the inflorescence and cut off the anther from it.
Chop the flowers very finely
Put all the chopped flowers in a deep pan and pour in water till it is fully under water
Get it to boil and drain of the water, keep the chopped flowers aside.
Heat the oil in a wok and fry the potatoes till tender. Take out the potatoes and keep separately.
To the left over oil add the spices except ghee and garam masala, fry for 30 seconds.
Throw in the boiled flowers and mix the spices well with it.
Add the potatoes and pour in some water for the vegetables to get cooked constantly.
Simmer the flame and stir it often so that it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
Add extra water if it is not cooked properly
Just before taking it out of the flame sprinkle garam masala powder and ghee; mix well.
You can add some soaked gram seeds, frying them along with the potatoes, also pakoras made of lentils is a good addition to this preparation. Click on pakoras to know how to make them. Mochar tarkari tastes best with steamed rice.
Look for more update on this blog, till the Happy Cooking and Happy Eating.
Brinjal – aubergine – egg plant, whatever you call it, it tastes the same. I remember those nights when mom used to fry aubergine. The smell loomed over the whole household. Aubergine fry or begun bhaja is one of my favorites. I love them with roti.
Yesterday when I went to the nearby supermarket, I saw a big placard hanging on top of the aubergine basket. It was a whole list of the nutrient contents of aubergine. I am not sure though that those nutrient value retains after deep frying. Navita had written a post on aubergine fry, you cannot fry aubergine in a different style but I have one ingredient more to let the aubergine absorb less oil.
Heat oil in a deep frying pan , when fumes comes out of the oil fry the egg plants
Aubergine absorbs too much oil while frying, so it is best to wrap them with blotting paper before serving. It’s my mom’s tip to put little sugar which also helps the aubergine to absorb less oil.
Check for more updates here, till then Happy Cooking and Happy Eating.
Bengalis have a tendency of putting potato in any kind of recipe. It feels as if potatoes are an integral part of all the recipes. You can guess from the average health of all Bengalis, barring some exceptions, generally every Bengali signifies that potato look, a little more fats here and there. I too am not an exception. I like to add potatoes in different curries, though because of peer pressure the quantity has reduced with the passage of time.
Everyday after coming back from office, it’s always a pain staking job to think what to cook for dinner. Last night I was only left out with a piece of pumpkin and some potatoes. In my flat I don’t have a mixer grinder so couldn’t think of experimenting any other curries with that pumpkin. I took to cooking a simple potato pumpkin curry.
This preparation uses a masala that is a widely used spice in Bengali cuisine. As the name suggests (“Five Spices”), panch phoron is a combination of 5 spices, namely mustard seeds (sarse), fennel (mouri), nigella (kalo jeera), cumin (jeera) and fenugreek seeds (methi), you canknow more at Wiki.
Serves 2
Ingredients:
Pumpkin (Kumro): 100gms
Potato (Alu): 2 medium sizes
Onion (Peyaj): 1 small
Green chili (Kacha Lanka): 2
Turmeric powder (Halud Guro): ½ teaspoon
Mustard oil (Sarser Tel): 1 teaspoon
Salt to taste
Preparation:
Heat the oil in a wok
Sauté the onions in the heated oil and throw in the panch phoron
Stir for 30 seconds before adding the vegetables
Put in turmeric powder, salt and the chilies
Stir for 2 -3 minutes, and add ½ cup of water for the vegetables to get cooked properly
As the vegetables get cooked properly, take out from flame and serve with roti, paratha or rice
Check for more updates on this blog, till then Happy Cooking and Happy Eating
I have just joined Glaxo SmithKline Ltd for my Post Graduate internship. I have become so busy with the work that I couldn’t even think about writing a post for my blog. Yesterday I got a scrap from a school friend. She is presently staying in Bangladesh and as she says there are very few options for any vegan dishes. She requested me to write about some vegetarian dishes for her.
