Crab Cake

These are the fastest, easiest crab cakes I have ever made. Serve with kasundi or your favourite mustard sauce and salad.

Ingredients

• Crab Meat - 250 gms
• Egg - 1
• Onion - 2 , chopped
• Green chilli - 2, chopped
• Mayonnaise - 2 tbsp.
• Red Chilli Flakes - 1 tsp
• Coriander leaves, 4 tbsp., chopped
• Bread Crumbs - As required
• Salt

In a medium bowl, whisk together egg, mayonnaise, chopped green chilli, red pepper flakes, chopped onions, chopped coriander leaves and salt. Gently stir in crabmeat, being careful not to break up the eat. Gradually mix in bread crumbs, adding until desired consistency is achieved.

Heat oil in a frying pan. Make round patty of the crab mixture and carefully place them on the pan.

Shallow fry till golden brown in color. Serve with salad and your favourite sauce.

Spring Baby Corn

Had this at Kim Ling - ChinaTown some days back and tried to recreate it last night at home!! Not bad,, I must say !!

Ingredients

• Baby corn - 10 pieces
• Egg - 1
• Salt - as required
• Black Pepper powder - 1 tsp
• Corn flour - 2 tsp
• Onion - 1 , sliced
• Garlic - 3 cloves, sliced
• Green chilli - 2, chopped
• Soya Sauce - 1 tbsp.
• Olive oil for frying

Slice the babycorn lengthwise, then marinate with egg,  salt, pepper and soya sauce for 15-20 minutes.

Heat olive oil in a frying pan. Then sprinkle cornflour over marinated babycorn to make a thin coat and fry till golden.

Remove from heat and keep aside. In the same oil, add chopped garlic and stir. Before it turns golden, add the onion slices with green chilli and quickly stir fry over high heat.

Adjust the seasoning. Then add the fried baby corn and mix well. Make sure, onions are not fully fried or browned. Your spring baby corn is ready.

Kumro Fuler Bora-Pumpkin blossom Fritters

Pumpkin blossom fritters or kumro fuler bora is a favorite traditional starter in Bengali cuisine. We usually dip them directly into the batter and deep fry, however, I made a stuffing this time to give it a twist.

Ingredients

• Large Pumpkin Blossoms - 10
• Poppy seeds - 5 tbsp.
• Mustard seeds - 1 tbsp.
• Green Chilli - 1
• Besan / Gram flour - 1 cup
• Kalonji / Kalojeera seeds - 1tsp
• Poppy seed - 1 tsp
• Salt, turmeric - as required
• Oil for frying

Wash the blossoms thoroughly and remove the stem and green parts of the same. Keep them in a bowl of water for some time.
Make a paste of poppy seed, mustard seed and green chilli with a pinch of salt. add the ground masala to your pan with a tbsp. of oil and bhuna fry for a minute or two so that the raw smell of masala is gone.

Let the masala mix cool down. Then take small amount of the masalas and stuff the blossom carefully. Do it for all the blossoms. 

Make the batter now. Take besan / gram flour, add poppy seed, kalonji, salt and turmeric. Then add required amount of water and mix well. Your batter should not be very thick, the idea is to make a thin layer over the stuffed blossoms. Keep the batter covered for 15 minutes. You may add a pinch of baking powder just before frying.

Heat oil in a frying pan. Now deep the stuffed blossom into the batter to form a thin coat and put into the oil immediately. Deep fry till golden brown.

Serve as a starter. Best goes with plain rice and mug daal. You may also mash this into plain rice with a pinch of salt and have it at the beginning of the meal !!!  Yum !!!

Ilish Teler Chorchori

As the doctor says, Hilsa fish is full of heart friendly omega 3 fatty acid. We Bongs however just love hilsa, even its oil tastes so good, you can finish a full plate of rice with it. This is such a favourite in my family that I invented this dish to get everybody their share of hilsa oil.

Ingredients

• Oil collected from Hilsa - 1/2 cup
• potato - 1, thinly sliced
• green chilli - 4, sliced
• turmeric
• salt

Heat few drops of mustard oil in a pan. You may even omit this since the solid fish oil itself will release oil. Then add the potato and fish oil with a pinch of salt and turmeric and stir continuously.

Cook till the potatoes softened and mixed thoroughly with the fish oil. Add sliced green chilli and serve with plain rice. Yah...it is that simple.

Kumro patay Ilish Paturi - Hilsa wrap

Ilish Paturi is a famous Bengali dish which means Hilsa cooked with spices wrapped in a leaf ( pata). Banana leaf is the default choice for the wrap, where you have to uncover the leaf to get the fish out of it while eating. However, here I have used Kumro Pata ( pumpkin leaves) instead of Banana leaf. The best part is, you donot have to discard the leaf here, you can have it with rice.

