A good beginning

It is exactly six months since I scribbled “Darjeeling Express” in my diary. What started as a doodle on a train journey is now a successful supper club series in London that has seen over 100 guests! Today I look back with amazement, and gratitude, at how much has happened since that Spring morning.

One of the events closest to my heart is the Supperheroes fund raiser for the Love Food Give Food campaign by Action Against Hunger. It was the first supperclub held at my home and felt like the most auspicious start to my new venture..

The evening was billed as: Indian Street Food Mela - An evening of Bollywood music and authentic flavours of Indian street food for a really good cause. Come dressed as the dance diva of the 70s Helen or King Khan Shahrukh Khan! And if dressing up is not your thing…then just come for the food!

And what a fabulous night it turned out to be! My guests made every effort to recreate the glamour of Bollywood in my living room and the music had them all swaying all evening. Take a look at the photograph some of my stunning guests that evening! The freshly made Puris were a big hit that night and so was the Papri Chaat. See the entire menu and guest feedback here.

The icing on the cake for me was that we raised £800 for such a great cause that night. The comment by Cassy Olszewski (Food Related Fundraising Coordinator for Action Against Hunger) put it all in perspective. She wrote, that the money raised at the Darjeeling Express Indian Street Food Mela supperclub was “…enough to provide a month’s supply of therapeutic nutritional products to nurse over 20 severely malnourished children back to health…“.

A few days after the Supperheroes supperclub I went to the “Can blogging end child hunger?” workshop organised by Action Against Hunger at the Good Agency. I was intrigued to hear how social media could be used to promote awareness of issues related to child malnutrition. It was very clear from the discussion in the room that food waste, food price speculation and food distribution were central to the debate.

One small step we could take to help children understand the link between waste and starvation is by cooking with them. The conversation about waste then becomes not just an academic discussion but a practical one where children play an active part. Let’s eat together as families more often! Let’s make that commitment for the future of our children.

I am sharing a simple recipe which is an easy dish to prepare with a child. The Salmon and Dill Masala Kabab was one of the starters at my Indian Street Food Mela supperclub. It is very mildly spiced and will taste as delicious even without the chillies. The ingredients are familiar to an average British child and I even managed to get a group of 5 year olds to help me prepare this at my son’s Primary School! I am thrilled to report that they ate the kabab very happily. (I have to add though that we had to offer ketchup on the side to the reluctant eaters)

SALMON AND DILL MASALA KABAB

INGREDIENTS:

• 400 gms cooked salmon (Tinned Pink or Red Salmon can also be used)
• 4 medium sized boiled potatoes, mashed
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil (groundnut or sunflower are best)
• Thinly sliced onion (half a medium brown onion)
• 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
• Chopped fresh dill
• Salt to taste
• 1/4 teaspoon chilli or cayenne powder (optional)
• 1 small egg
• 2 tablespoons breadcrumbs

METHOD:

Drain all the liquid from the fish. In a bowl, mix the fish and mashed potatoes and set aside.

Heat 4 tablespoons of oil and fry the onions until they are caramelised and golden brown. Remove the onions with a slotted spoon and leave to cool on a plate. In the remaining oil add the turmeric. Fry for a few seconds and then remove the pan from the heat to prevent the turmeric from burning. Add the fish and potato mix to the pan and let the spice thoroughly coat the fish mixture. Return the fish mixture to the bowl and add the remaining ingredients, the caramelised onions, breadcrumbs, egg and chopped dill. The mixture should be firm (add more breadcrumbs if it seems too moist). Shape into little patties 2 inches in diameter.

Add the remaining oil to the pan and heat on medium heat. Fry the patties until they are golden brown.

For more information on the #LoveFoodGiveFood campaign by Action Against Hunger log on to http://www.lovefoodgivefood.org

Calcutta Chicken Chaap

A distinctive Mughlai chicken dish whose roots can be traced to Lucknow. The dish is heavily influenced by Lucknowi spices and is cooked in a flat round dish which is sealed and cooked (the “dum” method). Chicken chaap is almost always prepared with legs of the chicken. The garam masalas are not used whole, they are ground with some water in a traditional Sil Batta (flat stone grider). Apart from cloves, cardamoms, cinnamon and black pepper and dry red chillies, the additional ingredient added to this spice mix is dried melon seeds. Of course you can grind the garam masalas in any wet grinder!

Add ground ginger and garlic. Salt, ground coriander seeds powder and some strands of saffron infused in hot milk to the yogurt mixture. In India, the tradition is to add yellow/orange food colouring to the yogurt mixture. Chicken chaap has a distinct saffron or zafrani colour, if you want to avoid using any colour, the saffron strands should add a bit of colour to the dish.

 

The first step is to brown onions and crush them. Mix the onions with some thick Turkish yogurt. Add the ground spices listed above and some of the oil that as used to brown the onions.

