Duck in Orange Sauce

Once upon a time there was a restaurant in Dhaka called Le Saigon. Unobtrusive and select. Never hit the radar. So different from most restaurants in Dhaka.

Anyway, I am getting ahead. This post is dedicated to this quaint romantic restaurant and to Shammubhai who runs the restaurant in his own unique way.

Borrowed from Shammubhai, here's Duck in Orange Sauce.

Ingredients (Serves 4):

Duck- 1 (Skinned, cut into bite sized pieces)
Orange- 1
Fresh Orange Juice- 2 cups
Red chilli-3
Sugar- 2 tbsp
Oil- for frying
Salt

Marinade:

Fish Sauce- 2 tsp

Ginger- 1/2 in shredded

Red chilli- 2 Shredded

Salt- To taste
Pepper- 2 tsp

Preparation:

Marinate the duck for 2 hours. Deep fry marinated duck pieces till golden brown. Add sugar to caramelize. Add orange juice. Simmer over low flame. Reduce sauce till thick. Add red chillis and orange segments. Serve hot with with rice.

Tips:

In case you are in Dhaka and are looking for a different dining experience, I would heartily recommend Le Saigon (You can find recipes from Chef Que here.)

Bengali Sona Muger Dal

One of the evergreen favourites at any Bengali meal- Moong Dal cooked in ghee. Somehow, despite trying so many times, never could recreate either the aroma or the taste that Mom used to get. Maybe it was some secret ingredient she never told us, or maybe it was just her. Who knows, here’s a recipe from the time I got closest to that old flavour.


Ingredients (Servers 2):

Moong Dal -½ cup (Would be best if you could get the variety we call ‘Sona Mung’ in Bengal)
Ghee- 1 tbsp
Cumin seeds (jeera)- ¼ tsp
Salt to taste
Sugar to taste

Preparation:

Wash dal and dry. Put a pan on low heat and add dal. Keep stirring constantly till dal starts emitting a sweet aroma. Take care not to burn dal to brown. Now add salt and water and boil dal till soft. If you are using a pressure cooker, you should boil till two whistles.

Heat ghee in frying pan, and add the cumin seeds. Once the cumin seeds start to pop add the strained dal and cook for five minutes. Add the water leftover from boiling the dal, salt sugar to taste and a pinch of turmeric powder. Cook till an even consistency. Add 1 tsp of ghee, cover and take off flame.

Serve hot with rice. This aromatic and creamy dal can be had with rice as a complete meal. The best part is that not only does it taste great, but between dal and rice, they have all the amino acids required by the body. So you have a meal which covers all food groups- complete protein, carbohydrates and fat.

Suran ala Crème

No cream in this one. But picked up the name just because of the consistency of the final dish (plus I had created a dish called ….ala Crème). The inspiration behind this dish came while thinking of what could we have with poached fish. Was looking for something, that would be spicy, mashed like potato or tapioca and was different from your run of the mill flavours. Chancing upon yam at the supermarket, gave it a try.

Bon appetite.

[Incidentally, the fire extinguisher that you see in the picture has no specific relation to my confidence on pulling this dish off. It’s standard issue on all my cooking adventures. ;) ]

Ingredients:

Suran (Yam; a.k.a. ‘Ol’ in Bengali) - 400 gm
Onions- 5 large
Garlic- 3 large cloves
Ginger- ¼ inch stick (shredded)
Cinnamon – ¼ cm stick (coarsely crushed)
Turmeric- 1 ½ tsp
Red chilli- 6
Sugar- ½ tbsp
Cooking oil- 2 tbsp
Salt to taste


Preparation:

De-skin the yam and cut into ½ inch cubes, the smaller the better. Boil with turmeric and salt till macerated. Take off from flame and let cool. Julienne the onions and garlic. Heat oil in a non-stick pan and add onions, garlic and ginger. Fry on low heat till the onions start losing their colour. Strain the yam pieces and add to the pan. Keep cooking over low flame for five minutes.

Slowly add the turmeric-water-yam stock. By now the yam pieces would have really become soft. Now, mash the yams while still in the pan. Add the sugar and salt for taste. Break the red chillis’ into small pieces and mash into the yam paste. Keep adding water and cooking over low flame till the yam becomes a paste with the consistency of thick yogurt. Mix in cinnamon powder, cover and let cook for five minutes.

