JUMP TO RECIPE PRINT RECIPE I look out of the window from my kitchen, washing unripe jackfruit chunks under ice cold water. Do I really need to wash these? Aren't these from a tin? Well, I blame it on COVID I guess. Why do I not heat some water and spare my fingers, I wonder and easily shrug the answer off. The mountain outside is not seen, laden with snow bouncing off crisp daylight, only the winding road around it is visible. I move to the counter and check on the paraphernalia for the biryani, humming with ghazals playing on the husband's iPhone (I wish it was a radio). A slight glance at the window again. The fox is paying us a visit today, it's family capering behind the frozen bushes, perhaps missing our diurnal encounters by the Old Log Church. Tossing the rice into the roaring water in the pot, I hope I've salted it enough. I'm doubtful though, so a lump goes in. I have a taste—ugh, it's like the ocean in my mouth—and then I feel at peace. I'm not fooling around with salt here. The rice will hardly spend any time in the water before it's ready to be taken out, drained and fluffed, and all that salt will flow with the slushing water. A lot of salt ensures that rice absorbs just the right amount of it. Pasta cooking tips, remember? Enough of techniques, dear reader. I've them pinned below if you're eager. So, let's go back to the window. I don't think I can cook well without it. Every kitchen I've cooked so far in Canada and India had a window, and what a blessing it is to have light enter through it and bath everything amber bright in the morning and moody gold at dusk. Not to forget the joys of watching the world passing by outside as I cook and almost dance a little when things are going right on the stove or inside the oven. Ruskin Bond sums it up very well in Words from my Window: A Journal, "I need a window to look at the world without; for only then can I look at the world within...Never a dull moment. And the magic mountain looks on, absorbing everything." Jagjit Singh has sung five ghazals by now, and my onions are a winsome auburn. The wedges of jackfruit are getting rustic with the spices, and the smell is ethereal. You have to make it to believe me, the power of a good kathal (jackfruit) biryani. I don't miss meat at all when there's jackfruit zinged with spices. So good! The yogurt looks a fiery goddess with the seasoning whisked into it, lustrous and smooth, and impatient to be slathered on the roasting jackfruits. I feel like eating it right away, but then, the moment has yet not arrived. Jackfruit is native to India, originating in the rainforests of Western Ghats. It derives its English name from the Portuguese word Jaca, which was probably a version of a name used in the Malyalam language (in Kerala), chakkapazham or chakka. Portuguese physician and naturalist, Garcia de Orta mentioned this fruit in his 1563 book, Colóquios dos simples e drogas da India as Jaca. The Malyalam word chakka originates from che-kai, meaning a group of green fruits (kai) joined together. In Hindi, jackfruit is known as kathal, echor in Bengali, panasa in Odia, as kanun in Thailand and nangkain in Malaysia. It's extremely popular in the hot tropical parts of the world, where the trees thrive best. With veganism and vegetarianism going places in the west, jackfruit has made inroads into the meat dominant diets. While raw jackfruit can be made into gravies, pickles, can be fried or made into biryanis, the ripe fruit can be eaten as is, made into payasam, ice creams, jams, pies, cakes, appams and what not! I believe a well-made biryani is almost like a ghazal; it's all in the details. One of my biggest pet peeves is people who want to cook a biryani but have no patience for attention to its subtle layers. You can't make a biryani like that, if your pulse is on the next train to catch. Do you enjoy poetry or slow music? If you do, you know why. Don't you? How there's a build-up of words and emotions playing with the mind, a rumble and fall, a thousand syllables and notes moving with gentle calm and forbearance. The story of biryani is akin to that. All the elemental ingredients matter, and how you treat them matters even more. It's a labour of love, and I adore it with its concomitant moil. Don't be discouraged by the long list of ingredients and the fair amount of time it takes to prepare. If you have all the ingredients mise en place, the next steps are easy. Biryani is a culinary art where subtle balances and thorough timing play key roles in deciding the final outcome. As Pamela Timms, the food author I deeply revere, explains in the Mint article, While learning how to make biryani, I understood why it is one of the finest dishes in the Indian repertoire. As with so many traditional recipes, it’s all in the detail... Whoever tells you that a vegetarian biryani is hoax, I say graciously thank them for their opinion but don't take it! The word biryani itself is coupled with rice, and rice alone. Read my Khumbi ki Biryani: Mushroom Biryani post to dismiss such claims. Looking for more vegetarian biryani ideas, check out the pointers below. Having its roots in the Persian words birian (fried before cooking) and birinj, biryani originally most likely was rice cooked with some form of meat. Muslim cooking, and the Mughal imperial kitchen where biryani was conceived in its present day form and perfected, were inherently meat-rich in their repertoire of recipes. In no way this disbands the idea of vegetarianism in biryani, and neither does this imply that Muslims don't eat vegetables! In fact, food historian Salma Husain says in an interview with The Indian Express about Mughlai food, "The cooks in the royal kitchen were competitive and creative. You’ll find a lot of nuts and dry fruits in their dishes, that is what they got from central Asia. In India, they found vegetables, grains and fresh fruits. That’s how you can see dishes with ingredients such as falsa, banana, melon, mangoes and oranges." Husain further explains that "With each emperor, a new type of cooking was introduced. With Akbar came a lot of Indian dishes, Jehangir lived mostly in Kashmir, so cooking of the birds was introduced as he would hunt a lot near the Dal Lake." Perhaps varieties of vegetarian biryanis would have also matured in the Mughal kitchens if later emperors like Aurangzeb had taken greater interest in the finer arts including cuisine. The most famous iterations of biryani come from Awadh, present day Lucknow and Hyderabad, and either places do not have vegetarian biryani in their long-established culinary art. Does this mean biryani is reserved for meat? While some will ridicule a vegetarian biryani to be a rip-off and some will argue that only pulao is vegetarian, I don't understand the staunch incredulity for it. Whether you like it or not, vegetarian biryani is real, irrespective that it's perhaps an improvisation of the primal non-veg versions. It's as kosher as the the egg or paneer biryanis and vegetarian kebabs, koftas and quormas! So don't fret, and go make this kathal/jackfruit biryani and add a prodigious vegetarian dish to your recipe collection. What are some tips to make any biryani good? Biryani is a rice-based dish. The meat, vegetable or legume are its inner layers. Every grain of rice must be perfectly cooked and separate. To ensure this, always rinse and soak rice for at least half an hour before you start cooking. Rinsing helps remove some of the sticky surface starch and soaking makes the it softer, so water can pierce through it easily during cooking. When cooking by the pakki biryani method, where the rice is pre-cooked, never cook the rice 100% as this will lead to lumpy and sticky rice in the end. Just remember how we make pasta al dente. Do the same for biryani rice. In the kacchi biryani method, rice is not cooked before hand—only rinsed and soaked before adding to the pot with other ingredients and is cooked along with them. Always add rinsed and soaked rice to a pot of water on roaring boil, not the other way around. This helps to elongate the grain of rice, giving it a fuller fluffier look. Add aromatics like bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamom, cloves and star anise to the water in which you boil the rice and salt it generously! Most of this water will go into the drain, so don't worry about the salt quotient. Caramelized onions are irreplaceable in any