I just could not leave out her request and so thought of posting this dish for her.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
String beans (Barboti): 100gms
Potato (Aalu): 4 medium sizes
Nigella seeds(Kalo jeera): ½ teaspoon
Mustard oil (Sarser Tel): 1 teaspoon
Turmeric Powder (Halud Guro): ½ teaspoon
Green Chili (Kancha Lanka): 2
Preparation:
Slice the strings beans into one inch sizes and the potato into small square pieces
Take oil in a wok and let it heat
Throw in the nigella seeds as the oil gets heated
Add the potatoes and strings beans along with the turmeric powder and salt
Toss the vegetables for a minute so that the oil and spices get mixed
Fry for 2-3 minutes
Pour in 1 cup of water and let it cook with stirring twice or thrice
As the vegetables get cooked take out of flame
Serve with roti, paratha or with steamed rice. It tastes good with anything. Check for more updates here on this blog, till then Happy Cooking, Happy Eating.
Posto or poppy seeds is always a delicacy in all Bengali household. It is extensively used as a spice in various dishes, be that in potato or chicken curry.It is said that poppy makes you feel cool, I am not sure of this saying though. I mom believes in it and so come summer there has to be some kind of a curry consisting of poppy seeds. The range varies from simple poppy seed paste sauted to poppy seed grind with cashew to make chicken curry.
As with poppy seeds, masur dal also takes up a very important place in Bengali kitchens. whenever I taste masur dal, I go down memory lane. every day when I came back from school for lunch, mom always prepared masur dal, my all time favorite among all lentils. Even till now, when I go home in my vacations mom always cook masur dal for me.
All this I was telling because I had the best combination of veggie delight last night. It was steamed rice with masur dal and alu posto. If you are a Bengali or if you are not, then ask any Bengali , you’ll come to know that anyone would kill for this platter.
Cilantro leaves (Dhaniya pata): 2 tablespoon of chopped leaves (optional)
Preparation:
Alu Posto:-
Grind the poppy seeds and green chili in a grinder to make a paste
Cut the potatoes into small one inch squares
Heat oil in a wok, and throw in the nigella seeds as the oil gets heated.
Immediately add the potatoes and toss for a while so that the oil gets mixed with the potatoes.
Now add turmeric and salt along with a cup of water and let the potatoes get half cooked.
Put in the poppy seed paste and stir so that the paste gets mixed with the half cooked potatoes. You can add more water if the curry gets dried up.
Cook till the potatoes get cooked properly and the water disappears.
Potato in poppy seed paste
Here is a slide show to show the stages of the cooking:
Masur Dal:-
Thoroughly wash the dal and put in a deep pan with salt and water so that the dal remain almost 3 inches under water. Let it boil till the water and dal becomes inseparable.
In a separate heat the oil and throw in the onions and green chili. Saute till the onions turn golden brown
Add the sauted onions to the boiled dal along with the turmeric powder and cook for two to three minutes more.
Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Masur Dal
Masur dal and poppy-potato curry tastes best with steamed rice, but you can also try it with chapatis and rotis. The curry also looks good without turmeric, so you can try out that too. About masur dal, it depends what concentration you want for it, depending on that you can keep the water or make it dry.
When I was a child my hobby was to paint and dance. As I grew up and stepped into my adolescence dance turned from a hobby to a passion. I had performed in various festivals, stage shows, TV shows, school and college fests. Painting was no more a hobby, but I still draw at times, just to feel happy. I left Kolkata almost a year and a half back. Leaving Kolkata had a great toll on me, I had to leave out my dance session, which I had been attending for the last 20 years. The last time I danced on stage was back in winter 2006.
