Thor Ghonto

A dry vegetarian dish made of BANANA PITH or STEM

The abundance of Banana Plant in Bengal is probably responsible for Bengalis using up each and every part of the plant, as I've already mentioned in several of my previous posts (here & here).

But a sad reality of today's fast paced nuclear families, is a gradual obsolescence of these regional delicacies. The main reason behind it is the difficulty in cutting and chopping these plant parts. I found a blogpost detailing the cutting procedure of Banana stem or pith, or as we Bengalis call it THOR.An additional tip is the last dicing or chopping....it should be as fine as possible. Almost minced.

Well, coming to the recipe of Thor Ghonto....this recipe is suitable when the stem/pith i.e Thor, is tender. Else the better option would be to go for Thor Chhechki.

Ingredients :

-Thor of length abt 1.5 ft - 2 nos.

-Gobindobhog rice preferably or any other similarly fragranced rice - 1/2 bowl

-Potatoes diced small - 1 medium or 2 small

-Grated coconut - 1/2 Gram/

-Bengal Gram - 1/2 bowl soaked in water (overnight preferably)

-Bay leaf/Tej Pata - 1 or 2

-Whole Jeera/Cumin Seeds - 1 tsp

-Whole garam masala - 2-3 green elaichi/cardamom, 1 1"stick of cinnamon, 2-3 cloves

-Masala Paste -
     Jeera powder - 2 tbsp;
     Halid/Turmeric-1 tsp;
     Red Chili powder- 1 tsp;
     Kashmiri Chili powder - 1tsp (optional)

-Salt

-Sugar
-Ghee - 1-1 1/2 tsp
-Roasted Garam masala powder

-Mustard Oil - 1 cup (This recipe is high on oil...for that matter all thor, mocha recipes are....)

-Wheat flour/Ata - 2 tbsp (optional, as a binder)

Procedure :

1. Cut the thor as given here. It's a very well illustrated explanation.Chop as fine as possible.

2. In a pressure cooker, take the minced thor, add a cup of water, add salt and haldi/turmeric and pressure cook upto 2 whistles. Drain the water and squeeze out as much water as possible.

3. Fry the diced potatoes after sprinkling a pinch of salt and turmeric.Keep aside after frying.

4. Now fry the washed gobindobhog rice in oil till crispy. Keep aside.

5. In the wok, pour the cup full of oil, heat it and season with whole garam masala, tej pata/bay leaf and cumin seeds/whole jeera.
6. Throw in the soaked Bengal Gram and immediately cover the wok with a lid until the bengal grams stop spluttering.
7. Now add the masala paste (haldi, jeera powder, red chili powder & kashmiri chili powder) and salt and sugar.
8. Also add the grated coconut now. Cook the masala well, 'koshano' as we call it in Bengali.
9. After the masala is well cooked, add the pressure cooked, water drained & squeezed minced thor. Mix well with the masala.
10. Add the fried rice followed by diced potatoes.

11. Cover and cook on low/medium flame for around 10 minutes. Keep stirring on and off. No water is to be added. If required drizzle a spoon of oil.
12. If the thor ghonto appears a bit too moist, sprinkle a tsp of Flour/Ata and turn the vegetable around to mix it. This is an optional step and is required ONLY to reduce the moistness of the dish.

13. Before taking off the 'ghonto' off the flame, heat ghee and season with roasted garam masala powder and pour over the 'Thor ghonto'.

The Thor Ghonto is ready to be served with steamed rice.

This post is off to Weekend Herb Blogging #291 started by HAALO and  hosted for the week by PAULCHEN'S FOODBLOG

Thor Chhechki

A dry vegetable dish made of Banana Stem/pith

In a previous post I had mentioned that in Bengali cuisine, every part of a banana plant finds utility. Not only utility, dishes made out of the banana flower and banana stem are delicacies of the highest order in Bengali vegetarian cuisine.

Today I shall narrate the story of my maiden attempt at making Thor Chhechki .

Thor is the stem or pith of the banana plant. Rich in medicinal value and nutrients (ref. Herbal Food & Its medicinal Values by H.Panda), thor in the Bengali style, is prepared as a ghonto (Semi dry vegetable dish) or a Chhechki (a dry vegetable dish).

Chopping the banana stem, after throwing away the outer hard cover, is the toughest task of all. The return of my live-in maid (M) from her village saved me from the time-consuming and cumbersome task! (Details of how to cut & segregate the edibles from the non-edibles of this veggie is given in this blogpost of rice-n-curry ) A quick telephone call to Ma, gave me the cooking details.

A small tip from Ma helped me decide that Chhechki it would be, rather than the Ghonto.

*If the thor had been tender and hence easy to chop, then ghonto preparation (a semi dry dish) would taste good.
*But if the thor is not so tender (as in today's case), then the dry recipe of Chhechki would suit better.

So here goes the recipe :

Ingredients :-
1. Thor (Banana stems) - 2 pieces each around 1 ft long
2. Grated coconut - 1 bowl (250ml bowl)
3. Dry Whole Red chilli - 2
4. Kaalo jeera (Nigella seeds)
5. Turmeric powder - 3 tsp
6. Chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
7. Mustard powder - 3 tsp mixed with a few drop of water to form a paste
8. Green chillies - 2 to 3 slit
9. Coriander leaves
10.Mustard Oil - 4 tbsp
11. A bowl of Diced Pumpkin (I did not have pumpkin so did not use it today)
12. Soaked Bengal Gram (This is usually added in case of Thor Ghonto, but since I had some Bengal gram sprouts, I used them up)
13. Salt to taste
14.Sugar - a pinch

Procedure :-
1. Remove the tough outer cover of the banana stem. The tender innards are chopped as fine as possible and soaked in a big bowl of water containing a pinch of turmeric and salt. The turmeric prevents the chopped thor from turning black.

