Aloo, Begoon, Sojne Da(n)tha and Bodi Tarkari/ Potato, brinjal, drumstick curry cooked with sundried lentil dumplings

 

Sometimes a simple and healthy curry can make a lot of difference when added to the menu chart of the day. Taste buds at times yearn for a curry that is light and goes well with rotis and parathas served hot from the hot tawa sitting on the flame and burning, to give the best from its top when its bottom is hot and burning. There is not much to talk about the tawa or the roti or paratha but more to tell about a simple dish which is a storehouse of taste.

Robibarer Porota aar Aloo Tarkarir Jalkhabar – Sunday Breakfast with Paratha and Potato Curry

Sunday, is it really a day of rest? No not at all, I’m speaking on behalf of this Wee Self. Saturday goes into thinking of pushing all the work for Sunday. Saturday, watch a movie on a DVD till late into the night. And then the very Sunday comes, late breakfast...cook, serve and also savour...laundry, shopping for fruits and vegetables, if there’s a programme visit friends and relatives and vice versa. The afternoon lunch has to be very appetising after the late jolkhabar and served not on time for that’s how my Sunday is all about. The plan for a lunch or dinner at some favourite place, can happen, maybe have to drop the plan for some other important reason. Some may think this is all Abol Tabol, no no not the Abol Tabol of Sukumar Ray. Now now now...

...enough of Sunday, come the murmurs. No more Sunday gossip back to work.

The whole preparation of jolkhabar for 4, took about 30-40 minutes.

For the Porota:

2 cups atta. To that add ½ tsp salt and 1tbsp groundnut refined oil. Mix it well. Then add water and make into dough. Keep it aside.

Next:

For the potato curry -

Peel 4 mediun size potatoes. Cut into very small cubes. Wash and keep it. In the meantime heat 1 ½ tsp mustard oil in a wok. Once the smoke rises, throw in 1 ½ tsp of panch phoron and 3 green chillies slit in the middle. The crackle of the panch phoron starts and time to tip in the potatoes and cook for a couple of minutes. Now add ½ tsp haldi powder and ½ tsp red chilli powder and salt (to taste). Stir to mix all the ingredients with the potatoes. Add 2 ½  cups of water and the sugar. Cover and cook till the potatoes are soft to eat with running gravy.

When the potatoes are being cooked, roll out the parathas and fry them. I use groundnut refined oil for frying my parathas.

Serve for everyone and enjoy the breakfast while watching the TV or sitting at the dining table, chit chatting to heart’s content. After all there’s so much to talk to one another...maybe Naram maybe Garam...

Kosha Mangsho

Cooking is an everyday activity for me except those days when I’m away from my kitchen…responsibility and tension free. But I love the freedom of my kitchen.

Talking about freedom it reminds me of one of my sister. Whenever I visit her I become extra cautious when I step into her kitchen. It would be wrong to say she is a bully but she is always around when anyone else is cooking. She keeps a watchful eye over all that is used in cooking. She peeps in to say, “Don’t use so much of oil. Cook the masala, it needs little more time. Add this much water - ah hah! - you’re adding too much water it’ll taste pancha (watery)” and so on.

Let me now draw your attention to my Kosha Mangsho recipe. Everyone in our house likes Kosha Mangsho and before I can add water for the gravy for mangsho curry, half of it goes into the stomach of those moving in and out of he kitchen, signaling very much they want their share then and there. I don’t like to be left out and taste a few pieces.

I want to take you back with me to those days when we stayed in the small quiet town of Baripada in Orissa. Baripada is famous for Muri (puffed rice). I’ve tasted Muri in different places but miss that specialty of Baripada. Muri is one of the staple foods of the people of this small town. You can find people having Muri with vegetable curry, dal, fish fry and above all they love to eat it with mutton or chicken curry.

My boys love to eat Kosha Mangsho with Muri and I too like it. Mostly we have mutton curries on Sunday when it is a holiday and we sit together for lunch, enjoy the food and lots to talk about.

The way I prepare this dish:

Ingredients:

Mutton 1 Kg.
Onion 4 big size
Garlic 6-8 flakes
Ginger 1½ inch piece
Curd ½ cup
Haldi powder
Red chili powder
Tej patta (bay leaves) 5-6
Cinamon 1 inch piece (broken to smaller pieces)
Cloves 5-6
Cardamom 3 (cracked)
Salt
Sugar
Mustard oil (you can use any cooking oil)

Preparation:

Make a paste of 3 onions, garlic and ginger and keep it aside.
Make thin slices of 1 onion.
Clean and wash the mutton pieces. Squeeze out the water totally. Take a bowl and put the mutton pieces in it.
Add the curd and mix it.
Now add the onion, ginger and garlic paste to it and mix it properly.
Add haldi and red chili powder (as per the heat your taste buds can take), salt to taste and a pinch of sugar.
Add 2 tbsp of mustard oil.
Now mix it properly and keep it aside for about an hour.
Once it is marinated it is ready to be cooked.

Cooking it:

Take a thick bottom dekchi or pan with a lid.
Add 4-5 tbsp of mustard oil.
Once the smoke rises add the bay leaves, the cinamon, cloves and cardamom and give it a stir.
Now add the sliced onions and cook till it becomes translucent.

Add the marinated mutton to it and stir.

Cover it with the lid and cook it over low heat stirring it from time to time.

The mutton and the masala will give out water in which the mutton will get cooked.

By the time the oil separates from the masala the mutton gets soft enough for serving.

Serve it hot with fried rice, hot rotis, parathas, can give a try with Muri also.