But there was another hobby which was in its nascent stage some two years back and for which I spend a good percentage of my monthly money these days. This hobby started even before I became a full time cook in my kitchen (here to note, I still don’t have what I can call my own kitchen, but still need to be satisfied with the small kitchen in my rented apartment) and a food blogger. Coming back to my new but not so new hobby, collecting cook books. I have a plethora of these cook books now. From Sanjeev Kapoor to Tarla Dalal and Roz Denny to old worn out books of multiple authors; books written in English and also in Bengali, my mother tongue. Every year I used to visitKolkata Book Fair and my task was to search for the most recent and the oldest cook books being sold. I have bought books of well known publishers like Duncan Baird Publishers(London), Popular Prakashan (Mumbai) and also from the not so known publishers. Now that I am away from Kolkata, the annual book fair is almost out of question to visit, so I visit all the book stalls here in Bangalore and peek into the culinary sections of these stores. I have got books starting from INR 10 to few that were quite a burden to my wallet. Of all these books that I bought, the one that I felt very happy in buying was “The Big Book of Great British Recipes“. This book has got 365 delicious and treasured recipes, as the book cover says. But the reason of my being happy in buying this book was something different. The book is sold at 625 INR in India, but the copy I have had cost me only 50 INR because of a little tear on its cover. It was like getting a treasure for almost nothing. The book is really great. Another book in line is written in Bengali, which my mom gifted. It has a whopping collection of 1001 recipes from East Bengal (presently Bangladesh) and West Bengal (eastern state in India, where I hail from). I treasure my books above everything, and whenever I am alone and have got nothing to do I just go through them. It brings me immense pleasure to see the colorful photographs and the passion the cook has put in to prepare those dishes. Though I have not tried much of the recipes from these books, but they have made me realize the basic difference in the different styles of cooking. Books from professional cooks have the exact amount of the ingredients and the time of cooking mentioned in every recipe and also a note from the cook as a recommendation from him or her to make the dish taste better. Another very important aspect of all cook books is the photograph they feature. Though the cheap books have very few or no photos of the cooked food, the not so cheap books have a whacking number of food photographs in them. It is a general tendency I have noticed in me, to read those recipes having photographs, I think you will also agree to that.
That was a lot of writing from my side today. I hope you loved the discussion. I would appreciate if you pen down some lines on the type of books you have at home and how they have helped to bring out the cook in you.
To come to recipe for the day, it is a very simple one; my mom cooks it as a side dish along with rice and dal.
Last five days I am all done with a heavy cold and extreme head aches. All of these sickness made me stay out of kitchen for these. I am speding time more on the bed than anywhere else at home. This morning when at last I thought of visiting the near by doctor, he gave me a shock. He prescribed with lots of medicine and talked about me having rhinocitis. The term reminded me of that Khaziranga National Forest rinos with a horn at the place of nose. Now, coming to the graver part, he suggested that if these problems do not get better by the next 5 days and with all these medications then it is presumably a case of sinusitis and in that case I need to a have a CT scan done. CT scan !!!! O dear Lord !!! I am an absolute claustrophobic, I can’t stay inside a lift for more than a few seconds and he was asking me to have a CT scan done, that means staying inside that whole for more than half-an hour. I was feeling worse with this news than with all of these running nose, blocked ears and head aches.
I had cooked up Baigan Bharta as a side dish for last night dinner. My brain going haywire with the news from the doctor this morning, it think it will look like a bharta and nothing less. So thought of writing this post.
Add the mashed eggplant to the onions along with tomatoes, turmeric powder, chili ringlets and salt.
Cook till the eggplant dries, take care that it doesn’t get stick to the bottom of the wok.
Take out of flame and garnish with coriander leaves and lemon juice.
Baigan bharta is best tasted with roti or parantha. Though I had to roast the eggplant on a gas oven, it tastes and smells best when roasted over a charcoal oven.
Baigan Bharta
Catch me with more updates on this blog, till then
Happy Cooking and Happy Eating
As I have not used any electrical or electronic gadgets to cook this, my post is heading for the ‘Power’ less cooking event
Autumn in India is all about festivals. Every day brings in the smell of the coming festivities, the joys and the of course the food. Shopping, visting places, meeting relatives and friends,travelling, pandal hopping, worshipping the goddesses, painting the house, coloring rangolis, eating, cooking – all comes as if in a package in this festival season.
Diyas for sale at a street side stall in Gariahat market, Kolkata
Getting the diyas ready- part I
Getting the diyas ready- part II
For the last couple of days I had been doing all these. Visiting my native was one of the main dos in the list. I visited Kolkata, my hometown. As you all feel when you go back home after a long long time I felt the same. My mom, my aunts and everybody in there was ready to welcome me with my favorite platters. For one whole week I had been eating and eating with of course learning these dishes.
Diyas ready to light
Rangoli with pista shell lamps at my Bangalore flat
As I was not able to celebrate Diwali with my family, I managed to have the taste of the celebration a few days before the day. Me and my sister went out shopping for the terracotta diyas and painted them with acrylic paints, it was so much fun.
