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.

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.

Beet and Sweet Potato Chops

Garnished Chops

Sweet Potato Cakes sounded so tempting! The small number of ingredients made it look easy, so I went about collecting my supplies. In addition to the two sweet potatoes in the vegetable, there were 3 small beets. This was my first deviation from the original recipe.

I've recently replaced plain breadcrumbs with Japanese Panko Breadcrumbs but, for the life of me, could not find the box. Since it was being used as a binding agent, I reached for the jar of tapioca-rice starch instead, which turned out to be a 'happy accident' or serendipitous. The texture it produced was soft, yet 'bouncy', similar to turnip cakes. And this was the second deviation from the original recipe, although I eventually did find and add Panko breadcrumbs.

Serve with your choice of dip such as ketchup. I served it with kasundi, the Bengali substitute for French's mustard.

Alu Bhathe - Potato in Rice

Alu Bhathe

Alu (potato) Bhathe (in rice) is comfort food that brings back memories of my childhood. Babies thrive on it and grown-ups relish it. 

Alu Makha

It's obvious I need to visit the Indian market because there's not a drop of mustard oil at home. Fortunately, there's a bottle of kasundi (mustard sauce) in the fridge which worked well to give this mash the hint of mustard it needs. 

Basmati Rice & Russet Potato
Cooked in Microwave Oven

It takes 18 minutes for basmati rice to cook to perfection in the microwave which was perfect for the russet potato as well. The potato can also be cooked in rice in a rice cooker. Just to be on the safe side, I cut the potato in half to make sure it cooked all the way through.

Maacher Deem Bhaja - Fried Fish Roe

Maacher Deem Bhaja

Sometimes, I wake up in the morning with an incredible feeling of being blessed beyond imagination. This feeling persists as hot water pours out of the taps and I find a comfortable spot to enjoy my iced coffee with an almond biscotti. Our stress-free life in the most comfortable place in the world is just one of the ways in which we benefit from growing older. Going away on vacation is very exciting, but the best part is returning home. There is no place on earth I'd rather be than exactly where I am today.

In my recent blogs, I've mentioned Hubby's ex-colleague & fisherman who has been supplying us with fresh fish. His last batch included an enormous amount of fish roe which to a Bengali is as precious as gold. In its fried form fried roe is served as a starter but the fried nuggets are also cooked in mustard gravy or any fish gravy. They have to be pan-fried first in any case, so here is how fish roe is prepared, using just five simple ingredients.

Maacher Chop - Fish Cakes

Maacher Chop

Usually served as a first course in a Bengali meal, these fish patties can be made with any fish, such as salmon, tuna or tilapia. Mashed potatoes are most commonly used for binding, but bread crumbs work too. The shape varies from the long, cylindrical croquettes to these round patties. Filleted fish is the easiest to work with because most of the bones have been removed, but an effort should be made to remove any remaining bones by hand.

The process is quite simple. The fish needs to be poached, flaked and deboned. Russet or baking potatoes have to be boiled for 20 minutes, peeled and mashed. Aromatics made up of onions, garlic, ginger, green chilies, mint and cilantro need to be minced and stir-fried before adding the fish and further stir-frying, seasoned with salt and a pinch of pepper. This needs to be cooled to room temperature before combining with mashed potatoes and formed into patties.

The easiest way to pan-fry these is to dredge the patties in flour before frying or for a crispy coating, they can be dipped in beaten eggs and panko crumbs. Decorate the serving platter with sliced onions, tomatoes and wedges of lime, pile the patties on and serve with sweet chili sauce, ketchup, tamarind or mint chutney.

Thai Tom Yum Goong - Hot & Sour Shrimp Soup

Thai Hot & Sour Soup

Bowl of Tom Yum

The inspiration for this soup came from a friend on Facebook asking for a Hot & Sour Soup recipe which led me to Closet Cooking. We had it for lunch for lunch today which along with an egg roll each, made for a filling and satisying meal. Because some of the ingredients were missing from my pantry, I had to make some modifications so I've described, below, what I did to reproduce the recipe.

The hot part of this soup came from a combination of minced green chilies and gochujang, a Korean chili paste that I love! The sour aspect came simply from the juice of one lime. I dropped the squeezed out rinds of lime into the soup and fished them out before serving. This made up for the absence of lemon grass.