 

Ingredients

• Hilsa Fish - 6 pieces
• Pumpkin leaf / Kumro pata - 6
• Onion - 1, thinly sliced
• Mustard Paste - 4 tbsp.
• Green chilli paste - 2 tsp
• Mustard Oil - 2 tbsp.
• Salt and turmeric, as required
• Methi / Fenugreek seeds - a pinch

Boil 2 cups of water with a pinch of salt and turmeric powder and soak the pumpkin leaves into it for 30 minutes. Marinate the fish pieces with salt and turmeric.

Add mustard oil in a pan. When it is hot, add methi / fenugreek seeds, once it turns black, remove them from the oil. That way, the oil will become fragrant with the aroma of Methi seeds. Now add finely sliced onion into the oil and stir for 30 seconds. add 1/2 cup water to the mustard paste and mix well. Strain this mustard water and add to the onions. Add the green chilli paste as well.

Carefully place the marinated fishes into this spice mixture. Cook for 4-5 minutes till the fish is cooked and spices dried up.

Place the pumpkin leaves on a plate. Place one fish with some spices onto it.

Make a wrap around the fish and secure the  wrap with a thread. Do it for all the fish pieces.

Add little oil onto the pan and place the fish wraps onto it. Shallow fry over low heat till the leaves are browned from all sides.

Remove the threads before serving. Serve with plain rice.

Dudh Patol - Parwal cooked with Milk

Patol / Pointed Gourd is cooked with poppy seeds and ghee and the gravy is made with milk. An ideal vegetarian dish, where no onion or garlic is used. What a royal treatment to humble patol.

Ingredients

• Patol / Pointed Gourd - 500 gms
• Milk - 1 cup
• Poppy seed paste - 3 tbsp.
• Ginger Paste - 1 tbsp.
• Green Chilli Paste - 1 tsp
• Cumin Powder - 1 tsp
• Coriander Powder - 1 tsp
• Bay leaves - 2
• Ghee - 1 tsp
• Whole Garam Masala - 2 each
• Salt, Sugar, Turmeric - as required

 Scrape the pointed gourd and cut them into halves. Sprinkle some salt and turmeric powder and fry them lightly.

Add oil and ghee into the pan. When it is hot, add the bayleaves and whole garam masala. Then add the cumin and coriander power, green chilli paste with salt and turmeric. Add the poppy seed paste after 30 seconds and fry the masala mixture over low flame till it releases nice aroma. Now add the milk and let it start boiling. Add the fried patol and mix well.

Cook for 4-5 minutes till the patol are cooked. Sprinkle 1 tsp of sugar. Adjust the seasoning.

Dudh Patol is ready. You may add one more teaspoon of ghee at the end if you like. Keep covered for 10 minutes so that the ghee gets infused into the vegetable. Serve as a side dish.

Tandoori Pomfret

Marinated the fish for some time and then put it in the oven for 15 minutes. The output is finger licking good !!!! ;-)))

Ingredients

• Medium sized pomfret - 4
• Ginger Paste - 1 tbsp.
• Garlic Paste - 1 tbsp.
• Hung Curd - 6 tbsp.
• Salt - as required
• Everest Tandoori Masala - 2 tsp
• turmeric - a pinch

With a sharp knife, make slits on fishes. Mix all the ingredients and marinate the fishes in this mixture for at least 2 hours, ( preferably overnight ) .

Preheat the oven at 200 degree C . Put the marinated fishes in a bowl. Apply butter on the fishes and bake for 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove from the bowl and put the fishes in a dry surface so that the juices get dried up a bit. Now arrange the fishes on a roasting tray and broil at 200 degree C for 5 minutes to get the bright red hue. Serve with onion rings.

Dahi Ka Gosht

 Dahi Mutton  or Dahi Ka Gosht is the mutton cooked in yogurt based spicy gravy. It is a slow cooked dhaba style mutton curry best eaten with your choice of rice and green salad.

Ingredients

• Mutton - 500 gms
• Curd - 200 gm
• Onion - 2, boiled and mashed
• Ginger paste - 1 tsp
• Garlic paste - 1 tsp
• Green chilli paste - 2 tsp
• Black Pepper - 2 tsp
• Bayleaf - 2
• Butter - 1 tbsp
• Whole red chilli - 3
• salt, sugar, turmeric powder
• Oil

Marinate the mutton with 1/2 onion paste, ginger garlic paste, green chilli paste, salt and sugar. Add oil and butter in a pan. When it is hot , add the bay leaf and red chilli and let it splutter.  

 Add the marinated mutton with turmeric and fry continuously till it is evenly brown and oil comes out of it.

Pressure cook till the mutton is cooked through. Now add the cooked mutton in the pan with remaining onion paste and curd with a tsp of sugar. You may add fried potatoes if you like at this stage. add a cup of hot water and let it boil.

Once the masalas are done and gravy thickens remove from heat. Garnish with whole red chilli and serve.