Talking about food I had a pretty good share of the typical home-made dishes and I’ll be putting up one in each of my following posts starting from today with Daler Vada. Daler vada is a typical Bengali starter and also a side dish with rice and dal.
Serves 4
Ingredients:
Motor Dal powder: 100 gms
Onions (Peyaj): 3 medium sizes, juliened
Green chilli (Kacha Lanka): 4, cut into small ringlets
Turmeric powder (Halud Guro): 1 teaspoon
Mustard oil (Sarser tel): 1 tablespoon and extra for deep frying
Salt to taste
Preparation:
Take the onions in a bowl and pour in one tablespoon of oil and soak in the onions.
Add the other ingredients to the onions.
Pour in enough matter to make a soft dough and keep for half an hour.
Heat oil in a pan and fry the dough in small balls.
Serve with sauce as starter or with rice and dal as a great side dish.
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I hope you all had loved the round up for The Non-Veggie Event. As for me, hosting an event for the first time was of great great pleasure. The recipes I received were so good and I felt pleasure in going through all the recipes. Each was better than the other. Chicken, mutton, eggs- everything was on the menu. I even tried out some of them and they were so yummy.
So after all these meat and flesh and spices all over I thought of choosing something light and vegetarian for my next post.
Dhokar dalna is one of the oldest recipes, which is of absolute Bengali origin. You will never find anything equivalent to this recipe. If any of you have anything which you feel is similar to Dhokar Dalna, then please do write a comment on that. Even better of you please post it on your blog and leave a comment along with the URL of the post.
I found my mother cooking many items and calling them with the same prefix “Dalna”. I took this opportunity to search about what Dalna actually means. My source was noone but my inspiration of cooking , my MOM. After partition many people came from East Bengal, now better known as Bangadesh. In present Bengal (West Bengal, India) they are popularly known as Bangal(as in Bangladesh) and those who were actually from present West Bengal are called Ghoti. As the language changes with every mile, so here also there is no exception. What the Bangal call tarkari (curry) the Ghotis call it Dalna. So, this Dhokar Dalna most probably originated from the people who were the oldest inhabitants of present West Bengal. There are many more stories of this differetiation in every part of Bengal. If I start writing I’ll never ed, so better keep it for future.
Dhoka is a mixture of two types of pulses, and the curry with very little spice is called Dhokar Dalna.
Red Chili powder (Sukhno Lankar Guro): 1½ teaspoon
Mustard oil (Sarser tel) for frying
Salt to taste
Preparation:
For the Dhoka:
Grind both the pulses together in a powder. Grind it well so that it becomes absolutely powdery.
Alternately you can also soak the pulses for about 2 to 3 hours and then make a paste of the soaked pulses.
Add salt, ½ teaspoons each of turmeric powder, ½ teaspoons of red chili powder, turmeric powder, black pepper, cumin seeds; refinedwheat flour, sugar, asafoetida, cinnamon powder, cardamom powder and 1 teaspoon of nigella to the dough.
If you have dry grinded the pulses then add water and make thick dough. Keep it for 20 to 30 minutes.
Heat ½ teaspoons of oil in an wok. Add the dough and toss for 2 to 3 minutes or till the dough become quite dry.
Spread the tossed dough over a plate with almost an inch depth. Cut it into small diamond shapes. The dhoka is now ready to fry.
Half fried dough
Heat oil in a frying pan and fry the dhokas till they get hard and the inside also gets cooked. You can prick them with a knife. If the knife comes out with sticking, then the inside is also cooked.
Deep Fried Dhoka
For the Dalna:
Cut thepotatoes in medium size square pieces.
Heat oil in a wok. Fry the potatoes till they are golden brown.
Add the cumin seeds to it along with turmeric and chili powder.
Pour in water and salt.
Now cook till the gravy thickens and the potatoes are cooked well.
Carefully drop the dhokas and just boil for 2 minutes in low flame. Do not toss else the dhokas will break.
Hot and yummy Dhokar Dalna
Take it out of flame and Dhokar Dalna is ready to serve. Dhokar Dalna serves as a wonderful side dish for vegetarian meals. Try it out and send me your comments. Keep in touch and till then HAPPY COOKING AND HAPPY EATING.
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