Simple Stir-Fried Cauliflower - Bhaja Phool Kopi

 

Bhaja Phool Kopi

Cauliflower ranks at the top of my list of favourite vegetables. I like this recipe because the true taste of the cauliflower comes through since its made with minimal spices and cooked until al dente. Be free to chop and fry onions and garlic until golden brown, but my shortcut is to use ready made deep-fried onions and garlic. The cauliflower is seasoned very simply with turmeric, salt and roasted cumin seed powder. I get a bottle of McCormick cumin seeds, roast them in a dry skillet, cool and grind in a coffee grinder (that I reserve for grinding spices) to a fine powder. The ground cumin seeds are stored in the bottle and used as needed.

Serve with chapatis, pilau or biryani and raita.

Begun Basanti - Eggplant in Mustard and Yogurt Sauce

Begun Basanti

My sister, Rene, introduced me to this eggplant dish. Use any kind of eggplant. Just make sure they are cut in uniform pieces. Even the smallest eggplant, left whole or cut in half, work really well here. I love Japanese eggplant because they taste so good. I used Greek yogurt and whipped it with besan to keep it from separating in the hot oil.

Ingredients

4 Japanese or long eggplant
4 + 2 Tbsp. oil
1 tsp. turmeric powder
1/2 tsp. paprika/Kashmiri mirch
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. kalonji/nigella seeds
1 green chili, minced
1 cup thick yogurt
1 tsp. besan or gram flour

Onion-Garlic-Tomato Paste

1 tsp. oil
1 medium onion, quartered
6 cloves garlic
1 medium tomato
1/2 tsp. sugar

Mustard Paste
1 Tbsp. black mustard seeds
1/2 cup water
1/2 tsp. salt
1 green chili, diced

Garnish
1/4 tsp. sugar
1/2 tsp. garam masala powder (cinnamon, cloves & cardamom)
1 tsp. mustard oil
3 green chilies, sliced into circles or slit
cilantro, minced

Directions

1. Cut eggplant in 2" lengths and cut each segment in half lengthwise.
2. Toss eggplant pieces 1/4 tsp. salt and 1/2 tsp. turmeric powder and marinate for 30 minutes.
3. Soak mustard seeds in water for 1/2 hour, drain and blend with salt and green chili to a smooth paste.
4. Bring a cup of water to a boil and blanch quartered onion, garlic cloves and tomato until skin on tomato splits.
5. Remove skin from tomato and blend it along with oil, sugar, blanched onion and garlic to a smooth paste, reserving water.
6. Heat 2 Tbsp. oil and fry marinated eggplant until golden brown and soft.
7. Remove eggplant from oil and set aside.
8. Add remaining oil to skillet and temper with nigella seeds and minced green chilies.
9. Add remaining turmeric powder and paprika to hot oil along with onion-garlic-tomato paste and stir-fry until oil resurfaces.
10. Add reserved water from blanching onion to skillet.
11. Beat yogurt with besan and mustard paste, and add to skillet.
12. Return eggplant to skillet, stir well and bring gravy to a boil.
13. Garnish with sugar, garam masala powder and chilies.
14. Stir, sprinkle with cilantro and transfer to a serving dish.

Serve as a side dish with hot, steamed rice.

Asparagus with Onions and Tomatoes

 

Asparagus with
Onions and Tomatoes

Green beans prepared this way was a favorite when we were growing up. Fresh asparagus, I was sure, would work just as well and it was! A generous sprinkling of cracked black pepper finishes this dish, giving it lots of zing. Serve this as a side dish to any Indian meal and can be served with steamed rice or any Indian bread.

Easy English Trifle

 

Easy English Trifle

This dessert brings back memories of school dinners on special occasions like our Annual Socials with St. Paul's and North Point in Darjeeling. It's impossible to recall what was served for the main meal, but English Trifle for dessert was a staple and was memorable.

My JELL-O cookbook came in handy to get a general idea of the process. Modifications, catered to dietary restrictions, made this 'cracked-up' recipe completely unrecognizable from the original. This is a simple version of the classic English dessert.

Ranga Alur Bhortha - Sweet Potato Mash

 

Ranga Alur Bhortha

Sweet potatoes were always a favourite vegetable even as a child. One of my earliest memories is walking around with a boiled sweet potato and munching on it like candy. Bhortha is a mashed vegetable or fish preparation, so it's better to microwave or bake the sweet potatoes rather than boiling them. This dish is served as a first course during a Bengali meal and tastes best paired with steamed rice.

Dried Fruit & Nut Treats

3 Kinds of Treats

Having to watch my sugar intake puts me on the lookout for sugar-free or no-sugar-added dessert options. These simple energy bites are ideal for snacking any time of day and will be enjoyed by both young and old members of the family.

