Once in a while you wake up on a Sunday, snug and toasty under a great big duvet to find that it is a spectacular monsoon morning. Huge clouds coursing through the sky, a nippy breeze streaming in through the window, drops of rain flecking the windowpanes etc. On a morning like that, the best thing you can do for yourself is curl up and go right back to sleep. It's a Sunday after all, and you've (hopefully) earned your right to be lazy!
In some time though, you do have to surface for nourishment, but don't really want to spend much time in the kitchen and don't want to cook up a storm. Yet, you do want something hearty, comforting and downright delicious, so a quick trip to the kitchen is definitely in order.
On a Sunday like this, you can't go wrong with a combination like the one I made for lunch today.
Once again, going back to my roots and the cuisine of eastern India, this lunch was all about food that makes me feel happy just by thinking about it. Simple to make, tastes that linger on the tongue and super nutritious all at once!
Maachher Jhol
Anyone who's familiar with Bengalis knows about their near obsessive fondness for fish. Blessed with and abundance of rivers, lakes and ponds, the cooks of Bengal focused greatly on the gift of freshwater fish. There are many different forms of maachher jhol (the generic Bengali term for fish in gravy), with different families having their own preferences; evolving and handing down their own recipes over generations. The people of Orissa, where my family is originally from, also have a myriad preparations of macchhau jholo, which is the Oriya term for such dishes. I went with the Bengali version today and had to run over a bewildering set of choices because there are so many recipes for this preparation, in different parts of my family. There are some basic principles, however and if you stick with them, there isn't much likelihood that you'll do anything very wrong!
The fish I used today was katla (otherwise known as the 'major carp'), a staple in the diet of many Bengali families. As is the custom, the pieces had previously been rubbed with turmeric and salt, lightly fried in mustard oil and then kept aside. Many Bengali families do not approve of preparing gravy based dishes without faithfully completing this first step. I had about 10 large pieces to go with.
The next step was to prepare the gravy. For this, I took 3.5 tablespoons of mustard oil, heated it till smoking hot and then added to it a teaspoon of paanch phodon (a mix of cumin, nigella, fennel, fenugreek and mustard seeds), a tablespoon of freshly grated ginger, two whole green chillies and a large bay leaf. Obviously there was a ferocious bout of spluttering as the oil met the seeds, but what's cooking without a little drama, eh?
Next in, 3 sliced red onions and a generous pinch of salt. Everything got sautéed till the onions went translucent and then it was time to add a paste of turmeric, red chilli, coriander and cumin powders. I continued to cook this mix of ingredients until the oil started to separate from the masala, which was my cue to move to the next step - adding 3 sliced tomatoes, cooked for 3 minutes, followed by adding 4 cups of water to the mix to make the gravy.
When the water started boiling, in went some slices of pre-fried potatoes and the pieces of fried fish. All of this cooked for about 10 minutes in the fragrant, bubbling gravy and voila, the dish was ready! A light garnish of chopped corriander, and I was set with the first dish.
Jhinge (ridge gourd)
Some people cringe at the thought of eating this veggie, but I believe that's just because they haven't eaten it right. Here's how I cooked this prince among veggies.
In a tablespoon of hot mustard oil, I adddd a teaspoon of nigella seeds, quickly followed by 1 kg of peeled and chopped ridge gourd. Some quick stirring later, I added a little turmeric powder some salt and let the mix cook for about 7 minutes under a cover.
Note: Ridge gourd holds a lot of water, so within a few minutes, the pan begins to fill with water as the pieces of vegetable shrink. The trick is not to over cook the veggies, so that they retain just a little crunch and their basic texture.
7 minutes later, I added a little mustard powder and let the mix cook for another 3 minutes. Finally, in went a few whole green chillies and some chopped corriander leaves. An just like that, the dish was done!
Steamed Rice
I'm sure you don't need a tutorial on cooking rice, so all I will say is that the way we prefer to cook rice is to boil in the rice in 1:3 ration of rice and water. When the rice is done, we drain off the excess water. This leaves us with rice that is much lighter on the stomach than rice prepared by boiling off the water completely.
So that was lunch today. Watch this space for my next culinary adventure.
For now, it's back to enjoying the overcast skies and the promise of more rain... and maybe a nice cup of tea!
Cheers!
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