Panch Mishali Chorchori - Stir-Fried Vegetable Medley

 

Panch Mishali Chorchori

This dish is a mixture of 5 vegetables (panch mishali) that are stir-fried (chorchori) with or without lentil dumplings, also known as 'bori'. I used 3 root vegetables, radish, carrots and sweet potato, along with eggplant and pui shaak or malabar spinach. It's very easy to prepare and a great use of vegetables that may have been overlooked or forgotten. It doesn't need onions or garlic which was a blessing for me because I dislike 'shedding tears' over onions.

Bachu's Begun Panch Phoron - Eggplant Flavoured with 5 Spices

Begun Panch Phoron

My brother sent me this photograph of his Begun Panch Phoron. The five spices are cumin, fennel, nigella, mustard and fenugreek seeds. These seeds are sputtered in oil for tempering and more are later roasted and ground to add flavour to the stir-fried eggplants. Cut the eggplants in bite-sized pieces. Bachu cut them in long pieces. I diced mine.

Here is my dish.

Muttar Keema Gobi - Shredded Cabbage with Minced Meat & Peas

Shredded Cabbage with Minced Meat & Peas

This is another dish inspired by Mum. She would take a whole cabbage, remove the core and stuff it with spiced, seasoned and browned ground meat. The cabbage would then be bound with kitchen twine so it wouldn't fall apart and browned on top of the stove. From the frying pan, the bound cabbage would be transferred to the pressure cooker with a wee bit of water, brought up to full pressure and cooked over medium-low heat for about half an hour. The yummiest stuffed cabbage there ever was!

I deconstructed it and made a stir-fried, shredded cabbage with ground sausage meat. The longer the cabbage is cooked, the sweeter it tastes, so take the time to simmer and stir till the cabbage turns golden brown.

Stir-Fried Kale Medley with Red Radishes

Stir-Fried Kale Medley with Red Radishes

Kale Medley

The box of kale medley is triple-washed so it can be used straight away without washing. The mixture of young greens are tender and full of flavour. Dried red chilies are deseeded by splitting in half and shaking out the seeds. This reduces the spiciness. Watch them closely while they're sizzling so they don't burn which could reduce you and your audience into a coughing frenzy.

Greens are an essential part of the Indian table. In Bengal they are prepared in a variety of ways of which this stir-fry is the simplest. More exotic forms include meat, poultry, fish heads or homemade cheese (chana/paneer). The general rule is that if you can eat the fruit off the vine, the leaves are also edible.

However, I have first-hand knowledge of how dangerous it is to take this too literally. A member of my extended family watched his wife make a strawberry-rhubarb pie and noticed she was discarding the lovely greens, she had no idea why. He asked her to chop them up and prepare them the same way she would stir-fry spinach. The 'spinach' was relished at dinner that night. Not much later they both developed severe stomach aches and diarrhea which sent them to the emergency room of the closest hospital. After receiving treatment and armed with drugs, they returned home totally famished. They raided the fridge and ate more rhubarb greens before taking to their beds. Lo and behold, they took ill again and headed to the emergency room once more. This time they were grilled by the doctor of all that they had eaten in the last 24 hours. He and his staff were horrified to hear about the rhubarb greens which are extremely poisonous to human beings. Yes, the stalks can be eaten, but never the greens!

This side dish goes perfectly with hot rice or any type of Indian bread.

Kumro Bati Chorchori - Simple Stir-Fried Pumpkin/Butternut Squash

Kumro Bati Chorchori

Kumro (pumpkin) Bati (dish/one-dish) Chorchori (stir-fried vegetable) is a delectable Bengali preparation with pumpkin or butternut squash. In North America, the latter is far more readily available and makes a good substitute for pumpkin.

Types of Pumpkin

A cross-section of each type of pumpkin makes it recognizable in the supermarket. Butternut squash is a hard winter vegetable which I generally avoid because it is so difficult to peel and chop. 

Chopped Butternut Squash

Imagine my surprise and delight when I came across this 3 lb. bag of chopped butternut squash at our membership supermarket. It takes away all the intimidation presented by this hard vegetable and makes it more of a staple in my kitchen.

Frozen Cubes 

After heating and tempering the oil, these frozen cubes of butternut squash were taken straight from the freezer into the frying pan. Once they thawed, they cooked in a jiffy with minimal spices.

Stir-Fried Butternut Squash

The dish was ready in less than 20 minutes! Makes a colourful and lovely side dish, served with hot, steamed Basmati rice or any Indian bread.

Panch Phoron or Bengali 5 Spice Mixture

Panch Phoron or Bengali 5 Spice

Bengali is the language spoken by the people of Bangladesh and in the state of Bengal in India. 

Known in Bengali as panch phoron (panch=5 & phoron=tempering), this mixture of spices comprises equal quantities of black mustard (shorshe/sarson/rai) seeds, cumin seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds and nigella (kalo jeera/kalonji) seeds. Panch phoron is used for tempering Bengali vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes.  

Randhuni or Wild Celery Seeds

In the more traditional panch phoron, randhuni (wild celery seeds) is used in place of black mustard seeds.The latter are more readily available than randhuni which is difficult to procure outside the state of Bengal in India. 

Roasted panch phoron powder is used to flavor vegetarian dishes and as a garnish in those same dishes as well as in chutneys, such as Tomato Date Chutney and raitas, such as Fuji Apple Raita. Take a tablespoon of each of the 5 spices and toast them in a dry skillet until fennel seeds turn brown and mustard seeds turn white. Grind to a coarse powder in a coffee grinder. This lovely, fragrant spice must be cooled and stored in an airtight bottle. It will remain fragrant anywhere from 6 months to a year.

Empty McCormick's spice bottles make great storage containers for my whole and powdered Indian spices. The bottles and lids are washed in the dishwasher, allowed to air-dry overnight and saved for this purpose. A label-maker comes in handy to help identify the contents of these recycled bottles.

It's a good idea to keep a coffee grinder specifically for grinding spices, but if you have to use it for grinding coffee as well, here's an effective way of cleaning the grinder and removing the aroma of spices. Empty the coffee grinder and clean both chamber and lid thoroughly with a paper towel. Add a teaspoon of Arm & Hammer baking soda to the grinder and pulse several times. Empty the baking soda into the sink and clean the chamber of the grinder and the lid thoroughly with a paper towel. Keep the lid off overnight to air the chamber of the grinder and it should be ready to grind coffee beans.