Treats

They come together with just 4 ingredients and the most complicated part in making them is pulsing the ingredients in a food processor. The best part is that they don't need to be refrigerated or frozen and can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container.

Here's how simple the process is. 

1. Choose 2 dried fruits, 1 roasted nut and 1 item in which to roll the treats.
2. Pulse your fruit and nut choices in a food processor or Ninja chopper until the dough forms a big ball.
3. Make walnut-sized balls and roll around to cover in the 4th ingredient.
4. Place in pretty cupcake wrappers, store in an airtight container at room temperature and they're ready for a tiffin box or a grab-and-go snack.

Beyond Meat Keema Curry - Minced Meat Curry

 

Beyond Meat Keema Curry

Beyond Meat is a plant-based substitute for meat, made from a combination of peas and brown rice. It tastes just like the real thing with a meaty texture. I treated it just like minced meat to make a keema curry. DH claims it tasted better than chicken or beef, but I was more impressed that it took far less time to cook. This keema curry goes well with steamed rice or chapatis.

Mattar Paneer Bhurji - Scrambled Cottage Cheese and Peas

Mattar Paneer Bhurji

This looks a lot like Indian scrambled eggs, but there are no eggs in this preparation. Instead, paneer or cottage cheese is grated and cooked in the same way. It makes a terrific stuffing for tortilla rolls or can be served as a side dish with rice or chapatis at dinner.

Bhindi Alu Bhaja - Stir-Fried Okra and Potatoes

 

Bhindi Alu Bhaja

Bhindi or okra is a summer vegetable and tastes wonderful when stir-fried on its own or with diced potatoes. I like to coat the cut pieces of bhindi with amchur (dried mango) powder before frying in hot oil. This reduces the viscosity of the vegetable. Sliced onions and diced tomatoes along with salt are added at the very end of the cooking process.

This stir-fried dish is served as a side to complement a Bengali/Indian meal and goes well with steamed rice or chapatis.

Begun Bashonti - Eggplant in Mustard Sauce

 

Begun Bashonti

This eggplant preparation was first suggested by my eldest sister. Mum would make it for special occasions for which it is suited because it's pure vegetarian and does not use onions or garlic. I like using Japanese eggplants because they have very few seeds and cook down to a tenderness that melts in the mouth. This dish uses both black and yellow mustard seeds, white poppy seeds and grated coconut that produces a smooth and mellow paste for the base of the gravy. Best had with hot, steamed rice, it can be accompanied by a meat or fish item and lentils.

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.

Asian Stir-Fried Cauliflower

 

Asian Stir-Fried Cauliflower

Treat yourself to this delicious stir-fried vegetable dish which complements any Asian meal. I used an American cauliflower, but I've heard that Asian cauliflower which is not so compact and has long stems is the most flavourful. Once the vegetables are sliced and diced, it takes just a few minutes to put this dish together. Add a punch of flavour with a jalapeno pepper or red pepper flakes.

Htamin Laphet Thoke

 

Htamin Laphet Thoke

A cup of cooked long grain rice was mixed into Laphet Thoke for a sumptuous lunch. Tea Leaves Salad is a famous Burmese dish that is so easy to make. Once the ingredients are procured, all that is needed is for everything to be dumped into a bowl and mixed thoroughly by hand.

 Ingredients

Faux Bubble and Squeak

Faux Bubble and Squeak

The traditional Bubble and Squeak is a British dish that is composed of cabbage and potatoes. The name is derived from the sounds that emanate while cooking this dish. The components are placed over medium-high heat until it bubbles vigorously, and then when the liquid evaporates, the vegetables squeak as if to say, 'I'm done! Take me off the heat!'

I came across this recipe with green beans on a Tik Tok video and because it's so easy, requiring minimal intervention, use it on occasions when a side dish is required to complement a meal. The first time I made it, the squeaky sound at the end caught my attention, so I call it Faux Bubble and Squeak because even though it's nothing like the original, the cooking sounds are the same. It takes only 3 ingredients, canned green beans, and a tablespoon each of oil and sugar.

Bhola's Alu Dom

 

Bhola's Alu Dum

A new item I haven't seen before at our Indian supermarket are packages of baby potatoes that are cooked, peeled and frozen. I've been dreaming of Bhola's alu dum we would gorge on in Darjeeling. Bhola had a food stall off the mall and his alu dum made a great after-school snack. They were delicious, bright red, piping hot, soft and spicy potatoes that made our eyes (and noses) water. 

I gathered all the red spices I could find in the spice cabinet but it needed a little something more so I added a teaspoon of sugar and 2 teaspoons of vinegar. With the help of a serrano chili, this alu dum came out tasting sweet, spicy and slightly sour. It will go well with hot steamed basmati rice or flat bread.

