Strawberry and Cream Dessert

With the development of storage system, nowadays we get all the seasonal fruits round the year. Strawberry is no different. However, the store bought preserved strawberries can hardly match the juiciness and freshness of fresh strawberries plucked from the trees. Since the harvesting season of strawberries is going on now, we took the opportunity to visit a local farm last week and bought a few pounds of fresh strawberries that we plucked all by ourselves from the fields. It was my first time experience to visit a strawberry field. Strawberry picking is no easy task as it requires sitting carefully between the rows of strawberry shrubs and yanking the red and ripe juicy fruits from the stems. Since the local farm we visited cultivated the strawberries organically without adding any pesticide or herbicide, we could direct eat the strawberries right after we plucked them from the trees. The strawberries in all their freshness were much juicier and sweeter than the ones available in stores throughout the year. 





While picking strawberries, I was simultaneously thinking of the delicacies I am going to prepare with them. A few recipes were in my mind, and one such recipe is of strawberry dessert prepared with heavy whipping cream. Since I prepare Strawberry Cheesecake, Strawberry Sponge Cake and Strawberry Cake whenever I bring home strawberries, this time I wanted to try something new that I did not try before. Hope you will enjoy the recipe of Strawberry and Cream Dessert. Please don't forget to leave a comment. 

Apple Kheer or Apple Pudding

My son has just turned two a month back. He is getting super choosy about food as days go by. He refuses to eat foods that even 6 months back he used to relish. He grew very fond of egg yolks after we introduced egg to him at his first year, but now he does not like eating egg that much. As soon as he smells egg in any dish, he turns his face away. May be in our excitement of seeing our child growing up, we fed him too much eggs in his first year that hew grew bored of eating it. These days my son has developed a liking for rice pudding, but lest he grows bored of eating it too, I try to maintain variety in pudding preparation so that his interest in pudding remains intact. So instead of cooking rice pudding every time, I try adding different flavors into the pudding. For example, recently I prepared Mango pudding that my son liked so much that the otherwise fussy eater polished it off without complaint. 

When the first time I cooked Apple Pudding, I only grated the apples and mixed it into the boiling milk, but the acid in apple curdled the milk and turned it into chana. However, even though the whey water separated from the milk, the taste of the pudding was delicious and my son relished that with pleasure. Since chana is good for children, it was a nutritious pudding. However, grown ups may not like the taste of that pudding since many people do not like the taste of chana. So while cooking apple pudding for grown up people, I boil apples so that the acid becomes neutralized and it does not curdle the milk. The rich creamy taste of this pudding will not only savor the taste bud of grown ups, but will also please the taste buds of fussy little ones. 

Egg Cooked with Methi and Paanch Phoron

Traditionally, paanch phoron, meaning the mix of five spices, including fenugreek seeds, nigella seeds, fennel seeds, mustard seeds, and cumin seeds, is used with vegetable preparations in West Bengal. I have grown up seeing my mother and aunts cooking a variety of vegetable dishes using paanch phoron as a flavoring ingredient. However, in modern times, paanch phoron is being used with elan in non-veg preparations as well. I myself have cooked mutton using paanch phoron as a base flavoring agent. The traditional concept that prevailed in our parents' generation that paanch phoron is a spice exclusive to vegetable preparations is slowly becoming obsolete, as not only paanch phoron is used in meat preparations, but also in preparing fishes, eggs and other cuisines. Another spice, which was traditionally used in bitter tasting vegetable preparation in West Bengal, is fenugreek seeds. However, its use is witnessing a lot of changes as methi seeds are now abundantly used in preparing fishes, meat and even eggs. 




The recipe of an egg dish that I am posting today has two uncommon ingredients for non-veg dishes, paanch phoron powder and methi seeds, used as taste enhancers. The recipe is very easy to follow. You may skip on potato or yogurt, if you want the gravy to be simple. 