kind of biryani. So, make a good batch! Green chilies, ginger and garlic are key notes that you cannot miss. Don't overwhelm or underwhelm your biryani with whole spices. Be gentle, but creative. Use some of it in the water to boil rice, and for the rest that you use with the meat or vegetables, you can either dry roast and make a blend for a riot of flavours or simply coarse grind to keep it delicate, or even keep them whole. A few sprigs of mint or coriander, or both and a touch of some nuts adds a hue in the end. Awadhi versions usually do not have herbs in them, and spices alone do the magic. You must use a heavy bottom pan to make biryani, and one that has a lid that can be sealed to not let steam escape when you layer the rice and veggies/meat and do the final cooking. What are some tips to make a vegetarian biryani? There's no rule of thumb for the vegetables you may use. Feel free to experiment with one or a combination of cauliflower, peas, potatoes, beans, carrots, beets, sweet potatoes, yams, mushrooms and jackfruits. You can also add paneer if you like. If you love meaty textures, I highly recommend jackfruit and mushrooms. Since we don't marinate vegetables for a long time like meat (no tenderization of meat is involved), there are different ways of pre-cooking the vegetables. You can bake them or fry them, or cook them with yogurt or a nut paste (or both) to give the vegetables a more gravy-like consistency. You can marinate the vegetables in yogurt, and the benefit is a slight tanginess. This is how I make mushroom biryani at times. Some recipes may call upon tomatoes instead of yogurt, though it's a far cry from the traditional biryanis, righteous in merit and taste nonetheless. Many versions of the famous Dindigul Biryani use tomatoes and taste heavenly! To make it vegan, you can use coconut milk instead of yogurt. You can also add soya chunks, chickpeas or black lentils to give a thicker gravy like consistency and add lime juice for tanginess. What about this recipe? This recipe is a keeper. It brings together Awadhi and Hyderbadi styles of making biryani, and is neither too spicy nor too bland. It isn't greasy and doesn't leave you with a feeling of being too full, and is amazing enough to get yourself a second serving! In this recipe, I add a part of the aromatics in the water to boil the rice. I dry roast the rest and make a biryani masala, typical in the Hyderbadi method. The dry roasting gives the dish its quintessential spicy layers. Following the Dum Pukht style of Awadh, this recipe uses very few herbs, again classic Awadhi style. I have used only a handful of mint for mild flavour. A popular cooking technique in the Lucknow gharanas is to whisk spices in yogurt and adding into the gravy. This ensures that the spices don't burn on the hot pan, and while the yogurt gets cooked, the spices cook along with it. I use the same trick for my vegetarian pakki biryanis where the vegetables are pre-cooked and not previously marinated. Recipe Ingredients 2 cups of Basmati or any other long grain rice 2 tins of unripe jackfruit (or 2 cups unripe jackfruit cut into chunks) For the biryani masala: 1 bay leaf, 1-inch cinnamon stick, 4-5 green cardamoms, 1 black cardamom, 1 mace, 4-5 cloves, 2 star anise, 1 tsp cumin, 2 tsp coriander, 1 tsp fennel, 1 tsp peppercorns For boiling the rice: 1/4 tsp caraway seeds or cumin, 1 bay leaf, 1-inch cinnamon, 2 cloves, 1 black cardamom, 2-3 tbsp salt 3-4 tbsp oil 1 tbsp ghee (or vegan butter or use extra oil rather) 2 large red onions, 1 finely chopped and 1 julienne cut 2 tbsp ginger and garlic paste 1/2 cup yogurt 1 tsp turmeric 1 tsp red chili powder 2-3 green chilies, slit vertically 1/2 cup mint leaves, few torn or chopped 1/2 cup milk (of any kind) 1 tsp saffron strands 1 tbsp flaked almonds 7-8 roasted cashews Salt to taste Method Soak rice: Wash rice in several changes of water and soak it for at least 30 minutes. Prepare the biryani masala: Dry roast/toast all the spices listed for the biryani masala for a few seconds without burning. Cool and grind in a spice mixer. Keep aside. Note: Roasting the masala gives a nice spicy kick, and highly recommended. Caramelize onions and soak the saffron: Heat a pan on medium heat and add oil. Add the julienne cut onions to it and fry until brown and crisp. It will take about 20 minutes. Keep aside. Soak the saffron strands in lukewarm milk. Keep aside. Cook the rice: Add about 4-5 cups of water along with the whole spices (mentioned for boiling rice) to a pot and bring it to a boil. Generously add salt and when the water is in a roaring boil, add the rice to it. Note: I usually pack the whole spices (except caraway seeds/cumin) in a drawstring and that it to water, so I don't have to pick them out later. Add a few drops of ghee or vegan butter to the pot and gently stir. Cook the rice until it's 70% done and then turn off the heat. It will take about 7 minutes. Basically, ensure that the rice still isn't completely tender and cooked. Drain the rice, keeping some of the water in a separate bowl. Use a fork to fluff the rice on a plate. Take out the spices, except the caraway seeds/cumin. Cook the jackfruit: Note: To save a bit of time, you can boil the jackfruit in a pressure cooker for about 2 whistles before you start the following process. Heat a pan or wok on medium heat and add oil. Next, add the chopped onions. Fry till the onions are pink and then add ginger-garlic paste. Once the mixture turns brown, add turmeric and red chili powder. Once turmeric and red chili are cooked (in about 5 mins), add the jackfruit chunks. Lightly roast the jackfruit with the spice coated onions till everything is well combined. Reduce the heat slightly. Beat 2-3 heaped tsp of the biryani masala into the yogurt with some salt and pour it into the pan. Mix to coat the spiced yogurt onto the jackfruit. Let it simmer for about 4-5 minutes and then add the slit chilies and salt. Mix again, cover and cook till the gravy appears slightly thick and the jackfruit is tender, and just about to be fully cooked. You can also add some hot water to adjust consistency. Once happy, turn off the heat. Layer the biryani: Grease a heavy bottom pot or Dutch oven with oil or ghee, add a layer of the semi-cooked rice in a circular motion through the vessel. This bottom layer will turn crisp and caramelize to give a good crunch to the biryani. You can start with a layer of jackfruit instead if you prefer. Add a layer of the jackfruit gravy, again in a circular motion, covering the layer of rice. Add another layer of rice on top and some caramelized onions and some mint leaves. Repeat the layers of rice, jackfruit and onions so that the top layer is rice. Using the back of a ladle, make a hole in the center of the layers and add some of the saffron milk and some of the drained water from the rice into it, and the rest on the top layer. Add some ghee/vegan butter, chopped almonds, roasted cashews and caramelized onions. Sprinkle some mint leaves. Seal the top of the pot with aluminum foil and place the lid over it, ensuring the steam stays inside. Cook on very low heat for 20-25 minutes and then turn off heat. Let the pot sit on the counter for the next 7 minutes before you open it. Top the biryani with few fresh mint leaves before serving. When you open the pot, you will be engulfed in a world of utmost delight. It makes you so hungry that you can't wait to lay your hands on a plate, grab a serving spoon, take some raita (yogurt whisked with cumin powder, salt and sliced onions) and dive into it! I find it very hard to photograph it because I want to eat it as soon as I smell the waft of fragrances floating at the tip of the biryani. Gathering around the table and sharing some mirth is one of my most favourite feelings in this world, and a biryani is a stellar dish to dine with your loved ones. The degh or the pot sits at the center of the table, and as everyone has a ladle or two heaped onto their plates, conversations begin. Glasses tinkle, pickles and salads are passed around and the bowls of sides—raitas, salans and chutneys—are emptied and refilled amidst laughter and jest. Perfect for any celebration or a hearty get-together, biryanis are always a special reminder of what food really means in a familial and social setting. If you make this treat, tag me on Instagram and share your love! I'll be glad to hear from you!

