Durge Durge Mangalo dayini
Mahisasur Mardini Jai ma Durge
The biggest festival of the year is here. Today is Maha Shosthi. This auspicious day marks the beginning of Durgotsav. Every Bengali household is agog with warm enthusiasm to welcome Ma. Once in an article Bir Sanghvi has penned down correctly " You can take the craze of Diwali in Delhi, Christmas in London, Summer Carnival in Rio de Janeiro, Valentine's day in Paris and then add it to the month long madness of Olympic Games or the World Cup and cram all that into a span of 5 days and you still wouldn't know what you are missing if you haven't been in Kolkata during Durga Puja". Being far away from own city, street, till I can feel the madness, craze, and passion about this particular time over there. The unique rhythm of Dhak (one special percussion instrument), fragrance of Shiuli ful, Stholo Padma (flower grown on land that looks like Lotus), kash ful, Mahisasur Mardini recital by Legend Birendra Krishna Bhadra, people around all decked up in new fashionable clothes, accessories, puja special editions of favorite magazines, special editions of music albums by favorite singers, and what not. The number of such Puja special items goes on to infinite.
On each day of Durga Puja we eat special items. That starts from Mahashosthi itself. Especially all the mothers have to perform special puja for their children. I remember my mother used to put a big tip/bindi/tilak on my forehead of yogurt and turmeric powder mixture and also tie a thread soaked into the same mixture. I am following the same tradition. Although I presumed to have a strong opposition to apply the bindi on my son's forehead, to my astonishment I found that my son asked me to make the bindi bigger on his forehead and proudly carried the same way to school. I love this little traditional instinct in my son.
On this auspicious day we are not supposed eat any rice item and also burnt or roasted items. Also we eat only vegetarian food. And Bengali vegetarian food means the food should be cooked with no onions and garlic. So the traditional way of shosthi platter would be luchi/puri, chholar dal (chana daal/ split black gram),alu chenchki (Bengali special potato curry) and makha sandesh (Handmade cheese ball) as desert.
Luchi/Puri
Ingredients:
1. Flour/Maida: 4 cups
2. White Oil: 4 tablespoon for the dough
3. Salt: 1.5 teaspoon
4. Water: 1 and 1/4 cup
5. White oil for frying
Steps:
1. Take flour/maida in a deep bowl. Add salt and 4 tablespoons of oil and mix in together with your hand. The amount of oil in the dough is very important to make good quality luchi/puri. After a lot of experiments I have discovered that 1 cup flour : 1 tablespoon of oil makes good soft luchis. Also Bengalies make luchi only with maida, not mixed with ata (wheat flour) or only ata (wheat flour).
2. Add water slowly in the bowl and mix it well. Pour water as and when needed. Depending on the variety of flour the water amount varies. I have checked this time it took 1 and 1/4 cup of water. Knead it well untill the dough stops sticking to the wall of the bowl.
3. Heat oil in kadhai. You need to put enough oil so that you can deep fry the flattened balls.
4. Divide the dough into equal sized round balls. We call it in Bengali "lechi". With my dough I could make around 30 lechis/balls.
5. With the help of a rolling pin/belna flatten the balls into smooth round discs. Use little oil to roll it on. Many people use flour to dust the surface. I have seen my mom to use oil to flatten the balls to discs, so I have followed the same. Another reason is that the surface remains clean and mess-free with oil compared to using flour. I do not use chaki to flatten on, use counter top, only. I have flattened 5/6 lechis to discs at a time and then fried them and started to flatten the next batch. You can flatten all the balls into discs at once but make sure they do not dry up.When you are frying in large quantity, batch by batch rolling and frying can give you better result.
6. The temperature of the oil is very essential to get white luchis. What should be the perfect temperature of oil you can understand by experience I say. I can not mention the exact temperature in degree measurement, as I do not have cooking thermometer. But one hint is that the oil should be hot enough but the smoke should not come out. Also when oil is hot, reduce the temperature to medium and then fry.
7. Put the disc into kadhai/pan from side, use a frying ladle or jhanjhri to continuously stir and press the disc from sides so that it pops up. When one side is done, turn it to the other side and fry. Take it out of the oil and serve.
Chholar Daal
Chholar daal/Chana daal is one kind of lentil/daal that we eat on special occasions mostly. In our home we used to eat chana daal on Durga Shosthi or Maha Ashtami day. Although today I did not cook it but have clicked the pictures some days back and had been thinking to post but somehow it did not materialize. But today since I made luchi, I thought of sharing with you the ideal meal that can not be fulfilled excluding chholar dal.