Serve hot with pancakes or rice or as an accompaniment to poached or fried fish with steamed fish. Warning!!!- Because of the large amount of chilli in the dish, this dish will bring tears (of joy I hope) to all but the most die-hard hot food aficionado.


Tips:

• Sometimes, if not cooked properly, yam causes an itchy feeling on lips and throat. Nothing serious, but in case you fall prey, just suck on a slice of lemon.

Pineapple Chicken

‘Something about how they cook chicken with pineapples in the Philippines’- The vaguest recollection about this was that I had read an article in Reader’s Digest when I was in junior school, and yet this memory kept coming back. So finally on this New Year’s Day, based on the vaguest of ideas of how it will taste, I tried to put this idea to test

Ingredients (Serves two):

Chicken breast – 600 gm (diced into bite sized pieces)
Pineapple- 250 gm can conserved
Ginger- 2 inch stick (coarsely chopped)
Pepper- 3 tsp (Whole)
Lime- 1 whole
Red chilli- 2 whole
Oil- for cooking
Salt –To taste
Optional: Lemon grass- Half a stick (in ½ inch pieces)


Preparation:

Make small incisions in chicken cubes to speed up cooking. Bruise ginger lightly and add to chicken pieces. Toss in the pineapple along with the syrup and squeeze in half a lemon. Mix thoroughly and let it marinate for 2 hours. The enzymes in the pineapple, along with the lemon will tenderize the chicken.

Heat oil in a pan and fry chicken till tender. Once the chicken is cooked, add a little more oil and throw in the pineapple pieces. Let it simmer for five minutes. Coarsely crush the pepper corns with the flat knife side. Now add pepper and garlic from the marinade along with the red chillis (for flavour). Add remaining marinade and salt to taste. Cover and reduce flame to low. For those willing to experiment, you could add the lemon grass now. However, lemon grass with its overpowering flavour can unbalance the gingery sweet taste of the dish. Some like it some don’t. I leave the choice to you.

Leave on simmer till sauce is reduced to a consistency of a thick soup. Before serving sprinkle a little lime juice on chicken. Serve hot with rice.

This dish is simple to cook. Estimated cooking time is ½ - ¾ of an hour and is a combination of many flavours. The first impression is the sweet pineapple taste which combines well with the chicken. As you munch along, the other flavours that you chance upon, the tart lime juice sprinkled in the end, the piquant taste of ginger and hot bite from the coarsely crushed pepper refreshes the palette and reawakens the sense of smell as you move along.


Tips:

Being a sweetish dish, I would recommend a side dish of a spice vegetable (dominant flavour being hot) so that the palette does not get jaded. I tried it with a side dish of mashed yam (Suran ala crème) and pancakes.

Dessert suggestion- With a main course whose dominant flavour is sweet, it’s extremely difficult to find a dessert. An alternative could be a tart fruit like Kiwi. Peel Kiwi, slice into thin chunks and chill in freezer. Just when your guests are done, serve in martini glasses topping off each serving with a ripe cherry. Accompany with whole wheat crackers and a dry ripe cheese.

Star Fruit and Shrimp Salad.

I am in one of those “Eat Healthy” phases. For the past few days my lunch at office has been fresh fruits or salads, of course rounded off by the once in a while pizza. While thinking of new salad ideas thought up this one, and seems it turned out not to bad. For those of you wondering whether or not I tried it out myself, well, I have. ;)

It’s a pretty nifty one. Refreshing on a hot summer’s afternoon or as a cold snack when you return from office.

Ingredients:

Star Fruit/ Carambola (or ‘Kamranga' as we call them in Bengali)- 1 green, the more tender the better the tart taste.

Shrimp- 200 gms, shelled and boiled in salt water with Paprika.

Paprika coarsely ground into powder- To taste.

Salt to Taste

Preparation:

Slice the fingers of the Carambola lengthwise, leaving behind the core which contains the pips. Chop these into small triangles. Sprinkle a healthy dose of paprika onto the shrimp. Salt to taste. Toss with the Carambola slivers. Chill. Serve.

