Green Beans in White Poppy Seed Sauce

Green Beans Posto

Posto or white poppy seeds when ground to a paste with salt and green chillies makes a wonderful sauce for all kinds of vegetables. The vegetables are first cooked with ginger paste until almost done and the poppy seed paste is added at the end and simmered for a very short time. 

This dish is a favourite in the Bengali household. It is generally eaten at lunch, makes one feel really mellow and induces sound sleep. 

Ingredients:
4 Tbsp. white poppy seeds (posto)
1 cup Water

3 Tbsp. vegetable oil
½ tsp. nigella seeds (kalo jeera/kalonji)

1 lb. green beans, sliced width-wise into small circles

1 russet potato, peeled and diced 
2 tsp. ginger paste
Salt to taste

1 tsp. ghee or melted Butter
2 – 3 green chillies, left whole

Directions:
1. Boil a cup of water in the microwave, pour over poppy seeds in a bowl and cover.

2. Set poppy seeds aside for half an hour to cool and soften.
2. Puree poppy seeds and soaking water in a blender until it reaches the consistency of a thick sauce. 
3. Heat oil in a pan over medium-high heat and add nigella seeds.
4. When the seeds begin to sputter and sizzle, add vegetables, ginger paste and salt.
5. Lower heat to medium-low and cook for 10 minutes until vegetables are tender.
6. Adjust salt to taste and cook for 5 minutes.
7. Add pureed poppy seeds and stir until well combined.
8. Cook for 2 minutes until sauce reduces and just coats the beans.
9. Garnish with ghee & whole chillies and transfer to a serving dish.

Serve with steamed Basmati rice or chapatis.

Note:
The green beans can be replaced with several other vegetables, such as eggplant, cauliflower, potatoes, zucchini, ridge gourd (jhinge), sweet potatoes, pumpkin, etc.

Panch Mishali Shukto - 5 Vegetables in Mustard Sauce

Often 3, 5, 7 or 9 vegetables are combined together in a melange of textures and colours in Indian cuisine. Navratan Korma is sometimes found on the menu in Indian restaurants and that translates to a creamy mixture of 9 (navratan) vegetables. In Bengali cuisine, an odd number of vegetables are combined in a stir-fry and is called paanch (5) or shaath (7) mishali (mix).

Shukto is eaten as the first course in a Bengali meal because it is bitter due to the inclusion of bitter melon. The shukto that was served for lunch yesterday comprised bitter melon, sweet potatoes, russet potatoes, eggplant and zucchini, enveloped in a mustard sauce. 

Bitter melon is certainly an acquired taste and the reason they are a favourite is because it's been a staple in our household since my earliest memories. I once asked Mum why everyone in our family likes bitter melon so much and she said she used to steam them and hand one to each of us 8 siblings and we would walk around eating it like candy.

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.

Channa Dal with Hard Boiled Eggs

Chana Dal e Dim Sheddho

This is a quick and easy recipe for channa dal. The addition of hard boiled eggs takes it from a side to a main dish, if need be. 

Channa Dal

Channa Dal

Hulled and split chickpeas or garbanzo beans, chana dal is used extensively in Asia as a source of protein for vegetarians and vegans since it has one of the highest protein levels of all plants. 

Although it is not necessary to do so, these beans soften and cook faster if soaked in warm water for half an hour before cooking.

When cooked in the pressure cooker, add 2-3 times of water and a pinch of turmeric to the beans, cover and bring to a full boil and once the pressure builds up in the cooker, lower the heat to medium and allow to simmer for 15 minutes. Leave in pressure cooker until pressure dissipates naturally and completely before opening lid. 

It takes about half an hour for these beans to cook on the stove top. Do not cover while cooking on the stove top or the contents will overflow and cause a big mess.

Avoid adding salt and/or acid such as tomatoes or tomato paste until chana dal is completely cooked.

Channa Dal Preparations:

Channa Dal in Coconut Milk

Channa Dal with Sweet Potatoes & Toasted Coconut

Channa Dal with Hard Boiled Eggs

Chana Masala with Loads of Rainbow Peppers

Chickpeas, Potatoes & Rainbow Peppers

Chana Masala is a popular item on an Indian menu. I've given it a twist by adding sweet rainbow peppers which pumped up the flavor.

Ingredients:

1 lb. sweet rainbow peppers (small red, yellow & orange peppers)

2 (14 oz.) can garbanzo beans, washed & drained

2 (14 oz.) cans diced potatoes, washed and drained
4 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 cinnamon stick
1 star anise
1/2 tsp. shah jeera or cumin seeds
1 tsp. coriander-cumin powder

2 large onions, peeled & diced
2 medium (Roma) tomatoes, diced
1 Tbsp. ginger paste

1/2 Tbsp. garlic paste2 tsp. tomato paste
1 jalapeno pepper, diced

Directions:

1. Heat oil over medium-high heat and sputter cumin seeds, cinnamon & star anise.
2. Fry coriander-cumin powder, onions & tomatoes until tomatoes break down.
3. Add tomato paste, ginger and garlic pastes & stir-fry until oil resurfaces.
4. Add sweet peppers and stir-fry for 3 minutes.
5. Stir in garbanzo beans & potatoes.
6. Season with salt & pepper to taste.
7. Lower heat, cover and simmer until dry.
8. Garnish with diced jalapeno peppers and remove from heat

Serve hot over steamed Basmati or Jasmine rice or with chapatis.

