This blog is dedicated to Mum, my greatest mentor. It is a compilation of simple recipes - Bengali, Indian, Burmese and Continental, among others. All of these recipes have been tested in my kitchen. Most use everyday ingredients found at your local market, but some use specialty ingredients available at Asian and/or Indian markets. Comments are welcome and members are invited to send in any recipes they would like to share.
My sister and her daughter 'fast' one day every week. It's not a total fast, they just stick to vegetarian cuisine that has no onion or garlic. This cauliflower dish would be ideal for them because it is flavoured simply with ginger and tomatoes. Fresh, minced ginger would be perfect, to get that strong ginger taste, but I often resort to using ginger paste for convenience. No water was used in this recipe to keep the cauliflower dry. To make it saucy, add half a cup of hot water at the end and bring everything back to a boil. I added a diced russet potato to suit my Bengali palate, but it may be omitted if you wish. Serve Adraki Gobi as a side dish especially if you are catering to a vegan and/or vegetarian guest.
I modified my Butter Chicken recipe to create this Chicken Do Pyaza which translates to Chicken 2 Onions. It gets its name from the two types of onions that are used. The chicken is first stir-fried with minced onions and at the end is combined with deep-fried onions or birista.
Butter Chicken Sauce
Half a package of this off-the-shelf butter chicken sauce was the perfect gravy to use in this dish. One and a half pounds of boneless & skinless chicken thighs were cubed and marinated in paprika, the juice of one lime and salt. The pieces were then stir-fried until golden brown, the sauce added and the whole thing simmered over medium-low heat for half an hour. The fried onions were then added and stirred into the sauce to make it thick and glossy.
Serve this chicken as a main dish with hot, steamed rice or any Indian bread.
This dessert reminds me of Khan, our cook in Bombay in the early 1970s. He was an excellent cook who went to the market early each morning and based our menu on what was available that day. His food was in the Mughlai style and quite rich. This was his way of preparing toasted vermicelli and was quite unusual for us because we were used to the milky payesh that Bengalis generally make.
Toasted Vermicelli
Toasted vermicelli or sev is available at Indian markets. If it's not available in toasted form, it adds a step to making desserts because it has to be toasted in butter or ghee until golden brown. Coating sev with butter keeps each strand separate and prevents it from becoming mushy.
