Nolen Gurer Chaaler Payesh .... Rice Pudding

A Bengali and Chaaler Payesh have an eternal connection....The first morsel of solid eaten by a Baby during Annoprashon (Rice Eating Ceremony), the first spoon eaten by the mother-to-be during Baby Shower or Shaadh, the Payesh on every birthday or Jonmodin are memories every true blue Bengali holds precious. 

And the Paayesh is made even more precious and tasty if its made of Nolen Gur (or the solidified version known as Patali Gur for the off season payesh)

Ingredients :
* Full Cream Milk - 2 litres 
* Gobindobhog rice / jeera rice / Basmati rice - 2 fistfuls (1 fistful or 'mutho' per litre i,e approx 45-50gm per litre)
* 2 tbsp of sugar
* Nolen Gur/Patali Gur (date palm jaggery) - approx 90-100gm (45-50gm per litre of milk)

Procedure :
1. Boil milk and reduce it to 3/4 of its original volume. 
2. In the meanwhile, wash rice, drain the water and dry it while the milk is being boiled
3. While stirring the milk, add the washed and dried rice and keep stirring gently till the rice cooks and the milk thickens. The milk should have reduced to 1/2 (i.e 1 litre) by now.
4. Add 2 tbsp of sugar after the rice has softened. An early addition of sugar will stop the rice from softening further.
5. Take the milk-rice mix off the flame. Soften the jaggery by microwaving/heating and add the softened jaggery into the rice-milk mix and . Mix well 
6. Cool it down ....delicious Gur flavoured Payesh is ready for the auspicious occasion.

Cream of Broccoli Almond Soup

Some left over broccoli which had turned yellowish and hence didnt want to use it for normal stir fry or in mix veggie dish preparation. So soup it was to cater to the kiddo tummies in the evening..

Ingredients :
Broccoli - I used 3/4 of a medium sized broccoli cut into medium sized florets
6-10 Garlic cloves chopped roughly
1 tej pata
Almonds - a handful...about 10-15..blanched, to ease the removal of skin
Salt
Rocksalt
Pepper corns ...freshly crushed
black Pepper powder
Chili flakes (optional)
grated Cheddar cheese
Milk - 3 cups
butter

Procedure :
1. Pressure cook the broccoli, chopped garlic with tej pata and a pinch of salt.
2. After blanching the almond in hot water, peel off the skin and saute the almonds in butter till golden brown
3. Now in a blender, make a paste of the pressure cooked broccoli-garlic and sauted almonds.
4. Heat butter and add crushed peppercorns to the heated butter. Fry for a few seconds and add the blended broccoli-garlic-almond. Cook on high heat till the raw flavour is eliminated.
5. Add milk and milk cream (malai/দুধের সব্র ). till it is of creamy & soupy consistency. Mix on high heat and lower the heat, cover and bring to a boil.
6. Adjust the salt by adding rock salt.
7. Sprinkle pepper powder, chili flakes (optional). Take it off the flame.
8. After pouring into soup bowls, garnish with grated cheddar cheese.

Serve this bowful of healthy goodness ....steaming hot...it's a meal by itself!

Puli Pithey...a Sankranti Speciality!

Coconut-Jaggery filled Rice flour-Sweet Potato Dumplings in Thickened milk sweetened with Date Palm Jaggery

Making Puli Pithey has been on my agenda since I began making Paatishapta. But recalling Ma's elaborate preparation of this particular Sankranti speciality, I've always developed cold feet.

However, this time, after making Patishapta I had a substantial quantity of excess Patishaapta's coconut filling and so decided to proceed towards the much loved yet much dreaded preparation of Puli Pithey.

This is the recipe of Puli Pithey  I have grown up eating, savouring and later craving for. And so is precious to me....