Tips

• Make sure to prick each baby potato all over so flavours can penetrate to the center of each potato.
• Onion paste will give more body to the gravy instead of minced onions. Cut an onion into four, blanch for 2 minutes and grind to a paste.

Phoolkop'r Bhortha - Cauliflower Mash

 

Phoolkopi'r Bhortha

This is the Bengali way of making Bhortha (Bharta in Hindi) or mashed vegetable. Phoolkopi is cauliflower, so this is Mashed Cauliflower. As you know, cauliflower has little flavour of its own and takes on the flavour and aroma of herbs and spices that are added to it. The overriding element in this dish is mustard oil that is added to the cauliflower while it's still hot from steaming. The pungency of mustard oil is what sets our bhorthas apart from bhartas from other parts of India. Another distinction is the addition of salt to taste along with raw, minced onions, green chilies, cilantro or coriander leaves and tomatoes that are mashed into the vegetable. It's a simple dish to assemble and takes center stage at any meal.

The leaves and stems from the base of the cauliflower are removed and the whole head of cauliflower is placed in a pressure cooker with 1/8 cup of vegetable broth or water and 2 tablespoons of oil. Salt is sprinkled over the cauliflower, the cover is put on, its brought to full pressure over high heat and then pressure cooked for 15 minutes over low heat after full pressure builds up. After removing from heat, always allow pressure to release naturally, for about ten minutes, before messing with the cover to prevent steam from burning your hands.

Use a masher like a 'daler kata' or lentils masher to mash the cauliflower and add all the aromatics before mixing it all together to make the bhortha. This bhortha  goes well with hot, steamed rice and is usually served as a first course or starter of a Bengali meal.

Sandwich Bread

 

Sandwich Bread

Bread Slices

Half a Loaf of Bread

Everyone seems to be making bread these days and there are countless You Tube videos demonstrating breadmaking techniques. GrandBoy#2 was spending the day with us and both he and Hubby love bread, so I spent the afternoon watching a video (link at the end of this page) and baking bread. For dinner we had Mexican pizza and also demolished half a loaf, straight out of the oven and slathered with butter. It was delicious and the house smelled heavenly! The slices shown above were cut from this half of the loaf.

When we were growing up in Burma, bread was breakfast food that we ate on the way to school. We would beg Mum to go easy on the butter and go crazy with the sugar or jam. Buttered toast with a sprinkling of sugar was comforting and diverted my attention from the stress of having to go to school. On the weekends or if we were recovering from a cold, we would dip our toast into sweetened milk. My memories of Mum's remedy for combating the 'flu was a triangle of toast that we dipped into chicken soup. It leaves me with a warm and fuzzy feeling towards Mum that is stamped into my memory. 

The nostalgia associated with these memories kept me company while I made bread today. These days, plain buttered toast is my favorite part of any breakfast.

I halved the recipe in the video to make one loaf of bread.

Suji Toast - Cream of Wheat Toast

 

Suji Toast

There are a myriad recipes for this popular breakfast dish on the internet. The video that inspired me is displayed at the end of this post. I found toasted suji at the Indian market which is what I used to make this. Our neighbourhood supermarket bakes their own Italian bread which was perfect because the crusty slices hold their shape and acted as a sponge for the topping. And according to my nephew, 'Iz bedder wid budder', so I used butter instead of oil to fry the toasts. The leftover batter can be made into little dosas. With less than 10 ingredients, breakfast is ready in under 30 minutes. 

Masur Masala Bhindi - Red Lentils with Fried Okra

 

Masur Masala Bhindi

Masur dal or red lentils are the easiest lentils to make. They cook quickly and go well with any and all vegetables. Cooking the lentils with a bit of salt and turmeric separately then adding the stir-fried vegetables, gets this side dish on the table in less than half an hour.

There are a couple of ingredients in this recipe that are only available in an Indian market. Amchur is dried green mango that is ground to a fine powder. It's purpose is to reduce the mucus that is released while the okra cooks. If amchur is not available, leave it out, but make sure not to add anything to the okra until it's cooked. It will initially be slimy so fry it over medium heat and don't stir it too much. Wait until the okra browns before stirring. Add salt only when all signs of mucus disappear. Don't cover the okra while it's frying because the resulting condensation will make it more slimy. Notice that onions, tomatoes and green chilies are added after the okra cooks and all mucus disappears.

Panch phoron is the other ingredient that is available only in an Indian market. If it's not available, use whole fennel seeds and fennel seed powder which is made by dry-roasting a tablespoon of whole fennel seeds and grinding them to a fine powder.

Serve these lentils as a side dish for lunch or dinner. They go well with hot, steamed rice or any Indian bread.

Chaler Payesh - Rice Pudding

 

Chal'er Payesh

A comforting and deeply satisfying end to a meal, rice pudding is a favourite with young and old alike.