If you like this recipe, please don't forget to check out other egg recipes posted in this blog,

Peyazkoli Diye Dim

Egg Malai Masala

Egg Shrimp Sukha

Dimer Dhokar Dalna

Egg Keema

Chicken Patties

Summer is beautiful and salubrious in the USA and since I have lighter courses over summer semester, I am trying to fully enjoy my summer by travelling, getting together with friends and family, and cooking. One important part of any get-together is food. Without appetizing food, any occasion does not get the spark needed, because people bond over foods, and discussion and conversation get intense over good delicacies. Some of the snack items that rev up any evening gathering are Egg Devil with Mutton Keema, Alur Chop, Kolkata Egg Roll, Bhetki Fish Fry, Chicken Popcorn and Chicken Spring Roll. However, one item that was missing from the list until now is Chicken Patties. 

 

The preparation of Chicken Patties involves less hassle. If one has all the rightful ingredients at home, one can put the dish together within no time. If in case, you love the recipe of Chicken Patties I posted, please don't forget to leave a comment.

Alur Dum with Baby Potatoes

"Me and my husband are not particularly people who plan a trip a few months in advance. We make impromptu plans one or two days or at the most a week in advance and go ahead with it. Most of our trips were chalked out at the last minute and we have always enjoyed such surprise tours. This trip that I am going to write about is not an exception either. My classes for MBA first semester came to an end on 4th May and classes for summer semester were supposed to start from 16th May. So in between, I had little more than 10 days of holidays to take advantage of. Though we desired to take a trip during my holidays, we didn’t start planning until 9th May when my husband came home for lunch in the afternoon and told me that he wanted to go to Yellowstone National Park for three days. I told him to give me the afternoon for doing my research before confirming on Yellowstone. I did a small research on Google and realized that going to Yellowstone during spring break would not be wise as many parts of the park remain closed. Besides, the weather runs amok during spring. The weather forecast for Yellowstone exactly on the days we were planning to visit showed signs of rain showers. I didn’t want to take the pain of visiting a place when the chances of rain putting a damper on our trip were high. So we dropped the plan for Yellowstone. I zeroed in on choosing a location ideal for a visit this time of the year. So after an hour of deliberation, we decided on visiting the national parks in and around Utah. Utah with its desert climate is ideal for a visit during spring when the temperature hovers below 90 F."

Above is the excerpt from my travel journal. If you have liked what you have read so far, please don't forget to read the whole story here.

Coming back to the recipe. This preparation is one of the easiest ways to prepare alur dum. I prepare it especially in the morning when I have to put together breakfast in a hurry. I just get the baby potatoes boiled and peeled the previous night and prepare the curry in the morning. It tastes awesome with roti, luchi, and paratha. Please leave your feedback if you prepare this dish at home and it turns out to your liking. Thank you for visiting my page !

Pui Shaak Chingri Diye - Pui Leaves cooked with Shrimps

Before leaving Kolkata, it never occurred to me that getting hands on some of my favorite vegetables such as potol, kumro (pumpkin), uchche (bitter gourd), shim (hyacinth beans), kochu shaak and pui leaves would be a difficult task. Since most of the Indian grocery stores are located far away from where we live except one Indian grocery that does not keep these veggies, we need to drive more than two hours to and fro to get to a grocery store that sells these veggies in Detroit or near Ann Arbor. Naturally, we cannot undertake such long distance drives every week for grocery purpose and hence, eating pui leaves or kochu shaak is a rare occasion. Anyway, last week when we did our grocery shopping, we happened to get some fresh pui leaves in the store and not wasting a single moment, I picked a few pounds of that. 

The beauty of this dish is that it can be prepared with all the leftover veggies. If you don't have pumpkin, you can use squash in its place and all the veggies that you have at your home at the moment. I had lots of carrots, snow peas and beans in the refrigerator and I made a good use of them by putting them together in this preparation. In fact, I believe that if you don't have pui leaves at home, you can try it with spinach. The taste may be different though. 