Jump to Recipe | Watch The history of stuffing vegetables is old, and not limited to the Indian sub-continent. From cabbage to artichokes, peppers to gourds, vegetables that can be scooped and carved, can be stuffed with some sort of filling, which has a wide spectrum of choices. From vegetarian to meat, from simple combination of spices to meticulous makings, the fillings for stuffed vegetables are numerous as the vegetables themselves, or perhaps more. The vegetable itself, the shell that holds the filling, can be cooked and then stuffed or can be stuffed and cooked later. There's no rule of thumb here. Different recipes call for distinct ways of creating stuffed vegetables based on regional, cultural and lifestyle variations. In the face of all variability, one thing remains common—stuffing vegetables or even meat is labour-intensive. Think prepping banana flowers or taking peas out of their pods. For me, this usually calls for ample time at hand in the morning or leisurely afternoons, and some good company, no? And, several nibbles and favourite drinks on the side with music of some form playing in the background. Cool sherbets in summer (if it's my husband then it will be bottles of kombucha!) and many cups of chai in winter, what say? At the heart of it, preparing such dishes has an undertone of a joint undertaking with an opportunity to nourish friendships and mend broken bonds. At home, mom prepared stuffed vegetables from A to Z, but I or my sisters or my father were never her sous chefs, especially me who was usually an onlooker, her silent company by the table finishing that last bit of homework and dreaming of that delicious stuffed vegetable dish I'd get to eat later. She sometimes had some company in such work from the house helps. When we lived in small towns, there were aunties in the neighbourhood who would join her with their bags of vegetables which needed long-drawn-out prep. When my cooking journey burgeoned at Auntie A's house, I got to play the role of a sous chef. Now that I was leaning to make decent meals for myself, and for auntie and me on days when her senile self needed to take a break from the kitchen, I was getting into more demanding endeavors in the kitchen. I mention in my previous post on bitter gourd, We both shared our love for bitter gourd. I have spent many Sunday mornings stuffing spicy onion fillings inside baby bitter gourds while I listened to her stories or one of the many Mohammad Rafi songs on her age-old radio. Bombay summers are brutally sticky, and the only respite while working in the humid kitchen were endless glasses of aam panna (drink made with raw mango) and Auntie's rib-ticklers. Mom made stuffed karela too, a much different version than Auntie's. I make both, and then a third version that's my own, a discovery, or rather a hankering to make the process of making stuffed karela faster and yet tasty. Mom's stuffed bitter gourds Stuffed bitter gourds weren't always regular at my place or my grandmothers' home. At home, bitter gourds are usually made as sautéed rings, kalara bhaja or chopped fine and cooked with potatoes with or without hints of mustard, kalara chadchadi more. But occasionally we made gota kalara bhaja, an Odia style stuffed bitter gourd preparation with a mustard based filling. But my mother is someone who always tries out recipes from other cultures as well, adopting methods of cooking food across the board while adding her personal touch. She makes three kinds of fillings for bitter gourd: Odia style recipe calls for a paste made of mustard, garlic, cumin and chilies along with salt. Sweet potatoes boiled and mashed to a paste, cooked in oil tempered with mustard cumin and asafoetida, then flavoured with good amount of red chili, cumin, coriander and turmeric powders, and finished with freshly crushed peppercorns, nutmeg and cinnamon. A squeeze of lime and salt to balance everything. Telugu style recipe of stir frying equal quantities of Bengal gram and Urad dal, more coriander and less cumin seeds, sesame seeds, curry leaves, dry red chillies, dry grated coconut (or desiccated) and a ball of tamarind, and then cooling and grinding with jaggery powder to make a paste has also been constant in my house. For the Odia style gota kalara bhaja, which is also called puraw dia kalara, a small fragrant lighter green bitter gourd with thin skin is preferred. It appears like a baby bitter gourd, and cooks much faster and tastes slightly less bitter than the bigger ones. These are locally called thusi kalara. However, medium sized bitter gourds can also be used for the same recipe. A note on the seasonal aspect of bitter gourds Bitter gourds are quite readily available throughout summers in Odisha, and preferred a lot for their bitterness as bitter tasting things are good for a spring-summer diet. In fact, throughout India bitter vegetables and greens are cooked and eaten in different ways during the spring season. The primary action associated with bitter taste is detoxification, which is crucial to spring season, a transition from winter to summer, a time which triggers coughs, colds and other illnesses. Bitter greens and vegetables help fortify our bodies, and as they're associated with a clearing or drying effect, they help remove excessive fluids and mucus, thus reducing toxins. For this reason, bitter foods are an important part of many cuisines during transitional seasons. Auntie A's stuffed bitter gourds What Auntie A did to make stuffed bitter gourds was completely new to me. My mother never peeled a bitter gourd or scale its skin. Auntie on the other hand would peel it, and then stuff the gourd with its own peels along with caramelized onions and some spices. This style of making bitter gourds goes back in the culinary history of undivided Punjab, a time when districts in the Punjab area were named after the rivers which encompassed them, auntie had described. Satluj, Beas, Ravi, Chenab and Jhelum flow through Punjab, forming a major part of the left-bank tributaries of the Indus river. The area between Satluj and Beas was called Bist Doab, Beas and Ravi was called Bari Doab, between Ravi and Chenab was called Rechna Doab, between Chenab and Jhelum was called Jech Doab, and between Jhelum and Indus was called Sind Sagar Doab, where do means two and ab means water in Punjabi. As there weren't bridges then, people usually did not cross the rivers, and the land was divided in this manner for administration. An interesting thread on an internet forum throws more light into this. Present day Punjab in India, which is largely the former East Punjab, is divided into Majha (part of the old Bari and Rechna Doab) where majha in Punjabi means middle, and as this region was in the center of erstwhile Punjab, Doaba (Bist Doab) and Malwa (south of Satluj) regions while Jech Doab, Sind Sagar Doab and parts of Rechna Doab and Bari Doab are now in Pakistan and comprise West Punjab. An understanding of this geography helps in comprehending the cultural foundations in Punjabi cuisine. Punjab has been a fertile and prosperous land, and homestyle Punjabi cooking is rich in fresh seasonal produce with no wastage of any part of the vegetables and greens and an emphasis on dairy like milk, curd and ghee. I talk more about this in my post on Saag Chole and my introduction into Punjabi home cooking through Auntie A. Auntie A made a typical filling for bitter gourds: Peels of the bitter gourd were sautéed in oil before finely chopped onions were added and caramelized to lend sweetness. The dry masalas comprising of coriander, fennel, turmeric and red chilli were added along with ginger and garlic paste and cooked to a paste like consistency. Amchur, dry mango powder, is a must to lend sourness along with salt to balance all the flavours. Peeling bitter gourds and giving them a salt rub helps bring down their bitterness. However, peels have all the good nutrients! When cooked with onions and spices, and stuffed inside the gourds, the peels' bitterness is not dominant but spurts between the sweet caramelized onions and sour amchur and the spicy masalas. After filling the bitter gourds with the stuffing, auntie tied them with threads to close them and prevent the masala from oozing out. A hankering for a facile process I'm all in for slow cooking, and love to get lost in the magic of the process and ingredients. But, there are days when things have to be sorted out quickly in the kitchen. I love all stuffed vegetables, especially bitter gourds. So for days that demand whistle-stop cooking, I had to find a median between mom's and auntie's fillings. For this quick-fix filling: I borrow mom's Telugu inspired tamarind and jaggery combination for that sweet and sour punch, auntie's bitter gourd peels for the texture and bitter flavour with lots of coriander and fennel for citrusy notes and heavenly fragrance, and add a nutty flavour from roasted and powdered peanuts or sesame seeds, or roasted besan (chickpea flour). The powdered nuts or the chickpea flour also help bind the spices with the peels and create a fillable texture