Ingredients:
1. Chana daal/Split Black Gram/Chholar Daal: 3 cups
2. Whole Garam Masala: 1 cinnamon stick, 4 green cardamom pods, 5/6 cloves
3. Bay leaf: 3
4.Green chilli: 2
5. Raisin: 8/10 (soaked)
6. Turmeric powder: 1 teaspoon
7. Ginger crushed: 1 tablespoon
8. Cumin powder: 1 teaspoon (optional)
9. Asafoetidia/hing: A pinch
10. Dried Red chilli: 2
11.Shredded coconut: 2 tablespoon
12. salt as per taste
13: Sugar: 2 teaspoon (as per taste)
14. Oil/Ghee/Clarified butter:1.5 tablespoon
Steps:
1. Boil daal with approximate double amount of water with 2/3 green cardamoms, 1 bay leaf, 2 cloves, half of a cinnamon stick, 1/2 teaspoon turmeric. You may use a pressure cooker to boil it faster. I have used pressure cooker. Mostly after 10 minutes of cooking the steam would be built up and when you can hear one whistle turn the heat off. Take the pressure pin out and let the pressure slowly release the steam. By then the daal should be soft, tender yet not mushy. If you find it is not cooked properly, cook it little longer but be cautious of not over cooking it.
2. Heat oil/ghee/clarified butter in a kadhai/pan. Add the remaining whole garam masala, bay leaf, red chillies whole in to the pan. I have cooked it with white oil and added 1 teaspoon ghee at the end.
3. When the nice aroma comes out, add freshly crushed ginger and remaining 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder and cumin powder(optional). Fry well and add asafoetidia/hing and green chillies and also shredded coconut into the pan. Don't let the masala burn.
4. Add the boiled daal and let it simmer 3/4 minutes. Add salt and sugar at this point. Stir to mix well.
5. Add water and also pre-soaked raisins to the pan. Mix well. Let it simmer and boil for sometimes. The daal would not be very much liquid, mostly would be thick.
6. Turn the heat off. If you have not cooked it with ghee ,at this point add the ghee and cover. Wait for 2/3 minutes and you can serve it with luchi/Puri, Pulao, Fried rice.
Alu Chenchki/Bengali Simple Potato Curry
Alu is an everyday food of all Bengali. Being diabetic, I have to discard alu now from my daily meal. But whenever if by chance I am having the taste of atleast one piece cooked potato, I feel like I am in heaven. Now I realize the need of this item more than before. When ever we cook luchi at home my hubby wants me to serve it with his favorite alu chenchki. It is cooked with least spices and supposed to be served white in color. Although there lies little controversy in the proposed color and varies family to family.
Ingredients:
1. Potato/Alu: 3 big
2. Onion seeds/Kalonji/Kalojeere: 1.5 teaspoon
3. Asafoetidia/hing: A pinch
4. Salt: As per taste
5. Sugar: 1 teaspoon
6. Oil: 2 tablespoon
7. Green Chillies: 4
Steps:
1. Peel and dice the potatoes into small cubes.
2. Heat oil in a kadhai. Add the kalojeere/kalonji/onion seeds and slit green chillies in the oil. Let them sizzle and reduce the heat.
3. Add the diced potatoes, stir them well so they get coated with oil and then cover the kadhai and let the potatoes simmer.
4. Add salt, give a stir again and then cover. I try to always cover and cook. I try to use less water to make things tender unless mandatory. It helps to keep the taste of the spice and vegetable/item intact, not getting diluted with water.
5. When the potatoes are soft, add little sugar. To make gravy add 1/2 cup of water. Let it boil and then break the potatoes with the laddle in the kadhai. This curry will be not watery, rather dried sabji.
6. The color of your sabji/alu chenchki would be white. Goes very well with luchi/puri. You can also serve it with chapati/roti. If you want you can add turmeric powder but I prefer this sabji to be white only.
Begun Bhaja
Do you all remember the Dhara mustard oil advertisement long back. They used to display begun bhaja/ fried egg plant pieces that made me feel hungry instantly. Bengalies signature includes this simple item and common in every household. Although we taste it very often but we want more. "yeh dil mange more". So when I am making luchi, why should not I make my favorite begun bhaja. Yes my heart wanted it and I made it. Also my son is a fond of this item.
Ingredients
1. Egg plant: 1 big
2. Salt : 1.5 teaspoon
3. Turmeric powder 1 teaspoon
4. Sugar: 1/2 teaspoon
5. Oil for frying
Steps:
1. Cut the egg plant into thick (roughly 1/2 inches thick) round shapes. The bigger rounds can be halved.
2. Rub the pieces with salt, turmeric and sugar and set it aside for 10 minutes.
3. Heat oil in a nonstick pan and shallow fry the egg plant pieces. Egg plants absorb a lot of oil. After one side is cooked, don't add more oil. Turn the eggplants to other side. Cover the pan and cook. It will slowly release the oil it has absorbed. Check in between so that they don't get burnt. If needed add 1/2 teaspoons of oil.
4. Switch off the heat and serve it with luchi or ruti or even rice.
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