2.Since the thor was not as tender as is desirable, I pressure cooked it till two whistles blew and after that kept it on low flame for around 10 minutes. Before putting it for pressure cooking, add a pinch of salt and sugar

3. After taking it out of the cooker, mash it some more and squeeze out all the water and keep minced, boiled semi-dried thor aside.

4. Take the Oil in a wok and warm the . Throw in the whole dry red chillies and the kaalo jeera. Add the diced pumpkin pieces (I skipped the pumpkin)

5. Add the Bengal Gram (in my case it was Bengal gram sprouts) and half the quantity of grated coconut

6. Add the minced, boiled semi-dried thor into the oil. Stir well to mix well.

7. Add a tsp of turmeric, a pinch of sugar and salt. Again keep stirring to mix well. No additional water is added. Cover the wok with a lid and turn down the flame to low.

8. After 4-5 minutes, remove the lid and add the mustard paste. Mix well and let it cook.

9.When the thor is almost done, add the remaining coconut after keeping 2 tsp aside for garnishing. Throw in 2 slit green chillies for flavour. Give the veggies a last stir.

10. Garnish with the remaining Coconut and coriander leaves.

Eat with plain steamed rice....delicious veggies oozing with the goodness of nutrients


An afterthought...in a hurry to get over with the cooking, I forgot to click a picture of the raw Thor. For my Bengali blogfriends, that's not an issue as they have seen thor many a times all their lives, but for those who are not familiar with this stem of banana plant, I will photograph it after my next purchase and put it up on the blog.
This is my entry to WYF:Cuisine and the logo for the event is

Banana Flower...Mochar Ghonto

Pics  updated on 17-dec-12 with Mochar ghonto cooked with Chhola & cubed coconut.

Again a Bong recipe...this time a vegetarian one, though addition of shrimps could have converted it into a non-vegetarian one!
Banana trees are found in abundance in rural Bengal and in Bengal every part of a Banana tree and flowers are utilised.
Stem or pith - Thor in Bengali is made into a tasty vegetarian dish rich in Iron content.
Flower-Mocha (in Bengali) is what I made for dinner tonight.
Leaves - Traditional plates for food. And they serve as a wrap for preparing smoked or grilled items. Even for religious and social rituals they are utilised.
Fruit- of course the banana fruit!!! Raw bananas are used as vegetables..

Rich in nutritional value, Mocha or Banana flower is one of the favourite vegetarian dishes of Bengal.

Now coming to the Banana Flower Recipe .... Mochar Ghonto ('Ghonto' in Bengali means veggie mix)

Ingredients:

-Banana Flower-1
-Whole garam masala like cardamom (elaichi), cinnamon, clove
-Bay leaf (Tej pata):1 or 2
-Ginger paste : 1 tspn
-Coconut - it should be cubed and fried. But today due to lack of time and energy, I just grated and sauted it in a little oil.
-Turmeric:1 tsp
-Whole Cumin seeds (Jeera) - 1 tsp
-Powdered mix of Coriander & Cumin seeds (Dhone+jeera powder) : 1/2 tspn each
-Boiled Bengal gram:1/2 cup (Again, today I didnt have that and used 1/2 cup peas instead)
-Clarified butter (Ghee) :1 tsp
-Garam masala (Dry roasted & ground into powder) : 1/2 tsp
-Green chillies : 2-3
-Potato cut into small cubes & fried: 1/2 cup
-Oil : 5-6tbsp (This is a dish which requires oil on the higher side)
-Salt to taste
-Sugar : a pinch

Procedure :
1.Throw away the outer purple cover of the flower.Take each bunch of banana flower, separate the florets, remove the stigma from the centre of each floret and the bracts (the translucent outer coverpluck the centre of each flower and chop into tiny pieces. (The detailed procedure is demonstrated here :http://www.masalatize.com/veg-recipes/how-to-cut-and-clean-mocha-banana-blossom-banana-flower/) Wash them well. Soak into salt water and boil the chopped flowers. Drain out the water. The toughest part is over!

2.Heat oil in the wok.

3.Add to the heated oil, the whole jeera grain and while they splutter, add the whole garam masala & bay leaf.

4.Add the boiled chopped banana flowers and stir it around in the wok.

5.Add salt, sugar, ginger paste and again mix them well with the flowers

6.Add the paste made out of turmeric, jeera and coriander powders. Sprinke water and mix well by stirring.

7.Add the fried cubed potatoes

8.Add the coconut cubes (grated & fried coconut in today's preparation) and the peas. If bengal gram (brown chana) is being used, which is more prevalent and also tastier, add the soaked chana along with the whole garam masala & jeera seasoning (as given in procedure sl.no.3). Cover the wok with a lid, till the chana gets fried, as else the oil splutters and makes a mess of the kitchen!!!

9. Sprinkle water.

10.Lower the flame and cover the wok. Let it cook for about 10minutes. From time to time, remove the lid and stir the ghonto.

11. Add a couple of slit green chillies.

12. You'll know the cooking is over when the ghonto (a Bengali a term used to refer a well-integrated mix of veggies) is well binded.

13.In a skillet, heat the ghee to which add 1/2 tspn of the roasted & ground garam masala mix. Add this to the almost ready ghonto.

14. Mix well. The Mocha Ghonto is ready to serve.

Note: Fried shrimps may be added as a replacement / in addition to the coconut (cubed/grated).

This recipe goes to the WEEKEND HERB BLOGGING #171 hosted for the week by Susan of The Well-Seasoned Cook. The history of WEEKEND HERB BLOGGING is available here. The logo for the event is .....