Hot Spicy Red Snapper

Ever since we came to the USA, we always visited Golam Produce Market in Ann Arbor to buy our favorite Kolkata fishes. The quality of the fishes, hilsa, koi, katla, pabda, rohu, tyangra, and the like, sold at Golum is excellent. In fact, the of quality and freshness of the fishes sold at Golam surpasses the standard of that of Kolkata. However, recently I don't know what happened, the owner, who was a middle-aged man from Bangladesh, sold the business to a man from Middle East. Now I have little idea if people in the Middle East eat fishes and even if they do, they surely don't devour the same variety of fishes that we Bengalis do. That I was not wrong in my assumption was proven this time when I visited Golam with the new owner at the helm. When I asked for hilsa, the new owner, to my amusement, pointed in the direction of some giant pomfrets, the size I have never seen earlier, making it evident that he didn't have any idea of hilsa or how it looks like. As I became sad worrying if the new owner was going to supply the same quality fishes sold by the previous owner and was contemplating to make a quick run out of the shop, I was moved by the hospitality of the new owner and his team. To the best of their efforts, they set to searching for the fishes I asked for in their inventory, and save for hilsa and koi, they got me rohu, pabda, and tyangra. They also had other variety of fishes such as white fish, kingfish, and red snapper, but since these three types of fishes are not commonly consumed in West Bengal, I have little familiarity with them. However, once in Goa, I had an awesome red snapper curry and though a few times I tried to cook red snapper at home following the style of cooking fishes observed in Kolkata, those undertakings did not turn out satisfactory. So I was in search of a good recipe of red snapper, and I found the recipe of Red Hot Chili Fish Curry at NDTV by Joey Matthew. Though the original dish was prepared using coconut oil, I used white oil in preparing mine. Also, I tried to avoid adding too much chili powder into my dish. I used two teaspoons of chili powder instead of two tablespoons. I also boiled and ground the kokum.

Paneer Malai Kofta

I have cooked Paneer Malai Kofta so many times by now that it has become pretty staple in my home. The last time I cooked this dish is very recently for an office potluck party of my husband. The dish turned out to be a smash hit with everyone licking their fingers. One colleague went to the extent of asking the name of restaurant where this paneer dish would be available and my husband delightfully replied "at my home".

I collected the recipe from an online cooking forum I am a member of. I tweaked the recipe slightly to suit my flavor and the outcome was genius. Here I am sharing the same with you. Hopefully you all will like it.

Baked Garlic Cheddar Turkey with Fried Quinoa

I think this recipe would have been appropriate for Thanksgiving. The turkey patties are perfectly cooked to make the Thanksgiving dinner turn special with friends and family singing praises of your culinary skill. However, since Thanksgiving is a few months away now, this can be cooked to make an ordinary day turn special. In case if turkey patties are not available, then chicken patties can be used too and if neither chicken patties nor turkey patties are available, then minced chicken can be used and molded into the shape of patties. 

Those who have not heard of quinoa before, allow me to give a short introduction of the same. Quinoa is essentially a pseudocereal known for its nutritious edible seeds. High in protein and low in gluten content, quinoa has an array of nutritious values. It is a rich source of dietary minerals and vitamins. Just like rice, it has a neutral taste and it goes well with Indian dishes. In the recipe below, I have cooked quinoa in the same fashion as poha. Personally, I have switched to quinoa in my quest for a substitute of rice. Unlike rice that causes water retention, the high potassium content in quinoa helps decrease water retention. Since I put on a lot of weight during pregnancy, I was desperate to get back into my pre-pregnancy body, but I wanted to lose weight in a healthy way. I don't believe in starving myself to lose weight, so I brought some healthy changes to my food plan and shifting to quinoa is one of them.  Ever since I have imbibed quinoa in my diet, I have become one of its big proponents. 

Baked turkey patties and quinoa form a nice gourmet combination ideal for special occasions. Hope you and your loved one will enjoy it. 

Kochu Shaak with Shrimps

Traditionally, kochu shaak is cooked with Ilish macher matha or Hilsa fish head, but another variant of Kochu shaak preparation that is popular among Bengalis is kochu shaak cooked with shrimps. In my maternal home, everyone is gaga for kochu shaak. Though ours was not a traditional joint family, but all the brothers of my father lived next to each other in the same plot. As a result, we grew up as a very close-knit family. Whenever there was something exotic cooked at anyone's home, my aunts or my mother would make sure to share it among each other. Kochu shaak was one such decadence everyone would like to celebrate. Of all the kochu shaak preparations, my mother's one I liked best. She made this dish so tasty that I could eat one plate full of rice only with this dish by my side. It tastes nice with roti too, but I think it tastes its best when accompanied with rice.

Kochu shaak is not available in all the Indian grocery stores here, especially, in the part of USA we are staying now. We searched in every nook and cranny before laying our hands on kochu shaak, some 60 miles away from our place, and so naturally the joy was beyond description. I tried to emulate my mother's version of kochu shaak dish, and it came out really nice. My husband was totally drooling over it.