for the stuffing. Pro Tip No matter which way you choose to make your filling, give your bitter gourds some time to sit with salted rubbed onto their skin. People who are usually not fond of the bitterness get thrown off with that first bite. So, definitely do the salt rub. You may or may not peel the bitter gourd, or peel it just slightly. It depends on how fond you are of the bitter flavour. If you peel them, use the peels for the stuffing—I can't recommend this enough! I don't cook bitter gourds first. I prepare the filling, stuff the gourds and then pan fry them with a lid on. You may stir fry your gourds while your filling is getting ready on the side or make slits and pressure cook them for 1-2 whistles. You can then stuff the filling and cover and cook the stuffed gourds for a few minutes to ensure doneness. Recipe Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 5-7 small bitter gourds or 4-5 medium sized ones 1 -2 tbsp oil to fry 1-2 tsp salt for rubbing For the Odia style filling: 1 tbsp mustard seeds (black or yellow, black mustard is more pungent) 6-7 cloves of garlic 1 tsp cumin 2-3 dry red chilies or fresh green chilies depending on how much spice you can tolerate 1 medium onion finely chopped 1 medium tomato finely chopped 1/2 tsp turmeric 1 tsp salt, or to taste For the sweet potato filling: 1-2 small slender sweet potatoes, boiled and mashed (about 1/2 cup) 1 tbsp oil 1/2 tsp cumin + 1/2 tsp mustard 1/4 tsp asafoetida 1 tsp each of red chili, cumin, coriander and turmeric powders 1 tsp freshly crushed peppercorns and cinnamon + gated nutmeg 1/2 a lime 1 tsp salt, or to taste For Telugu style coconut filling: 1 tbsp oil 1 and 1/2 tbsp chana dal 1 and 1/2 tbsp urad dal 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1 and 1/2 tsp coriander seeds 1 tbsp sesame seeds 10-15 curry leaves 1/2 tsp turmeric 1-inch tamarind ball soaked and water extracted 6-8 dry whole red chilies 1/4 cup grated or desiccated coconut 1-2 tsp jaggery powder or grated jaggery 1-2 tsp salt, or to taste For Punjabi style onion and bitter peels filling: 1 tbsp oil peels of the bitter gourd 1 large onion, finely chopped 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste 1/4 tsp asafoetida 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 2 tsp coriander powder 1 tsp fennel seed powder (optional) 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1/2 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp amchur or dry mango powder 1-2 tsp salt, or to taste For no onion-garlic filling: 1 tbsp oil peels of the bitter gourd (if choosing to peel bitter gourd) 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1/4 tsp asafoetida 2 tsp coriander powder 1 tsp fennel seed powder (optional) 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1/2 tsp red chili powder 4-5 tbsp (or more depending on how much filling you need and how much binding is required) roasted peanut or sesame seed powder or roasted gram flour (besan) 1-inch tamarind ball soaked and water extracted 1-2 tsp jaggery powder or grated jaggery 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Wash the bitter gourds. Roughly peel them (optional), clear the pith, rub salt both inside and outside, and keep them aside. Prepare the filling. For the Odia style filling: Soak mustard seeds, garlic, cumin and chilies in lukewarm water for at least an hour. Drain the water and then grind into a fine paste along with salt and by adding water as required. Make sure to not add too much water which will result in a runny paste. Add water in small quantities and grind, and then add more if required. Heat oil in a pan, add chopped onions and fry until pink. Add salt, turmeric and tomatoes and continue frying till tomatoes are soft. Next add the mustard paste and mix once, and cook till the masala releases oil. For sweet potato filling: Heat oil in a pan, and add cumin + mustard seeds. Once they pop, add asafoetida. Now add the mashed sweet potatoes, and sauté for a few seconds. Next add turmeric, red chili, cumin and coriander powders and sauté till the spices are cooked. Add salt and mix. Top the mixture with crushed peppercorns and cinnamon and grated nutmeg and stir to combine. Squeeze a lime and take off heat. For Telugu style coconut filling: Heat oil in a pan on low flame, then add chana dal and fry till it changes colour. Then add urad dal and fry for 1-2 minutes until urad dal also changes colour. Next add cumin, coriander and sesame seeds and fry them until aromatic taking care nothing burns. Add curry leaves and sauté followed by dry red chilies and turmeric that you must stir until chilies puff up. Add coconut, stir and turn off heat before coconut changes colour. Add tamarind and jaggery and mix. Allow to cool and then grind to make a paste. For Punjabi style onion and bitter peels filling: Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds, asafoetida and then add the peels. Fry them for 3-4 minutes, and then add onions. Fry the onions until pink, and then add ginger-garlic paste and cook till the paste doesn't smell raw. Add rest of the spices except amchur. Keep stirring and mixing until onions turn brown and caramelize, roughly 20 minutes. Add salt and amchur and mix again. Turn off heat and keep aside. For no-onion-garlic filling: Heat oil in a pan, and add cumin seeds followed by asafoetida. Add all the spices and sauté with splashes of water if required. Once spices are cooked, keep the heat low and the roasted and powdered peanuts and sesame seeds and/or roasted gram flour. Mix so that everything combines well and then add jaggery. Add spoons of tamarind water so that the mixture becomes sticky but not watery. Add salt, mix and turn off heat. Keep aside. Squeeze the salt-rubbed bitter gourds to discard any water. With a spoon, stuff the hollow gourds with the fillings. Pack them well and tie a string if needed to prevent the stuffing from falling out. If using baby bitter gourds, you would not need to tie them. Stir fry the stuffed bitter gourds in a pan heated with oil. Add any remaining filling to the pan as well and mix. Cover and cook at medium heat to ensure cooking is thorough. Open in between and turn the gourds. Check doneness, and turn off the heat.

#polesapart series Jump to Recipes In the previous post, we familiarized ourselves with the concept of the mustard based spice paste in both Odia and Bengali cuisines, and understood how a single masala paste can be coated onto a variety of ingredients, which are then wrapped up in leaves and just roasted or steamed as-is to cook some wholesome dishes. Through this post, I want to deep dive into the Odia version of the mustard paste and show you how we use it to make sauces of variable consistencies and flavours which become the base layers of so many Odia dishes. This fact comes quite handy when I am cooking a vegetarian and a non-vegetarian dish at the same time. Mustard, and Anga, Banga, Kalinga When regions have connected histories and intertwining pasts, there are bound to be elements of commonality. Mustard is one such element in the culinary story of Anga, Banga and Kalinga — three bordering regions in the eastern part of ancient India, which roughly map to present day Bihar and Jharkhand, most parts of West Bengal and Bangladesh, and Odisha respectively. Mustard seeds in these parts of the country are used in a number of ways such as a tempering agent, a masala paste, a condiment, a pickling agent, a flavour enhancer, and a source of cooking oil. Mustard seeds are an important spice in this part of the country, and as they between ancient Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Bengal, their identity took different forms, inculcating variations in the spice paste, changing and attaining a flavour profile unique to the specific region. There are of course other favourites, like the poppy seeds, which gained popularity as a thickener as well as a spice and condiment owing to its nutty flavour profile, following the surplus generated after extracting opium from the poppy flowers — a byproduct of forced cultivation by the British in colonial Bengal. And, there's the famous five, pancha phutana or paanch phoron or panch phoran, a combination of equal parts of cumin, fenugreek, nigella, fennel and radhuni (in the Bengali version) and mustard (in the Odia version). Rituparna Roy quotes author Chitrita Banerji in this article mentioning that in some Bengali homes, radhuni or wild celery seeds are substituted with mustard seeds in paanch phoron as many Bengali households employed Odia cooks, and mustard in paanch phoron came naturally to these migrant cooks. Sorisa Bata and Besara First thing first. Let us get the sound of the words right. So, bata (paste) is pronounced as 'baw-taa', sorisa (mustard) is pronounced as 'so-ree-saw' and besara as 'bae-saw-raw.' The sorisa bata is a cornerstone of a number of dishes in the Odia cuisine, sometimes striking and prominent like its pungency, and at other times, subtle and layered in the depths of accompanying flavours. Odia cooks have an emotional connect with the sorisa bata, a