Ingredients
Rice flour (of preferably Gobindobhog rice) : Sweet Potato = 1:1  (I used 1/2 kg of each)
Milk : Full cream 2 litres
Sugar : 1/2 of my Daal ladle
Gur : enough to sweeten the milk and mix with the coconut
Coconut : 1 medium sized
Hot / warm water
Salt : a pinch

In case of my Ma's authentic recipe of Puli Pithey the cocunut filling is to be mixed & cooked with sugar without any khowa (milk solids). But since I used leftover from my Paatishaapta filling, my filling had coconut (1/2 medium sized) + date palm jaggery (75 gm) + khowa (from approx 750ml milk).

Procedure :
I) Coconut filling : See recipe at 'B' of Procedure in this post.
    If desired, the khowa may be eliminated from this recipe and the coconut proportionately increased to 1 medium sized coconut, grated

II) The Milk base
Bring 2 litres of milk to a boil and add 1/2 a (Daal) ladle of sugar. Keep aside

III) The Dough
a) Pressure cook 1/2 kg sweet potato and mash them into a pulp. Keep aside.

b) The Rice Dough :
     1) Wash, Dry and grind the Gobindobhog Rice in fine flour. Keep aside a small bowl full of powdered rice aside for later use.
     2) In a Kadai, take 2 teacups of  water. Add a pinch of salt. And bring to a boil.
     3) Pour the rice flour into the boiling water and stir to make the dough. Add more hot water if needed to moisten the whole flour and make into a smooth dough. Cover and keep aside for ten minutes.

c) Rice + Sweet Potato Dough :
Now knead the boiled and mashed sweet potato and the Rice Flour Dough together into a smooth dough. If too moist, sprinkle some rice flour or Atta to reduce the moisture.

After keeping aside a ball * (approx 2" in dia) of this dough, use the rest for making the Puli


III) The Puli or the Dumplings :

- Pinch off balls of the size you would while making luchi/puri.
- Make a depression at the centre and mould them as a bowl.
- Fill it in with adequate amount of coconut-jaggery filling...not too much
- Now fold into half moon shaped dumpling and seal the edges by pressing together.
- Repeat with the rest of the dough & coconut filling

IV) * The 'Chooshi' or dough filaments :

I dont know the English word for Chooshi. Will just explain the making of it.
Smear your palms with a little of the rice flour+sweet potato dough ball kept aside. And also pat the smeared palms with dry rice flour. Now slowly rub your palms together...the approx 1" length snake like filaments falling of your rubbing dough smeared palms is Chooshi.
Repeat with the rest of the 2" dough and rice flour.

IV) The final assembly
- While the dumplings were being made, bring the boiled milk to a boil again and after the dumplings are made, slowly slide them into the boiling milk one after another.
- Simultaneously, mash the jaggery into paste and add it slowly into the milk, and keep stirring gently to mix.
- Finally add the Chooshi and stir gently.
- If you have some coconut filling in excess after making the Pulis, add them to the boiling milk and give a gentle stir...
- Once the whole assembly of Puli - Chooshi - milk have come to a boil and has boiled vigorously  for a few minutes, switch off the gas.

Serve hot or chilled. Both have their distinctly delicious flavours !

I found some of the other variations of Puli Pithey in Sharmila's & Indrani's kitchens.

Patishapta, Kite flying and relaxation on Sankranti!

(A sweetened pancake with coconut-jaggery-milk solids filling)

A Bong's Poush Sankranti celebrations amidst Hyderabadi Sankranti's Kite flying fervour!

Well it was fusion all the way.....Holiday, Pithey preparations, Kite Flying, my 7yr old decorating the main entrance with chalk powder muggu.....we did it all!!

I am surprised at how I've missed blogging here about the annual tradition of Pithey Paarbon and the famous Bengali Pitheys...though I have shared the recipe of Paatishapta in my now abandoned personal blog 'Whims and Wishes' (here & here)!

Well Paatishaapta being the easiest (in my opinion) of the Pitheys and the most oft prepared one by me, I'll post the recipe of it today. And will share the recipe of the more elaborate Puli Pithey later.....