Ranchero Enchilada Casserole

Campbell's Kitchen sent me an eMail with the intriguing caption of 'Chicken Dinners in 3 Steps or Less!' Their recipe of the same name caught my eye. It was a cinch to make and delicious to eat! However, I had to adapt Campbell's recipe to the ingredients that were on hand. These ingredients have been provided below in the order in which they will be layered into the casserole dish.

Fresh Fenugreek Greens with Eggplant & Lentil Dumplings

Methi Shaak Begun Bori Diye

Fenugreek greens are frequently available at their peak of freshness in Indian grocery stores in my neck of the woods. I picked up two bunches that had roots in tact which had to be rinsed thoroughly in water to get rid of the grit that were clinging to the roots. The roots were removed, the greens chopped and the whole lot dumped into a sink half-filled with cold water. Once the sediment settled at the bottom of the sink, the greens were collected from the surface and stir-fried immediately. 

Lentil dumplings, known as 'Bori' in Bengali, are small stupa-shaped mashed and sun-dried lentils flavoured with asafetida and seasoned with salt. They are deep fried until golden brown and soaked in hot water to soften. Since some of the flavour leaches into the water in which they are soaked, I save this soaking liquid and add it back into the dish that is being prepared, to maximize on the taste.

Mung Dal with Cauliflower Garnished with Dried Fenugreek Leaves

I took one of Mum's recipes that was served when we had guests for dinner and took it up a notch with the addition of dried fenugreek leaves (kasuri methi). This gives a depth of flavour to the lentils that is hard to resist!

Stir-Fried Chayote Squash & Chickpeas

This recipe was inspired by one on Facebook with a few modifications. The original recipe used green papaya and kala chana. Neither are available readily, so I used chayote squash and chickpeas/garbanzo beans. It's a very simple stir-fry using very few ingredients and is quick and easy to make.

Fish & Potatoes with Lentil Dumplings in Ginger-Tomato Gravy

Tengra Maach Alu Bori

Tilapia Maach Alu Bori

This recipe was inspired by one I saw on Facebook. I've made very few changes to the original recipe which was made with Rohu fish or carp which is not readily available in my neighbourhood. I soaked the boris in hot water to soften them up, just because this is how it's done in my family. To make the gravy, I heated the water along with the boris in the microwave and added it to the pan. 

Why two kinds of fish? The top one's for me. Made with whole bone-in fish it has cumin and chili powder in the gravy. The other fish is for Hubby, made with tilapia fillets and without chili and cumin powders. Both are cooked in a ginger and tomato gravy with potatoes and lentil dumplings (bori in Bengali).

The tomato gravy is made with Campari tomatoes which are of medium size and so sweet that it's not necessary to add any sugar to the gravy. Campari tomatoes are grown in Mexico, shipped to Ontario, Canada (for packaging I think) and then reach our markets in Michigan. Kind of a circuitous route, don't you think?

Ohno Khauk Swe Made Easy

Coconut Chicken Soup

Lunch is Ready!

My bowl of Ohno Khauk Swe

I've made this meal many times and usually follow the recipe used by my family. You may notice that it's not a simple preparation, so this time I made several modifications to simplify the process. First of all, I planned ahead and did the shopping earlier in the week. Two nights before, after making sure that the ground chicken and chicken thighs had been refrigerated to thaw overnight, I made the onion-garlic-ginger-chili paste and refrigerated that also. The night before, I prepared the soup to which I made one time-saving change. Instead of roasting the half-cup of chickpea flour used to thicken the soup, I cooked half a cup of red lentils (masoor dal) in two cups of water and added it to the soup along with the coconut milk towards the end. This not only saved a whole lot of time, but also added a lovely flavour and creaminess to the soup. It also lightened the soup so it was not as rich as in the original recipe. On the day of the lunch, all I had to do was heat the soup, cook the noodles and prepare the garnishes. Using ready-made deep fried onions and garlic are further time-saving ways of simplifying the preparation of this meal.

Mutton Keema Mattar with Green Beans

Ground Lamb with Peas,
Potatoes and Green Beans

Our local grocery store sometimes stocks New Zealand lamb, and I was pleased to find ground lamb in that section. Keema Alu Mattar tastes really good with lamb and adding green beans to the mix was a big improvement.

Two pounds of this ground lamb preparation, as one of the items for dinner, fed a crowd of 6 people comfortably. I usually cook without cumin and coriander powder because of Hubby's acid reflux condition, but they can be added if you wish.