spice paste they rely on quite often to stir things up in the kitchen, and find interesting ways to use it in sagacious ways in a variety of dishes. When you google sorisa bata, the internet will tell you it's besara although we use the term besara to denote the dishes that strongly and majorly incorporate the sorisa bata, and have gravy in some form, or have a semi-wet in consistency. The most famous being the maccha (fish) besara, chhatu (mushrooms) besara, chingudi (prawns or shrimps) besara, pariba (vegetables) besara, poee (malabar spinach) besara which uses other vegetables like pumpkin, eggplant, potato, ridge gourd, and often is made with chingudi (prawns or shrimps) or maccha munda (fish head), chhuin aloo (moringa drumsticks and potatoes) besara, and some newer innovations like chicken besara. The homestyle preparation of the Odia mustard paste usually includes some amount of cumin, red or green chilies and garlic along with mustard. These accompaniments help in getting a smooth consistency of the paste, balance the pungency, and improve the overall flavour. Apart from the obvious mustard paste or sorisa bata, a besara also needs a good souring agent to balance the flavours. Ambula, or dried green mango, is the unequivocal favourite in this regard. For instance, a thinnish yellowish jholo (gravy) of a macha besara with an ambula or two floating in it is a typical food memory of every Odia. Tart red tomatoes are also favoured as a souring agent, sometimes in addition to ambula. Tamarind is also used in many households to get the much desired sourness and tang in the spicy besara, which especially works quite well in the vegetarian pariba besara. Sour curd can also work wonders in combination with mustard paste, such as this dahi maccha besara. All of these besara preparations have mustard as their flavour leader, and the gravy in whatsoever consistency isn't dependent on onions as one would think. In fact the Puri temple besara, which is of course vegetarian, doesn't have any onions in the curry nor garlic in the mustard paste. Cumin, fennel, peppercorns and ginger are used along with mustard to make the paste. A tinge of jaggery and a sprinkling of grated coconut imparts a sweet balance to the sharp mustard notes. It is this temple version of besara which is more popular with people outside Odisha, mostly because they aren't well aware of the versions made in Odia homes or local eateries. Other than Besara Other than the besara, the raees — semi-wet or semi-dry preparations of vegetables — use mustard paste as the main flavouring agent. For instance, ambula raee, poee raee, kakharu dunka raee, kadali bhanda raee, lau raee, janhi raee, to name a few. Unlike the besara, a raee has a milder touch of the mustard paste, hence less pungent, and may or may not use a souring agent. There are myriad of other recipes in the Odia kitchen which call for a hint of the sorisa bata here and there. For example, the bhendi sorisa khatta or the amba sorisa khatta or any other khattas which employ a smidgen of the mustard paste. Even some bhajas (stir fires or pan fries) use this bata to alleviate the preparation. For instance, the chuin aloo besara bhaja which pan fries mustard paste battered pieces of drumsticks or moringa stems and potatoes until crisp. And, then there are a plethora of jholo dishes or tarkari which use the sorisa bata incognito. They may not have the term besara in their name but incorporate a mustard paste to enhance flavours. For example, this saaru patra tarkari, which also goes by the name saaru magura, has colocasia leaves which are stuffed, rolled, steamed, stir-fried and finally added to a mustard based gravy. A non-mustard version also exists for this tarkari. The Jagannatha Connection, or not By now, we understand that sorisa is mustard and besara is the dish that has mustard paste in it. I have been intrigued with these names for a while, and contemplated on how they are connected, or not. An enthusiast of etymology that I am, food names always prod me to know their origins. So, I ended up asking my parents, as I usually do for most things Odia, why are dishes that incorporate the sorisa bata called besara? My mother who finds answers to most questions that come her way somewhere between the pages of the puranas or the Bhagwat Gita, or amidst stories of her favourite lord, Jagannatha, supposed that the term has connections with the culinary traditions of the Puri temple perhaps. I shake my head, unsatisfied with the inadequacy of a literal connection. There must be more, no? I pester. In the quest to find the divine link between mustard seeds and Jagannatha, my father retells the story of Indradyumna and his chief brahmin minister, Bidyapati. There lived a King Indradyumna, who ruled from his capital in Avantipura. One day a traveler appeared in his court and sang praises of Nila Madhaba, an incarnation of Lord Vishnu whose deity made of nīlamaṇi (sapphire) was being worshipped in the distant land of Puruṣottama Kṣetra (present day Puri), atop the remote mountain Niladri in Odra Desha (present day Odisha). Indradyumna wasted no time to dispatch Bidyapati to find the deity and confirm if the traveler was indeed telling the truth. For a long time Bidyapati wandered but to no avail, only to be found tired and hungry by a group of sabaras and their chief, Biswabasu. Bidyapati who now lived amidst the sabaras, soon notices Biswabasu's daily trips to the forest but never gets to know of his whereabouts. With time, Bidyapati marries Lalita, Biswabasu's daughter and after many attempts of cajoling, Lalita tells him that her father goes to worship Nila Madhaba in a secret place. Biswabasu had been worshipping Nila Madhaba clandestinely for years and did not want to disclose it to Bidyapati. There was a prophecy, you see. A prophecy which dictated the disappearance of the deity upon Indradyumna's arrival. Biswabasu could not risk it. After all, he was deeply committed to the wellbeing of his community which rested upon the prayers and offerings to Lord Nila Madhaba. Bidyapati was disappointed. Lalita felt her husband's sadness and kept pleading her father. At last, Biswabasu agreed to take Bidyapati along with him to see Nila Madhaba under the condition that Bidyapati would be blindfolded for the entire journey. Bidyapati agreed but also managed to tie a handful of mustard seeds in the folds of his dhoti, snug around his waist. My mother exclaims, ବିଦ୍ୟାପତି ରାସ୍ତାରେ ଯିବାବେଳେ ସୋରିଷ ମଞ୍ଜି ବୁଣି-ବୁଣି ଗଲେ —As Bidyapati walked the path, the rhythm of his walk kept sowing the mustard seeds — my father repeats. What happens after Bidyapati sees the deity and how he returns to Avantipura is another stretched tale, a time lapse in which the mustard seeds grow into plants and forge the mustard trail that Indradyumna follows and arrives at Niladri mountain only to find that the deity had disappeared.  It would take several aswamedha jagyans and the passage of an entire yuga before Indradyumna has a celestial vision, finds the log of wood from which the deity of Lord Jagannatha is carved and the original Puri temple is built. Much later in the 10th century, King Anantavarman Chodaganga of the Eastern Ganga dynasty will start rebuilding the temple, and the present day Puri temple periphery would evolve from thereon. This narration is to elucidate those mustard seeds and their sowing, a spice that wasn't just masala but the linchpin that bridged the path between man and god, changing the course of history. Note the root alphabet ବ in the word ବୁଣିବା meaning sowing, and the middle alphabets ସ and ର in ସୋରିଷ meaning mustard. Upon joining, ବ,ସ and ର, the term ବେସର or besara does not seem so alien after all. My father's theory on besara's name may be far fetched and my mother's belief is perhaps just that — her faith that every genesis, including besara's denomination, is somehow connected with Jagannatha. But their candid hypothesis on the alphabets ବ, ସ and ର from the words ବୁଣିବା and ସୋରିଷ mysteriously conjoining into ବେସର shows the pull of the Jagannatha veneration. Poles Apart with Besara When cooking both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes, making a besara saves a lot of time in the kitchen while producing two lip smacking versions of a dish. The machcha (fish) besara, chingudi (prawns) besara and chattu (mushroom) besara use an onion, tomato and mustard paste based gravy. All these preparations typically also use ambula which renders a unique tanginess and any other substitute will not do justice. If you don't have access to ambula, you can still make this gravy. The taste will be slightly less sour. When I make a maccha or chingudi besara for myself, I make a chhatu (mushrooms) or pariba (vegetables) or anda (egg) besara for the husband. A besara gravy for eggs is not common in Odia cooking but I find that the Odia mustard paste works rather well with eggs. The pariba and anda besara taste even better with tamarind instead of ambula, and can also be made simply with tomatoes and mustard paste without any onions or extra souring agents. The Puri