Lau Chingri ( Bottle gourd with Prawns)

Long long time ago, when I had no appreciation for Bottle gourd, this was still one dish I'll like to have with rice. It was a delicacy then, as prawns were elusive and we got to eat it only during wedding feast or special occasions when someone could procure it from the bazaars of Delhi and there was enough to make priority prawns dishes first and lau chingri was only an after thought.
It took me quite a while to appreciate sweetness in my veggies, dal, fish and meat. Traditionally West Bengal cuisine sweetness is critical some family over do this by adding sugar to the dishes. A sweet tasting potato samosa that I had when I visited Kolkata in my early teens made me weary and nervous.
Even in my recent trips to Kolkata, family meals as well as eating out have been a struggle, with dishes generously doused with sugar otherwise known to be savory tasting all my life.
I now realize that what makes Bengali cuisine popular in recent times has been this blend of sweetness in a given dish, the amount added and the time of addition is critical, primarily role of sugar is to get a natural caramelized taste and colour in your meat,rice,fish and certain vegetable preparation... some vegetables calls for a pinch of sweetness as they are often sweet to taste in its natural form (bottle gourd is an example) to me the rest the dishes are made sweet as it's addictive and the salt tolerance for most of the bongs (particularly the people from west Bengal) is less. So from dal to Chutney to the fish jhol to the sondesh all will have a varied degree of sweetness to it.

Lau Chingri is a dish which is indeed sweet and creamy, the lau adds the mushy, creamy quality to the dish while chingri gives the flavor and both are sweet which becomes a common factor that holds the dish.
Bottle Gourd, diced into cubes, about half an inch. Boil it with a pinch of salt and keep it aside.
Chingri or Prawns, you don't have to worry about the size the smallest of them will work, the meat is not important here its the flavor!
Coconut milk, I made my own by adding half cup milk to 4 generous spoonful of grated coconut, I added half a tea spoon of sesame seeds to this, it adds body to the milk you can even try adding few chasewnuts blend it in a mixie and stain the milk.
Whole red chilly, Musturd seeds for tempering
Ghee + Vegetable Oil as medium, stir frying the chingri in ghee makes a huge difference!
In a shallow pan add oil and temper it with red whole chili and mustard, add the boiled and diced bottle gourd and let it simmer in high flame for a bit so the extra water for the gourd is vaporised, to this add a spoonful of ghee and add the chingri , let the fish redden and curl up but do not over cook. It's best to use a lid and cook so that the prawns does not loose its juices.
Add a pinch of salt and a generous amount of sugar to this,(a tea spoon is generous amount for me) you can add a pinch of red chili powder as well. Close the lid and cook for a few. Finally add the coconut milk and lower the heat let it simmer for a minute till you a get a nice gravy consistency and the juices should blend in well with lau and the chigri.
Add a small dollop of ghee again before serving and add diced fried coconut as a garnish.

Easy hummus

The ingredients:
Boiled Chickpeas or what we call Choley a cup of it, retain the water,
Tahini, or sesame seed paste, well I made my own by first roasting 3 heaps of it on tawa and then making a fine paste by adding olive oil and some water from boiled chickpea.
Roasted Garlic, a few cloves
Lime juice
Salt and pinch of sugar for taste
Olive oil lots of it.

Blend all the ingredients in a blender; add olive oil time and again till you get a smooth paste like consistency.

You can use Hummus as a spread or a dip!
It goes very well with roasted or pan fried brinjal, toasted brown bread, tortilla chips or as a spread on a sandwich with meat and veggies.

Ideal weekend evening!

An ideal Saturday evening: Old friends and new faces, reliving hostel life, getting drunk putting your feet up watch Fedrer win and yes wrapping it up with a sumptuous dosa meal(oil free) with hot relish and some sweet to tuck in later.Perfect.

Cabbage relish

Tea recipies on a coaster

I did some work for Tetley, came up with these tea recipes.

Mezzeh me....

Me and S went to Mezzeh, a Lebanese restaurant part of a multi-level multi-cuisine restaurant called World Cuisine N on 80 feet Road Indranagar Bangalore. A rooftop lounge bar complete with Lebanese music (sounded Arabic to us) and a cozy sit out. Having no experience with either the food or the music the menu was alien to us. Although we could figure what Hummus and Baba ghanuosh was, everything else complicated with no or poor explanation of the items. Some names were Arabic and only after ordering the first course I could make what it was all about… meat and bread with lots of dips…. The dairy dip section read funny as it seemed just a yogurt dip costed a whooping 150/- bucks with no mention of the bread that accompanies it and the amount of dip with 2 small bread or khobbus was quite inadequately priced and portioned. Only after paying a lot of attention around one can make out what the dish might look/taste like.
Although a woman attendant rushed in to help us but a common problem I noticed about restaurant in Bangalore is that either they have very poor English or their accent failed miserably to explain what is on offer.
Although the menu was in order of starters and main course, but we decided to do the reverse which was not a bad idea at all! I felt a better work can be done with the menu plan and execution so it helps people understand how to order and what is on offer... with our confused state we ordered a meat platter which was part of the main course with our drinks....the mezzeh meat platter arrived with chicken kebabs, mutton kebabs, lamb ribs and what looked like a beef bacon. The chicken kebabs was good but the mutton one ( looked like boti kakab was done rare.)
I enjoyed the khabbus or the bread on which all the meat was laid out, the cream dip was garlicky and tasty but I missed having some roughage to go with the dip.
Our ordering backwards continued and we asked for kakabs on skewers followed by a yogurt dip with khabbus, this time around the dip was a let down as it was more sour than creamy and the khabbus were unlike what came before, large and moist, instead they were dry flavorless kulcha like.
All in all I enjoyed my meal but not sure if coming back for meat and bread is a good idea for the cost was steep and the service and the potions confusing!

...from my visual journal