However, before you go ahead with this preparation, remember to have plenty of time in your hand because this dish calls for an hour or more time of devotion to bring the richness.

Chanar Dalna - Paneer Dalna

Yesterday we took our newborn to his first long car ride of approximate 3 and half hours. He has completed two months last Saturday, and taking the liberty of his soon to be out of newborn status, I thought of taking him to a shopping mall in which I had few garments, that I ordered for him, for pick-up. He was calm and quiet throughout the long journey. On our way back, however, as we were approaching our home, he grew a bit impatient letting out an occasional whimper of irritation, but otherwise he just totally cooperated. Though I am not fond of the idea of travelling long distance with a small baby, I have seen people going on international journeys with small kids. I have a friend who came all the way from India to USA with his 3 months old baby all alone, and I know of her experience of hell when my friend could not eat, nap or use the loo throughout the flight as the baby was immensely fussy wailing his heart out . My friend is brave, but I am not. Hence, despite a wonderful summer of USA tempting me to take a trip, with all my friends travelling here and there, reveling in the warmth of such nice weather, I am not at all letting my mind walk in that track. I would like to wait for a while till I know that my son is safe for a long distance trip.
 

Anyway, Chanar dalna originally is the preparation in which fresh chana i.e the paneer, which is left after the whey water of milk is discarded, is used. Since the process of separating milk from the whey is a bit time-taking process and since I am little short of time these days, readymade paneer is always the best option for me while preparing this dish. So it is up to your discretion whether you want to use fresh paneer or the readymade one.

Aam Kheer - Kheer Mango

Just as I began to feel sad for missing yet another season of mangoes of Bengal cribbing about how the taste of mangoes available in Wal-Mart and Meyer were bland in taste, my husband brought home few Mexican mangoes one day. Now, I really didn't have any idea that Mexican breed of mangoes could be as sweet and ripe as those of Bengal. It was seriously a revelation. Sitting here in USA, if you could lay your tongue on some luscious super juicy mangoes, you would feel yourself to be in seventh heaven and that's exactly how was I like. I ate few of them raw and left the remaining ones to prepare my favorite mango dessert - Aam Kheer.

In the months of summer when the scorching weather outside leaves the mouth dry, one glass full of this kheer with lots of ripe mangoes in would take away every bit of parchedness the tortuous heat has caused.

Gatta Kofta Curry

Two of my newly married friends recently asked me and my husband about our overall experiences on our transformation into parenthood. Though the question did not surprise us a bit knowing that our friends have plans of their own to become parents themselves in the not too distant future, the answer was difficult to be summed up in one line. A lot has changed in our lives since the arrival of our son with us feeling more responsible each passing day, our old nocturnal routine replaced by the one suited to our son's sleep pattern, the once happy-go-lucky carefree souls now feeling tired and sleep deprived at all times but in a queer way, we both are enjoying every moment of our time with our son regardless of all the unusual changes our parental duties call for. When the entire US is basking in the warmth of summer going out on camping, visiting sites, me and my hubby are changing diapers, feeding the baby relentlessly at every 2-3 hours gap, giving him warm bath and massage and trying to take quick power naps in between while our sonny sleeps, but we don't complain as every time spent with him gives us thousand times more joy that any picnic or camping can ever give......so I carefully formed my response as concisely as possible in one line to my friends....'you gotta experience it yourself to feel it as the feeling is unmatched with any other feeling of life you have had so far'. I don't know how far my friends, who are apparently more uptight about the hassle taking care of a baby involves, appreciated my response but I just hope that they got the essence of my message.
 

Gatta ke Curry is basically a dish very popular in Rajasthan. I first had it here in USA when a Sindhi couple invited us to their home and regaled us with a variety of Indian cuisines. Apparently, the hostess had a passion for cooking, and she invariably experiments with her culinary fancies. Though I never made Gatta ke curry at home, I first thought of giving it a try when recently in a cooking forum on Facebook, someone shared a recipe on Gatta Kofta Curry. I changed some of the ingredients and their quantity according to my requirement but more or less they are kept as close to the original as possible. It turned out really well, so well that I managed to bag a compliment from a guest fastidious about taste.