temple version of besara, which is vegetarian, uses lots of coconut and a hint of jaggery to balance the fieriness of mustard. The mustard paste remains standard to both preparations, and I vary the souring agents for the vegetarian and non-vegetarian versions according to availability of ingredients but mostly depending on my mood! Recipe Maccha Besara/Chingudi Besara/Anda Besara/Chattu Besara Ingredients 250-350 grams fish for maccha besara/small prawns for chingudi besara/2-4 hard boiled eggs for anda besara or 200-300 grams mushrooms of your choice 1 medium sized potato, cut into big chunks, if using for chattu besara then cut into smaller chunks similar to the size of mushrooms 2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped fine (optional for prawns/shrimps) 1 small onion, chopped fine 1-2 green chillies 4-5 tsp mustard oil 1 tsp turmeric powder 1/4 tsp red chilli powder for eggs Salt to taste 1 piece of ambula (dried green mango) for fish and prawns, 1tsp tamarind paste for eggs For the mustard paste: 2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 5-6 garlic cloves, 1 dry red chilli, soaked in warm water for about an hour, drained and ground to a fine paste Method Wash and marinate the fish/prawns/shrimp in salt and 1/4 tsp turmeric. Set aside. For eggs, coat with salt, turmeric and red chili powder, and set aside. Wash and clean the mushrooms. In an iron wok or any other kadhai, heat about 3 tsp mustard oil, let it smoke, and then add the fish slowly one by one or all the shrimps/prawns/eggs. Fry until light brown on both sides in case of fish, for prawns/shrimps until they turn a perfect C, slightly scorched for eggs and slightly roasted and lose all water for mushrooms. Remove and keep aside. Add the remaining oil, fry the potatoes until slightly browned on the sides. Remove and keep aside. Add the chopped onions and green chilies, and sauté till onions are translucent or pinkish. Add turmeric and the chopped tomatoes, sauté and mix. Cover and cook till tomatoes are soft and incorporated with onions to form a masala. Dilute the mustard paste in about 1/2 cup water, and slowly add to the wok, gently mixing everything. Add salt and give it a good mix. Add about 1 and 1/2 cups of water and bring to a boil. Add the potatoes and cook covered until potatoes are mostly done. At this stage, add the fish/prawns/shrimps/mushrooms and the dried mango or eggs and tamarind paste and let the gravy simmer. Mash some of the potato to help thicken the gravy. Taste and adjust salt if needed. Drizzle about 1/2 tsp mustard oil if you like the taste and smell of raw mustard oil. This is optional. Turn off the heat and it rest for a couple of minutes. Garnish with fresh green coriander leaves and serve with pipping hot rice. Home Style Pariba (Vegetable) Besara Ingredients 1/2 cup each of vegetables like pumpkin, eggplant and potato, chopped into small chunks 1/4 cup pointed or spine gourd, chopped 1/4 cup okra or long/flat beans, chopped 2 medium sized tomatoes, chopped 4 slit green chillies, 1/2 tsp mustard seeds 4 tsp oil Salt to taste, 1/2 tsp turmeric 1 or 2 ambula (dried mangoes slices) soaked in 1/2 cup water or 1 tsp tamarind pulp/paste diluted in 1/2 cup water A handful of badis (urad dal dumplings) - optional For the mustard paste - 2 tsp mustard seeds, 1/2 tsp cumin seeds, 5-7 garlic cloves, 1 dry red chilli, soaked in warm water for about an hour, drained and ground to a fine paste Method Heat 3 tsp of oil in a kadhai or deep pan. Add the chopped okra/beans and sauté on high heat for 2-3 mins. Reduce heat to medium, add pumpkin, potato, eggplant and pointed/spine gourd and sauté for 3 minutes. Remove and keep aside. Add 1 tsp of oil, and as the oil heats up, add the mustard seeds and green chilies, and then add the tomatoes. Sauté, cover and cook until tomatoes are soft. Open the kadhai and add the mustard paste, and lightly sauté for a few seconds. Add salt and turmeric and mix. Next, add 4-5 cups of water and bring it to a boil. Add the sautéed vegetables and continue boiling for 10-12 minutes or until vegetables are cooked. Add the ambula/tamarind and boil for 3-4 minutes. If using badis, lightly fry and add on top now. Turn off the heat and let the ensemble settle. Serve hot with white rice. Puri Temple Style Besara This version of the mixed vegetable besara is inspired from the Puri temple cooking where only seasonal indigenous vegetables are permitted, and there is no use of chilies, garlic or onions. Additionally, the temple cooking practices don't allow much stirring of the pots, neither extensive tempering nor tasting of ingredients. This recipe is a nod to this exceptional cooking style, which is almost meditative and demands a certain level of mindfulness which we may not always cater to in our usual kitchens. Ingredients 1/2 cup each of vegetables like diced pumpkin, spine gourd, pointed gourd, long or flat beans and 1/4 cup each of vegetables like raw banana or plantain, taro, white radish, yam, sweet potato: About 3 cups of vegetables in total 1/3 cup overnight soaked kala chana For bata masala or spice paste: 4 tsp mustard seeds, 4 tsp fennel seeds, 2 tsp cumin seeds, 2 tsp peppercorns, 1 inch ginger soaked for 1-2 hours, drained and made into a fine paste Ratio of mustard, fennel, cumin and peppercorns is 2:2:1:1 3/4 cup grated coconut 1/2 tsp turmeric 1 tsp salt or based on your estimation 1 pinch asafoetida dissolved in water 1 tbsp jaggery 1/3 cup fried nadi badi 2 tbsp ghee 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp mustard seeds Method In a tall deep pot, add the vegetables, kala chana, bata masala, 1/2 cup coconut, turmeric and salt, and then add about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of water. Mix well and then cover and cook on low heat for about 15 minutes or until the vegetables are half cooked. Next add the asafoetida dissolved in water, jaggery and nadi badi, and continue cooking till vegetables are mushy. At this point turn off the heat. Heat the ghee in a tadka pan, add the mustard and cumin seeds and pour this over the cooked vegetables. Cover and let it rest. Upon opening, mix, add the remaining grated coconut and serve with ghee rice.

#polesapart series Jump to Recipes In spring 2023, I wrote an essay, Sour Things in an Odia Kitchen and My Mother's Machcha Ambila on the Goya Journal, elaborating the culinary techniques and regional contexts behind an entire genre of dishes from Odisha in the sour, sweet-sour and tangy flavour profiles. The essay also includes my family recipe for a delectable fish in sour and sweet sauce, 'machcha ambila', a specialty of the Ganjam district in Odisha. There's also a vegetarian counterpart to this fish recipe, 'phala ambila', which my husband enjoys a lot. The machcha and phala ambila are apt dishes to share as part of the series Poles Apart, food that I often cook as a pair for myself and my husband who have different choices in terms of eating meat. The broth for both is essentially the same, a tamarind, turmeric and jaggery ensemble that simmers for some time before being tempered with spices. Ambila, Kanji and Khatta Ambila is a blanket term in Odia cuisine for soupy dishes that taste tangy, a flavour which is difficult to delineate like umami. It’s a bit sour with a hint of sweetness and a mild saltiness that you cannot quite tell. With the right seasoning, it lingers in your mouth and keeps you coming back for more like South Indian rasams or chaarus, and sometimes even moru curries. The recipes for ambilas are highly adaptable owing to every family’s modus operandi but the broth is always the fulcrum of the dish. To finish off, a tadka with two or more of these ingredients, mustard seeds or pancha phutana, garlic, curry leaves and dry red chillies is done. Find out everything about ambila, kanji and khatta in Odia cuisine Phala Ambila My parents belong to Berhampur in Ganjam, and a vegetarian ambila is called phala ambila in Ganjam. It is made with vegetables like eggplant, taro, pumpkin, and radish, simmered in a sour sweet broth. As spring continues to evade us here, my mind wonders into my childhood...We are getting into the thick of winter. I have been awakened by the sounds emanating from the kitchen, and my mother's pace tells me she is in the midst of heavy prepping for the Thursday Laxmi puja. There will be four iterations of the puja through the month, and a plate of umpteen goodies to eat every time — this I know. But that's not the exciting part. I must narrate the backgrounder before I write further. On Prathamastami, when my elder sisters being the firstborns — the cynosure of the ritual — got the better of everything, new clothes, bandapana, pitha, bhoga, I quipped why there wasn't such a tradition for the youngest lot of the family. To appease a 5 year old, mother promised me of a Kanisthapurnami. It will take another 5 years to realize, there's no such thing, and how mother chose one of the iterations of the manabasa gurubar, close enough to Prathamastami, to treat me to something extra for being kanistha, or the youngest! While