Ingredients for Paatishapta which yielded approximately 30 pieces:

* 2 medium sized Coconut - freshly grated

* Patali Gur (DatePalm Jaggery) - 450 gm approximately

* Sugar- 1 Cup

* Flour (Maida)- 2 Cups

* Suji or Semolina - 1 Cup

* Rice Flour- 1 Cup


* Milk - 1.75 - 2 litres

*Khoa (dried or thickened milk) from 3 litres milk - yielded approximately 500 gm of which about 450-470gm was used

* Ghee - 2tbsp

Procedure : Instructions are given in the sequence I prepared


A) PATISHAPTA BATTER -Part 1:
I mixed the Suji and Rice Flour. Then soaked the mixture in adequate milk. Left it aside and got on to work on the Filling.

B) PUR /FILLING :
Took the freshly grated coconut in a wok (Kadai) and added the sugar and approx 300 gms of jaggery. Stirred it around well. (Sugar provides the binding)
After mixing it considerably well, put the wok containing the mixture on fire and continued stirring.
Added the khoa after the coconut-jaggery-sugar mix had turned a lovely golden brown. All the while I was vigorously stirring the mix which is the most important aspect of making the 'Pur' or filling.
I continued the stirring process for about 30 minutes, till the coconut turned a rich brown and became sticky in texture.

C) PATISHAPTA BATTER (Continued):Part 2
I added 2 tbsp of ghee to the Maida and mixed evenly. 

Added this to the already milk-soaked mixture of Suji-Rice Flour. Had to mix it well as to ensure no lumps are formed. Added more milk to make the batter of medium consistency so that it spreads evenly on the tawa.

To sweeten the batter, add some broken pieces of jaggery (approx 150gm). The batter should be of mild sweetness.

D) THE FRYING PROCESS:

I used a non-stick Tawa (a non-stick frying pan would do fine)

Smeared some oil/ghee (I used ghee....sinfully delightful!!) on the Hot Tawa. (I used the top of a brinjal cut horizontally, with the stalk intact..it makes the ghee smearing easy as the stalk acts as a handle)

Poured a ladle of batter and spread it in a circle as in Dosa/Pancake 

Fried in low to medium heat to ensure the patishapta is crisp yet soft. Flipped it over.

Made a snakelike shape with a tablespoonful of Pur and laid it lengthwise as is shown in the pic.

Folded the patishapta and turned it around a bit to give a golden brown look to it.

Served hot!!!

This Sankranti special delicacy is off to Foodabulous Fest Event organised by Preeti’s Kitchen Life.

Mushroom & (Pan) Roasted Broccoli Soup

Realised (seeing the date of my last post) that I'm posting after a year! Most of the times, the urge of posting has been pushed to the backburner, was due to lack of photographs! Several posts are gathering dust in the drafts for want of pictures ...

Managed to click a few quick pics and hence this post happened....and hopefully a few more will follow too!

Ingredients (yielded 4 soup bowls of soup)

Broccoli - 1 small - cut into small florets

White button mushrooms - 250 gms

Milk - 750 ml - boiled and lukewarm

Onion - 1/2 , finely chopped 

garlic cloves - 2-3, chopped.

Bay leaaf - 1 (optional)

Butter / Oil

grated processed cheddar for garnishing

Salt  & Pepper

Chili flakes - optional

crushed dried oregano leaves - optional

salt - I used rock/black salt (beet noon/kaala namak)

Procedure :

1. In a thick bottomed wok/kadai, pan roast (I used butter) the broccoli florets alternating between medium-to-high heat. Season with rock salt and freshly crushed pepper. Roast till the brocolli has a nice brownish speckles all over. Keep aside and let it cool.

2. Again in the wok,  heat butter / oil, and add the cleaned and halved mushroom and cook till water starts oozing out. sprinkle (black)salt and pepper while cooking. Take it off the gas before the water dries off.