Marinate the chicken for at least four hour in the dish in which the chicken will be cooked. Ideally the dish should be flat and have a tight fitting lid. This is to ensure the chicken is steam cooked on low heat and as much as possible, the steam is kept inside. A traditional “dum” method is to seal the lid with a paste made with flour and water. A tight fitting lid works too.

Once the chicken is cooked, add some sugar (this is a Calcutta dish after all – touch of sugar is essential!) and serve.

If anyone is travelling to Calcutta, the best Mughai restaurants to try this dish is Arsalan http://www.arsalanrestaurant.in/. They also have a branch in Mumbai.

Yakhni Pallau

 

A versions of this aromatic rice dish can be found from Afghanistan to India. Usually prepared with mutton, I have made this pallau with chicken thighs which I have cut into half (which works really well!). Yakhni means “meat stock/broth” and the chicken thighs are good for preparing the stock in which to cook the rice. If you want to cook the mutton version, it is exactly the same method, just make sure that you select a cut that has enough bone to make the meat stock. Please do not try and make this pallau with boneless mutton or chicken, the stock will have absolutely no flavour! The essence of this dish is the yakhni – the delicate flavour of the stock which is absorbed by the rice. The pale colour of the pallau is very deceptive, it is packed with flavour and spices.

WHAT GOES INTO THE SPICE BAG

6 cloves of garlic (just cut them into half)

2 inches fresh ginger cut into thick slices

6 green cardamom pods

6 cloves

2 piece of cinnamon (1 inch each)

1 black cardamom

3 or 4 medium bay leaves

2 heaped tablespoons fennel seeds (saunf)

2 level teaspoons whole coriander seeds

The list looks daunting. It is not. Finding a muslin cloth to tie the spices in may take you more time! Most of the spices are the usual spices used for Indian cooking. If you do not have one of the whole spices, you can possibly omit it. Except the fennel seeds which are essential. Your spice mix should end up looking something like this:

MAKING THE YAKHNI

The additional ingredients needed:

 

1kg skinless chicken thighs cut into half

2 medium onions finely sliced

2 Tablespoons Greek Yogurt

2 or 3 fresh green chillies (this is optional)

oil

salt

 

Fry the sliced onions in 3 tablespoons of oil till they are caramelised and golden brown. Remove the onions from the oil to prevent them from burning and spread them on a pate. Add the chicken to the pan and seal it in the warm oil. Return half the onions to the pan together with the spice bag (the bag should be tied securely so it does not open in the cooking process!). The other half of the browned onions will be used as a garnish at the end. Add enough water to cover the chicken and salt (just as a rough guide, I usually use 2 1/4  teaspoons of salt). Once the water is boiling, cover the pan with a lid and leave it to cook for half an hour. Please check after 20 min to make sure the chicken is not falling apart.

 

 

THE FINAL STAGE: ADDING THE RICE TO THE YAKHNI AND THE  “DUM”

 

Wash two cups of  basmati rice and leave it in water to soak with half a teaspoon of salt. Once the chicken is cooked. Remove gently with a slotted spoon and put on a plate. In a single layer as much as possible to prevent the meat from coming off the bone. The yakhni has to be approximately 4 cups for the 2 cups of rice. Reduce the stock or add some water if required to make it 4 cups. My grandmother would squeeze the spice bag at this stage to get the last bit of favour out of the spices. You can try that too…..as long as you can do it without bursting the bag! You can remove the spice bag now. It has done its job.

 

Remove the yakhni from the pan and add a teaspoon of oil and stir fry the yogurt till it is reduced to a dry paste. The green chillies can be added at this stage. I prefer my pallau without the chillies, the decision to add chillies is optional. Now you can return the 4 cup measured yakhni back to the pan. After that, take the rice out of the water it was soaking in and add to the stock, together with the chicken.  Put the stock with the rice and chicken on medium/high flame. Once the stock is boiling, lower the flame, cover the pot with a lid and let it simmer. Check the rice often to to see when the stock has been absorbed. The rice should be cooked but al dente (if that makes sense!).

 

At this point, remove the pan from direct heat and put the flame on a low setting and put the pan on an iron plate (a tawa)…..or the closest thing you have to a tawa in your kitchen. The aim is for the heat to be diffused. If you do not have anything appropriate. Just put the flame on the lowest setting possible and put the fire off after 10 minutes. If you are using a tawa, put the flame off after 10 minutes. Leave the rice undisturbed for 10 min. Then serve garnished with the caramelised brown onions.

 

 

 

Khatta Bhaat : How to use leftover Biryani rice for breakfast!

Am not sure of the origins of this dish….maybe from Bihar or Bengal in India. Have only eaten this in my house during my childhood in Calcutta. This dish was a novelty breakfast dish, even for our highly foodie household! We ate this after having feasted on Biryani the night before.