Tips:

• Originally thought of making a dressing with 'Saké, and 'Wasabi'. Marinade the prawns in this pungent mix. And post marinade, you could mix in a little more sake and pour over the salad as dressing.
  
• To increase volume you can add shredded salad greens.
  

Mutton Stew With Coconut Milk

Picked up from a former roomie. Modified from a traditional Malyali recipe, this one has a nice creamy taste and you can add vegetables as you want to make this as nutritious as you want.

Ingredients (Serves 2):

Mutton/ Lamb- 250 gms
Coconut milk- 1 cup
Carrot- 1 medium sized, chopped
French beans- 50 gm, chopped
Onions- 4 large, finely sliced
Cinnamon- 3 large sticks
Sun dried red chillies- 3
Salt, sugar to taste
Oil - 2 tbsp

Preparation:

Boil mutton with salt till tender. Fry onions till white and mushy. Add mutton, cinnamon stick and cook till fat leaves the sides. Add the chopped vegetable. Stir in the coconut milk slowly, cover and cook over low flame. Regulary stir and add the stock bit by bit. Reduce gravy.

Tips:

Traditionally eaten with appams, but goes just as well with rice. Goes well with brown toast, just make the gravy thicker.

Greek Salad

Whatever, I like calling this a Greek Salad, therefore a Greek Salad it is. Fast to cook. And as one of my girl friends like calling it, the perfect 'horny-porny' food.

Ingredients:

Iceberg lettuce- 4
Cherry tomatoes- Half a handful
Black olives depipped and chopped- Half a handful
Feta cheese- 100 gm, chopped into small pieces
Mushrooms- Half a handful
Baby corn- 6 small
Pepper corns, roasted- 1 tsp
Olive oil and vinegar dressing

Preparation: [The snaps not mine, but does look inspiring:)]

Wash all the greens thoroughly. Chill iceberg lettuce. Throw all ingredients together in mixing bowl, shred chilled lettuce, add to bowl. Toss around with olive oil and vinegar dressing and a little salt for taste and volia, your salad's ready.

Tips:

• Perfect for a brunch after a late night. Also goes very well as an entree for dinner.
• Works perfectly with white wine and candleight. ;)

Sauted Veggies with Mustard Twist

A quick dish for the times you want a veggie side dish for a heavy meal.

Ingredients (Serves 2):
Potatoes- 3 large
Tomato- 1 small
Spring onions sprigs- 100 gms
Onions- 1 large
Oil- 2 tsp
Pepper corns- 1/2 tsp
Mustard seeds- 1 tsp
Salt & sugar to taste


Preparation:
Boil potatoes. Heat oil in pan, and fry onions till golden, add the chopped potatoes along with mustard seeds, pepper corns, salt, sugar to taste. Fry till potatoes are almost cooked. Add chopped tomatoes, spring onions and a few sprigs of corriander. Cover. In five minutes it can be served.

Methi Chicken

This one's passed down from a cousin of mine. This was the first dish cooked successfully for a lunch for junta, my first success as a host. This one's for you Gopalda. This one can be whipped up in a jiffy, about twenty-five minutes actual cooking time, is minimal fuss and requires very simple ingredients.

Ingredients (Serves- 2):
Chicken- 300 gms
Curd/ Yogurt- 100 gms
Green chillis- 3
Chilli powder- 1/2 tsp
Methi seeds- tsp
Oil- 2 tbsp
Salt and sugar to taste

Preparation:
Prepare a marinade of beaten curd, salt, chilli powder, salt. Marinate chicken for 2 hrs.
Heat oil, add methi seeds on low flame. Just as they start turning golden brown, add chicken pieces. Once the fat leaves the sides, add the marinade into the pan, stir and and leave covered for fifteen minutes. Once the chicken is done, slit the chillis lengthwise and add. Serve hot.

Tips:
The taste though similar to most creamy chicken dishes is suprisingly different because of the methi and the smell of green chillis added in the end. Great with rice.

Mutton Stew with Green Papaya.