3. Blend the roasted broccoli & fried mushrooms.

4. Again in the wok, add a tbsp of butter, add the bay leaf, some chopped onion and garlic and crushed pepper and a pinch of sugar for caramelisation (that's the bong in me!!) fry till the onions are golden brown. 

5. Add the blended broc-mush paste. Stir well. Check for salt and add if needed. 

6. Now to liquefy, on low heat, add the milk while stirring continuously till you get the desired thickness of your soup. Cover and bring to a boil.

7. Sprinkle chili flakes and crushed dried oregano leaves .

8. Serve after garnishing with grated cheese.

Yummy on a damp rainy evening!!

This is linked to Let’s Cook #18 ~ Starters / Appetizers

Mango Kulfi

Summer ….the season of Mangoes, vacations, sorbets, ice-creams, kulfis and more….

This summer has been a summer of Mango kulfis for us ….making kulfis almost every 3 days and relishing this awesome summer treat almost daily.

The recipe is a slight modification of Tarla Dalal’s mango kulfi recipe found here

Ingredients : yields 11-12 medium sized kulfis

Full Cream  Milk – ½ litre (the full cream part is optional)

Condensed milk  – ¾ cup of a 180ml cup (I used sweetened condensed milk)

Milk powder – ¾ cup of a 180 ml cup

Sugar (may be skipped if condensed milk is sweetened OR the mango is v.sweet) – 2 tbsp

Mango pulp of 3 -4 medium sized mangoes.

6 aluminium moulds

Procedure:

1.    Mix together the milk, condensed milk and milk powder  and bring to a boil and simmer for 5-7 minutes

2.    Cool down the mixture completely. I put it in the refrigerator to fasten the cooling process

3.     In the meantime, keep the mango pulp of 3-4 mangoes ready

4.     After the milk mix cools, add the pulp and give the mango-milk mix with a hand whipper.

5.     Pour into moulds and freeze.

     Take them out of the mould, or as Tarla Dalal says "demould" them.

6.   

          Serve, relish and attain mango nirvana!! ;))

This post is off to SERVE IT CHILLED
and also to 'SIMPLE AND IN SEASON'

Ministerial Khoya Chicken

NDTV Goodtimes is one of my favourite television channels. And though I'm not a v.regular TV watcher, when I do, this is one of the very few Indian television channels which I find entertaining without falling prey to yellow journalism, cheap publicity or the saas-bahu-rural belle sagas!

Quite some time back, I dont remember on which show, I'd come across this food show where celebrity chefs cook up a meal and during that particular episode it was Renuka Chowdhury's turn. The dish sounded simple and looked great and the culmination of the myriad subtle flavours just had to make this chicken dish delicious !

But khoya not being a regular feature in my kitchen, somehow the recipe never got made, till the other day, when I had left over khoya after making the pantua.

Ingredients:
Chicken – 1 kg cut into medium sized pieces
Onion- finely sliced – 2 small or 1 large
ginger-garlic paste – 1-2 tbspn
Haldi/turmeric - a pinch
Khoya - 250gm (See procedure of previous post)
Curd about 250gm
green chillies slit coriander - finely chopped – a large bunch coconut milk – milk from a medium sized coconut salt - to taste
Oil

Procedure:

1. Heat oil in a wok and fry the onions till pink & transparent.

2. Add the ginger-garlic paste and cook.
3. Add the chillies, chicken and turmeric. Stir well on medium flame. Cover and cook for about 10 minutes or till the chicken is golden brown in colour.
4.Add the curd and the khoya. Stir again.
5. Sprinkle ¾ th of the chopped coriander and mix well.

6. Continue cooking till the chicken is almost done.

7. Pour in the coconut milk and stir. Cook for 5-6 minutes.
8. Garnish with coriander leaves.

Serve with steamed rice, Roti, Paratha, Naan.

It was finger licking delicious indeed!!

Shubho Naboborshe Mishti Mukh with Pantua!