Khatta Bhaat means “Tangy Rice”. Bhaat is a Bengali word, so it may point to the origins of this dish. Only leftover rice of the Biryani is used. Dried red chillies, sliced garlic and onions are sauteed in a pan. The red chillies have to get dark and release a smoky aroma.

 Add the rice, yogurt and tamarind at the same time and saute the rice till the grains absorbs the tamarind and yogurt. Taste the rice at this point and add some slices of fresh green chillies if you want to make it spicier. As this is a breakfast dish….maybe go easy on the green chillies!

The rice has a really unusual flavour and takes less than five minutes to prepare. It may not work that well with plain leftover rice – it is still worth a try! I think this recipe was devised to deal with a common biryani “leftover problem”! As usually all the meat in the biryani was consumed the night before and all that was left was rice in the fridge the next morning! We usually ate khatta bhaat with an boiled egg. It is the perfect combination! This recipe has been written for
http://smarterfitter.com/
 who is hosting the breakfast club for
http://fussfreeflavours.com/breakfast-club/
 for this month.

Khajur ka gur (Date Palm Jaggery)

The adage “a picture is worth a thousand words”, may work here! These pictures were taken by my cousin Javed, in Bangladesh (next to the Dhanmondi Lake…for those who know Dhaka, so right in the middle of the city). The birds wait patiently for the sap to drip out of the cut made into the Date Palm Tree! The pot collects the sap which is then boiled in iron pots and made into blocks. The gur does not have any added chemicals to it and is not “processed” in any. It is considered to be healthier than other sugars as it retains some of the nutrients in the sap (despite the boiling).The  jaggery is rich in iron (especially the darker coloured jaggery), other minerals and even contains some fibre. Gur is considered a better option for diabetics due to its unrefined and complex structure, sugar is released more slowly in the blood stream than refined sugars.

The manufacturing of this gur is only during the winter months. This is the traditional jaggery from Bengal and can only be found in the Indian state of West Bengal and in Bangladesh. It is also called “Noton Gur” in Bengal or “New Jaggery” and is only extracted from the trees during the Winter months. During Summer, the heat at night makes the sap rancid and alcoholic.

Unfortunate the khajur gur industry is under threat due to the small scale (mainly family run) way that this gur is manufactured. Many of the palms are being cut down to clear the land for development and construction of new homes. New palms are not being planted to replace the older trees in Bengal or Bangladesh. The younger generation of gur farmers are often not interested in following the family trade and there is a risk that the skill of making gur with the sap of the palm tree may slowly die out. Already there is an increased use of sugar cane jaggery being used to adulterate palm tree jaggery as its cheaper and easier to make than khajur ka gur.

What to make with khajur ka gur?

The perfect way to enjoy khajur ka gur is to make a kheer with it. This is an earthy, fragrant and very gently spiced dessert from Bengal. Rice and milk are boiled together with bay leaves, cardamom and cinnamon. The dessert is sweetened with gur khajur ka gur, rather than sugar. Traditionally the kheer is set in small earthen pots and sold in restaurants and street cafes. I think it adds to the flavour setting the dessert in earthen pots and looks really beautiful!

Of course there was a practical rather than aesthetic reason why desserts such have kheer were transferred into earthen pots. The earthen pots absorbed excess moisture from the kheer, making the dessert creamier and thicker. See my gur ki kheer recipe in my guest blog for Pukka Paki
http://t.co/TrTDwm3N

Calcutta Biryani

The biryani is a royal dish. Like the Taj Mahal, it is a fusion of Persian and Central Asian influence on the Indian subcontinent. It was a staple of the Mughal court and is now a favourite in many parts of India, with each region producing it’s own unique variant. The biryani I make is from a family’s recipe going back centuries. It has travelled from the palaces of Lucknow in North India to Calcutta and now London.

The Calcutta biryani is unusual as it contains potatoes and is less spicy than the biryanis’ you find in the north or Mumbai. The Persian influence can be seen in the addition of aloo bukhara (dried plum) to the version of biryani. The addition of dried plum to this biryani shows the true roots of this dish. Aloo which usually means potato in hindi/urdu, means something else in this instance. Aloo is a variation of the Farsi word alu (plum) and Bukhara is a reference to the ancient city with which India had a lot of trade along the old silk route.

Mattar Paneer

Mattar Paneer. Peas with Indian cheese. One of the simplest vegetarian dishes to make…..as long as you don’t try to make the Paneer (Indian Cheese) yourself! Of course making Paneer at home is an option for those who have the time and patience! You just need milk, a couple of tablespoons of fresh lime or lemon juice to split the warm milk and a colander to drain the milk curds (and then the washing up!). Originating from North India, this dish has a creamy tomato base and is not meant to be particularly spicy.