Today's cooking day. A holiday after almost a continous month of working. Avi's coming home for dinner, maybe that inspired me to cook for the whole day. This one's easy, a mutton stew, low on oil and easy to cook. The predominant flavours is from the cinnammon and the green papaya. The green papaya once thorougly cooked also forms the base of the gravy, giving it a slightly different flavour. Approx cooking time- 1 hr.

Ingredients (Serves 4):
Mutton/ Lamb- 500 gms
Green Papaya- 500 gms
Onions- 3 large, sliced
Garlic- 3 large cloves, minced
Ginger- 1 inch stick, coarsely chopped
cinnammon- 2 or 3 inch long pieces
Red chillis- 3 large
Red chilli powder, turmeric powder
Bayleaves-3
Sugar, salt to taste
Oil - 3 tbsp

Preparation:
Put mutton to boil with salt, turmeric and half the chopped ginger. Chop green papaya into small pieces and add to boiling mutton. Keep boiling till meat is tender. Once mutton is tender, heat oil in pan and add onions, garlic, ginger, red chillis, cinnammon. Add a little sugar to the pan for taste and colour. Cook over low heat till onions soften. Add the mutton pieces and keep stirring to thourougly cook the mutton. Keep stirring contiously, till fat leaves the sides. Slowly add stock bit by bit and keep cooking over a low flame. Keep over low flame for twenty minutes and then add remaining stock with ht half cooked papaya. Stir, cover and let simmer over low flame, till gravy thickens.

Tips:
Serve with steaming rice or can be eaten with pancakes or appams (just reduce the gravy).

Dak Bungalow style Chicken Jhol.

Remember those hurried meals put together at the end of a hard day's travel at dim ly lit circuit houses or government dak-bungalows. Thrown together by the chowkidar-caretaker-cook, the taste still lingers on. Probably the wonder of childhood, when things were so much more mysterious and the whole world was waiting to be discovered was the magic of the dish. Here's my attempt to recreate that magic.

Ingredients:

Chicken -1kg, cut into small pieces
Onions- 3 large chopped
Garlic- 2 large cloves, finely chopped
Ginger- 1/2 inch shredded
Oil-1 tbsp
Corriander powder.
Chilli powder
Turmeric powder
Salt, sugar to taste

Preparation:

Boil chicken with salt and keep the stock separately. Heat oil in pan, add onions, ginger, garlic. Add a little sugar to the onions to caramalize it and for colour. Once the onions are white, add chicken, and fry over high flame till tender. Add turmeric powder and chilli powder to taste. Lower flame, add chicken stock and simmer for 15 mins.
Add a tsp of corriander powder, cover and cook for 10 mins. Serve hot with rice.

"Doi Maach"

One of the traditional "must haves" at all Bengali weddingsis the "Doi Maach". Rain or shine, summer or winter, no wedding would be complete without the doi-maach. Slightly sweet, fragrant from mysterious spics, served on steaming white rice on green banana plates. Oh, I wish were back home in Calcutta.

Here's an adaptation that can be whipped up in a jiffy.

Ingrediants (Serves 2):

4 x 100 gm pieces of rohu ( or any other fresh water carp).

1/ 2 cup of whipped plain curd or yogurt

Mustard oil ( Somehow, when it comes to fish, nothing else seems to substitute for the pungency of mustard oil)

4 large onions diced coarsely

1 large clove of garlic

3 small pods of cardamom

1 quarter inch stick of cinnammon

3 sun dried red chillis

2 bay leaves

Red chilli powder, turmeric, salt, sugar to taste

Preparation:

Clean fish, sprinlke a teaspoon each of turmeric, chilli powder and salt. Mix evenly and set aside for half an hour. Heat 4 tbsps of mustard oil on a high flame till smoking. Carefully add the fish and fry till they are an even golden red (be careful as the oil tends to spurt, if you are not very confident, you can fry the fish two pieces at a time). Remove fish from pan and turn down the flame. Now sautee the onions and garlic till they become translucnt. Add bay leaves and red chillis.

Now slowly stir in the yougurt adding a little water from time to time to get the consistency that you want for the final gravy. Add turmeric powder, red chilli powder, salt and sugar to taste. Add fish followed by the cardamoms and cinnammon. Cover and let simmer for twenty minutes.

Serve hot with steaming rice and whole green chillis as garnish.