the offerings would vary each Thursday from kanika, dahi pakhala, khechudi, dalma, sagaw bhaja, kheeri in the day to kakara, seejha monda, gaintha, bara and chakuli in the evening, one thing was constant, phala ambila. As I grew up, the charm of the make belief Kanisthapurnami faded for me but the joy of relishing a bowl of that rustic 'gurubariya' (related to Thursday) ambila, only grew and became one of my fondest food memories. So, throughout winter on every Thursday, I would rush to the kitchen and find a pot of phala ambila simmering away, smelling of tamarind, curry leaves and pancha phutana, enriched with the profusion of the winter produce. If the day turned out to be a holiday, I would be impatient for the puja to be over, so that a portion could be served. And, if it was a regular school day, I could not wait to get back home! There's no dearth of ambilas, kanjis and khattas in Odia cuisine but the ambila made specifically on the occasion of manabasa gurubar hit differently. I would ask for extra baras and dip them into the ambila before gulping them up, a practice and pairing I discovered on my own. Unlike my sisters, I cared less for the kakara and monda. What excited me was the subtle roundedness of flavours in the ambila and the faint hint of sweetness in the bara, and the fact that my mother made both of these in excess just for me. Machcha Ambila My family's treasured machcha ambila is a slight deviation from the usual recipes. The Purohit household, my maternal home, was teeming with school-going children in the 1950s-60s. My mother and her siblings walked a distance to school which meant lunch at 8 a.m. The staple fish and rice were a no-brainer to keep tummies full for the journey, and machcha ambila omitting elaborate chopping and grinding, easily fit the bill. Garlic and curry leaves were skipped for simplicity although curry leaves were retained in the vegetarian phala ambila. “There isn’t much to it,” my mother says when I ask for details. But I am hungry, eager, and most importantly, pregnant, utterly craving machcha ambila. I pester for the deal breaker — exact proportions of tamarind and jaggery which needs some experience to master. “Don’t marinate the fish, and remember julienned onions are necessary for texture” — her repeated instructions. She remembers her grandmother stirring the broth in the kitchen, the heady aroma, and the sight of freshly caught rohu while chewing tooth wood early morning. A dekchi of rice inverted to gather starchy water for a batch of torani kanji. She paints the picture of dried broken red chilies dancing in hot oil until plump, a sputtering of pancha phutana crackling in haste. A light stir, the onions go next. The fish follows, borrowing some of the rusty shades. Not too long, and the tamarind-jaggery broth drowns everything. This humdrum of machcha ambila is unfaded in mother’s recollections. I have eaten it for three decades now — with fingers drenched in thinnish gravy and rice — and still can’t stop at one serving. Recipes Phala/Pariba Ambila (Vegetarian) Ingredients 3 cups of chopped vegetables like taro, eggplant, pumpkin, okra, radish and sweet potato For the broth A ball of tamarind (size of a medium to large lime) ½ tsp turmeric 1-1 ½ tsp jaggery (will depend on the variety of jaggery) For the tadka 1 tbsp oil (preferably one that does not have a strong flavour or aroma) 2 dry red chilies 1 tsp pancha phutana (mix of equal parts mustard, cumin, fenugreek, fennel and nigella seeds) 5-10 curry leaves Salt to taste Method Soak the tamarind ball in water and extract the pulp. In a tall pot, add the chopped taro, pumpkin, radish and sweet potato along with 2-3 cups of water and salt, and bring to boil. Add the extracted tamarind pulp and turmeric and continue boiling the water on medium heat. In a pan, add some oil and stir fry the okra and eggplant for a couple of minutes, and then add to the other vegetables in the pot. Add 1/2 tsp jaggery and stir to mix. Taste and add more to adjust. It should taste sour with hints of sweetness. Boil for 4-5 minutes or until the vegetables are cooked but hold their shape, take off the heat and keep aside. To prepare tadka, heat oil in a pan. Add dry red chilies, pancha phutana and curry leaves in the order described, and let them sizzle. Immediately pour the tadka over the vegetables in the broth in the pot. Cover to retain the aroma. Open the pot after a few seconds and stir gently. Cover and keep aside after taking off the heat until serving. Serve with hot steamed rice. Machcha Ambila (Fish) First posted on the Goya Journal Ingredients 4-5 pieces of freshwater fish like rohu or catla For the broth A ball of tamarind (size of a medium to large lime) ½ tsp turmeric 1-1 ½ tsp jaggery (will depend on the variety of jaggery) For the gravy 1 onion (medium size) For the tadka 1 tbsp oil (preferably one that does not have a strong flavour or aroma) 2 dry red chilies1 tsp pancha phutana (mix of equal parts mustard, cumin, fenugreek, fennel and nigella seeds) Salt to taste Method Wash and clean the fish. Keep aside. Julienne the onion. Soak the tamarind ball in water and extract the pulp. In a tall pot, add 2-3 cups of water and bring to boil. Add the extracted tamarind pulp and turmeric and continue boiling the water for 2-3 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp jaggery and stir to mix. Taste and add more to adjust. It should taste sour with hints of sweetness. Boil for 3-4 minutes more, take off the heat and keep aside. In a heavy bottom skillet or wok, heat oil. Once hot, add dry red chilies, pancha phutana and onions in the order described. Stir and brown the onion slices. Add the pieces of fish and fry on one side for 2-3 minutes and then turn around to fry the other side for 2-3 minutes as well. Let the fish get a mild crisp brown colour. Add the prepared broth and then add salt to taste. Stir gently and give a light shake to the skillet or wok without disturbing the fish too much. Cover and keep aside after taking off the heat to allow the fish to absorb the flavours. Serve with hot steamed rice.

#polesapart series Jump to Recipe Leaves Make things Steamy by Aralyn Beaumont is part of the book, You and I Eat the Same: On the Countless Ways Food and Cooking Connect Us to One Another — a compilation of 19 essays focusing on how the vast array of our cuisines is a collective human effort, often thought as a distinguishing and differentiating factor. Beaumont elucidates, "Cooking in leaves is one of humanity’s simplest and most elegant culinary ideas. Its ubiquity unites us. The myriad ways we adapt the same basic principle is what makes food interesting." I couldn't agree more. Now, I am not writing this post to elaborate on how old this technique of cooking is. It is widely known that for thousands of years, humans have been wrapping food in leaves and cooking it by steaming, roasting, charring or burrowing it under the soil and subjecting it to heat. The methods are more perhaps, but the concept remains the same — leaves acting as wrappers, carriers, steamers, protectors of the food within, and additionally, as agents of aroma, flavour and at times, antiseptic properties. Tamales in Mexico, Pasteles in Latin American countries, Bibingka and suman in the Philippines, Kakinoha-zushi in Japan, pepes in Indonesia, Zong zi and Lo mai gai in China, Ha mok pla in Thailand, Bánh chưng in Vietnam, Sarma in Southeastern European and Ottoman cuisine, and of course the lineup of leaf-wrapped food preparations in different regions of India — Gujarati patra, panki and damni dhokla, Parsi patrani machhi, Maharashtrian patole, paniya from Madhya Pradesh, Mangalorean kotte kadubu, Therali kozhukattai from Kerala, Manipuri paknam, Kumaoni singori — are just specks in the vast universe of this food category around the world. I don't aim to educate you on the plethora of dishes that cultures across the globe make, using this method of cooking, nor the variety of leaves that these cultures use for wrapping food. There are some great writeups available on these aspects such as this one, which talks about ten flavor-packed leaves from around the world to bring into your kitchen, or this one, which has some nice recipes like the Mediterranean dolmades. And, this one by Priyadarshini Chatterjee is a thoughtful roundup of how regions in India have adapted this age-old culinary technique to churn out some fantastic dishes from their kitchens. Then, there are of course essays like the one by Aralyn Beaumont as noted above. In this post, I want to share how I use this technique to cook some of the most easiest meals at home, both vegetarian and non-vegetarian at the same time. The first one in the series, Poles Apart. Regional Context and Nomenclature Growing up in Odisha, where food is often cooked by wrapping it in leaves — sticky batters, vegetables, mushrooms, meat and fish, effortlessly embalmed with spices or stuffed with sweet somethings — I have seen this practice closely, and keenly. It is common in the neighbouring region of Bengal as well. In Odisha, we call such