Bottle Gourd with Shrimp in Mustard Sauce

Lau Chingri Shorshe Bata

Lau Chingri is a favorite dish in our household. It is traditionally made with bottle gourd, but I prefer using chayote squash because it is more readily available and to me, they taste the same. To try something a little different, I added mustard paste and it tasted wonderful!

Spinach & Eggplant in Mustard Sauce

Palang Shaak Begun Shorshe Bata Diye

To try something different, I'd made Lau Chingri with Shorshe Bata which requires mustard seeds to be soaked and blended. The paste is then strained through a tea strainer to extract just the juice, so that the dish does not get tainted with the mustard seeds. Instead of discarding the remaining pulp, it was used to make this spinach and eggplant dish which added a tantalizing mustard flavor to otherwise bland greens. 

Yellow Split Peas Flavoured with Ginger & Tomatoes

Ada Tomato Diye Cholar Dal

These lentils are generally served with luchis (puffed bread that are made with white flour). Steamed rice or chapatis also work well. The dried peas look similar to chana dal, but taste quite different. They take about half an hour to cook and soften, so it's convenient to set this up to simmer while preparing other dishes for an evening meal.

Omelettes in Onion & Tomato Gravy

Omelette Curry

Another dish that brings Mum to mind! Wish she were here to coach me through this, but I think she would approve of my improvisation. 

Burmese Shrimp Fried Rice - Htamin Kyaw

Htamin Kyaw

What makes this fried rice Burmese? The addition of dried shrimp and fish sauce. Day-old white rice from the Chinese restaurant is perfect for making fried rice. A small portion of the sauces, along with dried chili flakes, mixed into the rice helps distribute taste and color throughout the fried rice. Dried shrimp imparts a lovely umami flavor to this dish.

To make a white fried rice increase the fish sauce to 4+1 tablespoons of fish sauce and omit the soy sauce. There's no need to add salt because both fish and soy sauce are loaded with salt.

Chicken Chow Mein

Mum used to make the most awesome stir-fried noodles! Here is my version that is dedicated to her memory.

Stir-Fried Eggplant & Potatoes

Begun Alu Bhaja

This is a very quick and easy vegan dish that is one of my favourites because of the eggplant and potato combination. It's versatile and goes well with rice or Indian bread of any kind. Great for lunch because it's so light, it's also perfect as a side dish as part of a more elaborate meal.

Stir-Fried Green Beans with Onions, Tomatoes & Black Pepper

The crowning touch to these green beans is the freshly ground black pepper cooked along with the green beans and used as a garnish. The green beans need to be blanched (step 1) only if they are mature. The young and tender green beans cook up really easily as they simmer. Adding water is not necessary because the onions and tomatoes release enough moisture to cook the beans.

Garlicky Red Lentils

Lasunwali Masoor Dal

This was one of Mum's favourite ways of preparing red lentils. It tastes great garnished with diced tomatoes, green chilies and lots of cilantro.

Mango Fish

Mango Fish

This dish is to die for! In Rangoon (Burma/Myanmar) this was made with whole Topshe maach (Mango Fish). I used filleted fish pieces which is not the same at all! Mum used to make it with Topshe maach, potatoes and wedges of green mangoes. I've used dried mango pieces here.

Asparagus & Shrimp in White Poppy Seed Sauce

Posto Bata Chingri & Asparagus

Shrimp and white poppy seed sauce go well with asparagus and a lot of other vegetables such as eggplants, potatoes, pumpkin, summer squash or sweet potatoes. Asparagus provides a crisp note when combined with shrimp in this dish. It also cooks very quickly which makes this so easy to prepare.

Ingredients:
2 bundles asparagus, trimmed and cut in 1" pieces
1 lb. medium shrimp (35-40 count), shelled & deveined
1 Tbsp. ginger paste
2 + 2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1/4 tsp. nigella seeds (kalo jeera/kalonji)
4-5 green chillies
2 Tbsp. white poppy seeds, soaked in boiling water for half an hour
Salt to taste
1 tsp. mustard oil

Directions:
1. Blend poppy seeds along with soaking water to a thick paste.

2. Heat 2 Tbsp. oil and stir-fry shrimp just until pink and set aside.

3. Heat remaining oil, fry green chilies until skins turn white, remove and set aside.
4. Sputter nigella seeds in oil in same pan.
5. Add asparagus pieces along with ginger paste and stir-fry for 2 minutes.
6. Stir in poppy seed paste along with shrimp and stir well.

7. Cover pan and simmer over low heat for 3 minutes until asparagus cooks.
8. Adjust salt to taste, return fried chilies to pan & garnish with mustard oil.

Serve on a bed of hot Basmati rice.

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Mung Dal with Tomatoes & Eggplant Flavored with Ginger

Mung Bean Lentils

Mung dal is quite often roasted before cooking, but it tastes very good without roasting. I try to add vegetables to any lentils I cook to increase my family's intake of vegetables. Today, I've added tomatoes and a diced Oriental eggplant to the lentils and flavored it very simply with ginger.