Tips:

• Suggestions for a complete meal- Rice, "sukto" (the Bengali equivalent of 'avial'), moong dal with peas, doi-maach and ice-cream sandesh for dessert.

Mutton Rezalla- The original Mughlai lamb stew.

Maybe, those of you who grew up in Calcutta, will be familiar with the Delhi Durbar off Park Street. It was a ginghy place with dirty ceramic tiles, flies and eternally playing “Sun saga sun, Pyare ke dhun”. The place served great Biriyani & Chicken Chap but its claim to fame was the Mutton Rezalla. No winter morning excursions, whether to the zoo, or the museum or the Birla Industrial Museum would be complete without lunch at Delhi Durbar. Even so many years later, every time I hear Mutton Rezalla, I can almost taste the milky creaminess of that Rezalla

All this was before our dear friend Mr. Rashid Khan, who owned the place got hauled up for blowing up a whole building on Chowrungee Avenue in 1993. Here’s my attempt to conjure up that Rezalla.

Ingredients (Serves 4):

400 gms mutton or lamb in small pieces

200 gms beaten curd or plain yogurt

3 tbsp butter or white oil

2 large cloves of garlic shredded

2 inch cinnamon sticks

3 small cardamom pods

4 roasted peppercorns.

Salt to taste

Sugar to taste if you prefer a slightly sweet taste

Preparation:

Boil the lamb/ mutton till tender with the garlic and salt (Normally it takes three whistles in my pressure cooker). Once the meat is tender, heat the butter in a pan at low heat and add cinnamon, pepper and cardamoms. Stir till light brown and then add the mutton. Once the fats left the sides add the stock in small portions.

Cover and let it stew in its own juices for fifteen odd minutes before turning down the flame to simmer. Add the beaten curd while stirring continuously otherwise the curd tends to coagulate. Add a small stick of cinnamon for aroma and cover for ten minutes. Before taking down add salt and sugar to taste.

Tips:

• Best enjoyed hot with roomali roti’s or naan. The whole taste of the Rezalla is very light and sweet with the smell of the whole roasted spices being the key to the experience. Hence would recommend that you do not serve a highly spicy dish containing a lot of garlic/ onion as in the same meal.
• Ideally, Mutton Rezalla was originally cooked by frying the mutton directly in ghee. However, cut short time and due to my initial mishaps in trying to cook Mutton Rezalla in the traditional manner has necessitated this approach.
• Best accompanied by Ghulam Ali and maybe a red wine.

Pan Fried Koral

‘Koral’ or Bhetki as it is known outside Bangladesh is a sea fish with a dry, lightly oily flesh. I picked up this recipe from a colleague’s wife last week. Not only did she share her cooking tips with me, she was kind enough to pack the remaining fish for me – ‘You know poor bachelor who loves fish but has to subsist on Maggi and Top Ramen for most of the week.’ :)

The following is a modified formulation that I developed from the same.

Ingredients (Serves 4):

Koral- Whole, about 1 Kg-1 ½ Kg
Worcester Sauce
Dark Soy Sauce
One Lemon
Onions- 3 medium sized finely chopped
Garlic- 1 large clove shredded
Red chilli powder- 1 tsp
Basil- To taste
Ground Pepper- 2 tsp
Fresh pepper corns- 1 tsp
White oil – 4 tbsp
Sugar to taste
Salt to taste

Preparation:

Clean the fish and pierce its sides with a fork so that the marinade can be absorbed faster. Mix dark soy sauce, Worcester sauce, the lemon juice, garlic, salt, ground pepper, chilli powder and pour over the fish. Let it marinate for as long as possible (I kept it for 6 hours). Keep turning it after every hour.

Heat oil in a large non stick fry pan, add the onions and sauté till they are golden brown. Add sugar (The sugar caramelizes to give a lovely brown colour and overpowers the highlights of Worcester sauce and soy sauce in the marinade). Add the fish to the pan and keep on lowest possible flame. Do not add the remaining marinade immediately. Cover and let it simmer for ten minutes.

