Flavours Of India

An archetypal Bengali considers food an important aspect of daily life. That’s why you will find Bengali food full of variety and having the essence of freshness and experimentation to make them better and best. Fish, Meat, Mix Vegetables, Sweet dishes and other food items are debated and discussed well among Bengali intellectuals. The housewives and cooks of Bengali recipes spend enormous time in their kitchens to prepare delicious dishes. The Bengali recipes are known for their variety. They make perfect combination of all types of vegetables, leafy green vegetables, some raw fruits like raw mango, raw papaya, and dry fruits to prepare different types of recipes.

What again differentiates Bengali recipes from other recipes in India is their extensive use of mustard oil for cooking. Health wise mustard oil is also a good oil to cook and it adds a different kind of flavor to the food cooked. The use of spices too differs, that is they use the same spices which are used throughout India, but their application is different. The specialty of all types of Bengali cooking lies in the use of a particular mixture of spices called Panchphoron, a mixture of five spices – zeea, saunf, fenugreek, mustard seeds, and kalaunji. They also mix some sweet flavors in some recipes for incredible taste and color. Sugar added to mutton recipes or chicken recipes of Bengali provides a very good color to the gravy.

The staple diet of any Bengali is rice, sabji, dal and fish. They prepare different types of fish recipes to relish with rice. A discrete flavor is instructed to the fishes by frying them in mustard oil. They fry the fishes deep brown till they become something crunchy.  Then they cook the fishes in gravy. Whatever you eat, the typical Bengali dishes end with sweets – either misti dahi or rasogolla.

If you ever go into a Bengali market, you will find the fish market crowded with different types of fishes and sea food like – carp, hilsa, salmon, rohu, bhekti, magur, prawns, koi, lataya, singe and other types of nutritious and delicious fishes.

Here is a recipe:

Bengali Style Mutton Dry

You would require:
500 gm mutton for 4 servings, minced garlic cloves, 2 onions finely chopped and blended with garlic and ginger in a blender, turmeric powder, chilly powder, garam masala, meat masala, 1 cup curd, 2 bay leaves, 1 cup mustard oil, salt to taste, and tomato finely mashed.

Before you start the dry mutton recipe, put the mutton into a pressure cooker cutting them into bite pieces and put over the flame till you hear 7-8 whistles. Now put the pressure aside. Take the pan and heat the oil and sauté the mixture of onion-garlic-ginger till the color turns brownish. Add the mashed tomato and sauté in low steam for 2-3 mnutes. Now add all the types of masalas and sauté for another 2 minutes. Add little water to it and sauté for 1 minute. Open the cooker and add the mutton on the frying pan. Add salt of required amount. Add little water and mix them well with the mutton. Cover it and cook for 10 minutes in medium steam. The mutton dry is ready to be served with sauce or toasted bun.

Here's the exotic recipe of your favorite Mutton Briyani in Moghul style, which you would love for sure.

Ingredients:

2 medium peeled and diced potatoes, ¾ mutton leg cut into 4 cm pieces, 3 large thinly sliced onions, 1 cup vegetable oil, 1 ½ salt

For marinade:

16 flakes garlic, 6 dry plums, 20 gm ginger, 6 green chilies, 6 blanched and halved almonds, 1medium sized chopped tomato, 2 tbsp chopped coriander leaves, 2 tbsp chopped mint leaves, 1 ½ tbsp red chili powder, 1 ½ garam masala powder, 1 tsp salt, 1 tbsp cumin seeds, a pinch of saffron dissolved in 1 tbsp of hot water, 1 cup beaten curd

For rice:

6 cups water, 2 ½ cups washed basmati rice, 2 green cardamom, 1 tbsp salt, and ¼ cup milk, ¼ tsp caraway seeds

Method:

For marinade:

1. Make nice paste of ginger, chillies and garlic in a grinder. Now rub this paste into meat. Also, add other ingredients for marinade. Mix all well and kept aside for about hours or overnight in a refrigerator.

2. In a fry pan, heat some oil for 3 minutes, fry potatoes in it.now add the potato in the marinated meat and mix them well.

3. Make 2 batches of onions. Fry the each batch of onions in remaining oil with ¾ tsp of salt till onions turns golden brown and crisp. Now remove onions in strainer to drain off the excess oil from them. Crumble the fried onions so that you can add them to the marinated meat.

For rice:

1. Pour 6 cups of water in a cooker and bring it to a boil. Now and salt and rice and stir well. Close the cooker. Bring to full pressure on high heat. Then remove cooker immediately from the heat. Reduce pressure by placing cooker in basin of cold water for about 2 minutes. Now open the cooker and transfer rice to a colander to drain off.

2. Again wash and wipe off your cooker. Heat 7 tbsp of vanaspati in cooker for 3 minutes. Add meat with marinade and mix well. Also put the remaining water to it.

3. Remove cooker from heat. Tilt cooker and shift meat to one side of cooker. Add rice to the other side.sprinkle milk on rice.

4. In a pan, heat oil or a minute and fry the cardamoms caraway seeds in it.afterwards pour the same evenly over the rice.

5. Now close the cooker and cook it on full pressure for 20 minutes. Later remove it from heat and let it cool naturally. Open the cooker. Transfer rice onto a serving dish. Top with meat and masala. Serve hot with onion salad or raita.