Turn fish over and cover. Keep repeating this exercise for an hour. In between keep adding the remaining marinade bit by bit so that the fish does not get too dry and stick to the pan. After about an hour the fish will be nicely done (To test if the fish is done or not pierce with a fork, if the fork comes off cleanly, then its done), Add ½ tst sugar to the mix, a little water if required, and remaining marinade. The gravy should be very thick but not burnt.

Roast pepper corns on naked flame and add to the fish. Sprinkle basil lightly. Cover and let it cook for another ten minutes. Serve hot.

Tips:

• You can serve this with wedges of lemon that your guests can sprinkle on. In this case I would recommend that you go light on the onions and garlic in the gravy.
• If you intend to have this as a main course for a traditional rice and fish Bengali dinner, then have a good dal as an accompaniment and maybe a dish like aloo- jeera as a prelude as this one does not have much of a curry. Also, make sure that the earlier dishes are not heavy on oil/ ghee, turmeric or spices as this would dull the sense of smell and the taste buds from appreciating it.
• Recommended dessert: Roast and grind a small cinnamon stick (1/4 inch) and a couple of coffee beans (instant coffee if you are like me. Scoop out vanilla ice cream in serving dishes. Lightly sprinkle with cinnamon and coffee powder. The bitter taste and sharp smell on creamy vanilla ice cream will help dispel all lingering fishy after taste and prove a nice contrast.
• Works wonders when accompanied by a dry white wine, candles and romantic oldies. ;)

Egg and Olive Salad

Perfect for an evening of cocktails, especially snappy to make and serve. Being cheesy and non spicy, it goes well at the end of an evening of heavy drinking. Maybe a great snack otherwise, but never had occasion to try it out without booze.

Ingredients:

Salad:-

• 1 cupful of sun dried/ pickled in brine black olives (could substitute with green ones, but black olives bring out the flavour better)

• 3 hard boiled egg whites

• 1 small apple (preferably the slightly unripe, juicy ones)

• 100 gm parboiled baby corn (just ensure that the corn does not become squishy due to over boiling)

• ½ teaspoon fresh peppercorns

Dressing:

Garlic Salad dressing, at least that’s what I picked up. If you can’t pick up a ready made “Garlic Salad dressing”, then I suggest that you grind a couple of cloves of garlic and whip into half a cup mayonnaise and give it a final whip with a little (balsamic) vinegar, a teeny bit of basil.

Preparation:

All you have to do is mix all the ingredients, add dressing, place in a serving bowl and chill for five minutes before serving.

Tips:

Would be nice if you can roast the peppercorns slightly before use

For those counting calories, I would recommend skipping the mayo. Instead just whip out a dressing of balsamic vinegar, finely ground garlic, a tbsp olive oil and a dash of basil.

You could also add shredded icy cold lettuce to the salad, wanted to try out the combo but never managed to get fresh lettuce here.

Over a statistically significant number of trials, have built up my faith on the efficacy of this salad’s wonders at quelling squeamish stomachs and reduce hangovers the next day.

Steamed Hilsa

Steamed Hilsa (Bhapa Ilish)

All Bengalis (on both sides of the border) swear by the wonders of the Hilsa. The following is a simple recipie for steamed hilsa customized for easy cooking and healthy eating.


Hilsa (6pcs) in 6tsp mustard seeds ground to a paste, salt to taste, ½ tbs sugar. 1 tsp, turmeric, a little red chilli powder (optional), green chillies- 3 (slit lengthwise to expose the seeds) and 3 tbsp mustard oil.

Put the container with closed lid in the pressure cooker or a microwave. Let the steam rise. Put the weight on top & sim for 5 mins. Put off the gas. Let stand till steam cools. if you are microwaving then cook at medium heat for fifteen minutes.

Take out and serve with hot steamed rice with green chillies fon the side.

Tips:

• Do not add water during the marination or the steaming process. The mixture tends to separate out and the juices of the fish are lost.
• You can moderate the amount of oil to be used if you are very health concious. In fact if the mustard seeds are fresh you can cut down the oil required to about a single tbsp.
• Best when eaten hot on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Accompanied by great company and Debabrata Biswas's RabindraSangeet or Dylan (according to your preferences) and the a small pre-lunch Vodka with lime.
• If you can't find Hilsa, a possible alternative could be "Shad"
  

[Photo courtesy:Bong Mom's Cookbook]