dishes, patrapoda, literally meaning charred or sometimes, seared, in leaves. Patra = leaves, poda = charred/burned/seared. Abundantly used by people in the bygone, especially tribals and villagers, this method of cooking is a stroke of ingenuity. In the olden times of Odisha, food was often wrapped in leaves of the sal tree and was cooked over an open fire, often in the dying embers of earthen ovens dug up in the ground. The heat of the fire would char and sear the leaves, which acted as an impervious casing and prevented the food from being exposed to direct heat and getting burned. The charred leaves generated a smoky flavour in the food while trapping some steam and sealing in the smokiness, cooking the food slowly in mellow heat. Once cooked, the leaf wraps are opened and the cooked dish is revealed. The result is a perfectly cooked dish with minimum effort and fantastic taste. If you have the time and space to setup an open fire, an Odia patrapoda is a fine dish to make. In modern kitchens, we create patrapoda by roasting the leafy parcels on a hot griddle or a pan with a tight fitting lid. The Bengali paturi uses the same method. The pioneers of the patrapoda, the tribals and villagers, used leaves of the sal tree for wrapping food. In present day too, if you can find sal leaves, they work great and nothing beats their smoky scent. But if you can't, don't be intimidated. There are a variety of leaves employed to make leafy parcels! An Odia sweet, chenna poda is cooked by wrapping kneaded cottage cheese mixed with sugar and some spices in sal leaves and placing it in an oven. The classic enduri pitha or haladi patra pitha is a sweet dish where a rice and urad dal batter is stuffed with grated coconut and jaggery, and sealed between leaves of the turmeric (haladi in Odia) plant and then steamed. Apart from these, Odia cooking uses banana leaves, bottle gourd or pumpkin leaves and even taro leaves to wrap marinated fish, mushrooms or vegetables and roast or steam the leafy parcels. The paturi can use a similar variety of leaves as well. The choice of leaves depends on the availability or seasonality and the amount of food they will carry. The Bengali paturi has several famed dishes in its stock as well. Macher paturi (fish paturi) is undoubtedly the most common of all paturis. Ilish or Hilsa fish is the popular ingredient which is coated in spices and wrapped in leaves, and the banana leaf happens to be the usual wrapper. However, more variants exist like the bhetki paturi that has baramundi wrapped in banana leaves, kumro patai ilish that has hilsa wrapped in pumpkin leaves, chhanar paturi that has paneer or cottage cheese wrapped in (usually banana) leaves, and more. A Little Detour A slight modification of the patrapoda is daba poda where daba means box and poda means charred or burned or roasted in Odia. The designation daba poda is not accurate, rather a reminder that while the term is derived from the older dish, patrapoda, the new version itself doesn't actually involve any roasting. Sweta Biswal, in her book Beyond Dalma describes daba puda as a modification of patrapoda or purga. Sweta elucidates "as people stopped going into the jungles to collect firewood everyday, the availability of fresh leaves to wrap and cook the food went down. At the same time, new utensils started gaining popularity in the home kitchens." The daba refers to these utensils. Instead of leaves, people started putting all ingredients into these dabas and cooking it on the embers. This brilliant organic evolution of the patrapoda though lacks the smoky scent of leaves, it does pack a punch of flavour and is a timesaver in the kitchen. In modern kitchens where we don't have embers, charring or roasting food in a small bowl over the fire is difficult, rather dangerous. In this case, we use utensils with tight fitting lids and cook the marinated food in it with no addition of water. The enclosed environment mimics an oven and the food cooks in the steam from its own juices. The bhapa dishes in the Bengali cuisine are a class of dishes that cook food in enclosed containers by steaming. Bhapa means steamed in Bengali, and true to its name, the dish is cooked in steam. The ingredients are packed into a box —usually a tiffin box— closed and placed inside an enclosed vessel filled with just enough water to create steam for cooking the dish. In older traditional kitchens, you will often find a sealed box containing fish or chhana (cottage cheese or paneer) or a combination of greens and shrimps/prawns coated with spices, sitting in a water bath or in a pressure cooker with its whistle taken off, cooked in no time. Although the cooking method of bhapa does not inherently require the food to be wrapped in leaves, many recipes call for the food to be wrapped in leaves like banana or pumpkin or gourd, placed inside an enclosed container and then steamed. The Bengali Bhapa ilish (hilsa fish steamed) and chhana bhapa (cottage cheese steamed) are both classics, and have undoubtedly earned a place of love and pride in the cuisine. The ilish steams quite well on its own, enclosed in a steel tiffin box but when steamed while wrapped in a bottle gourd leaf, it becomes even more special as lau patay ilish. And, then there's kochu patay ilish which is hilsa steamed in taro leaves, another delightful steamed version of ilish which I love. More than the fish, I enjoy shrimps or prawns steamed in this way. The chingri bhape or bhapa chingri is not only easy to prepare but also way more flavourful than the usual cooked shrimps or prawns. You can even add tender vegetables or greens to enhance this dish. I also relish strips of boneless chicken steamed in this way. A good rub of chilli, mustard and garlic paste, mustard oil, some yogurt with a hint of turmeric and red chili powder over the chicken strips and more spoonfuls ladled over are just the prep you need to do. A delectable bhapa murgi is ready! Although chhana bhapa steals the limelight in the vegetarian category, I find tofu to be a really good candidate. With no particular flavour of its own, it becomes an open canvas to experiment with the mustard paste. I sometimes add melon seeds instead of grated coconut or increase the fieriness of the paste with some chili oil. A soft crumbly tofu works great for a tofu bhape but a medium firm one does not disappoint either. Traditionally, there aren't many versions of vegetarian bhapa just as there aren't many versions of a vegetarian paturi. But I like to think beyond the standard recipes in this regard. I have found that vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potatoes, bottle gourd, zucchini, and winter squashes or pumpkins taste quite nice when cooked using the bhapa method. The idea is to choose vegetables that take relatively less time to turn tender. For cauliflower and broccoli, I cut medium florets. For sweet potatoes and pumpkins, medium thick slices work well. And, for soft squashes like zucchini or bottle gourd, and even sweet potato, grating or chopping fine is preferable. A mustard based paste surely adds to the inherent flavours of the vegetables and steaming generates a tender bite. For whole florets or thickish slices, you may want to lightly sauté/pan fry the vegetables first, and then go for steaming. Trust me, the additional sautéing does not add a ton of time to the overall cooking process. Spices for Coating All of these leafy parcels, the Odia patrapoda and the Bengali paturi, and their non-leafy steamed and roasted variations, daba puda and bhapa, are absolutely easy to put together. The only trick is to get the combination of spices right, which isn't difficult to master after a couple of attempts. The spice paste in both Odia and Bengali patrapoda and paturi, has essentially mustard seeds as its base. Mustard, with its pungent flavour, is an acquired taste but for the less inclined eater, a mellowed version can also be prepared. The Odia version of the spice paste uses black mustard seeds, a tad bit of cumin seeds, dried red chillies and garlic pods, which are ground together into a fine paste with slight addition of water. The Bengali version also uses black mustard seeds as the base but adds green chilies, grated coconut, sometimes a bit of poppy seeds and nigella seeds, and often curd (yogurt). A little turmeric may be added for a bright yellow hue. Although purists will tell you that a traditional sila bata is indispensable to get the right texture, I am all in for a method that saves you time and effort in the kitchen. I love to use the pestle and mortar when I can but a good blender also generates an excellent paste to work with. Add water in increments, and some salt to tie the flavours together, and your paste is ready. To tone down the pungency of mustard, a combination of yellow and black mustard seeds can be used. The use of coconut and yogurt in the Bengali version also helps to bring a roundedness to the sharp mustard notes. The mustard paste can be mellowed by using yellow mustard seeds along with the black. Choice of Leaves Now on the question on what leaves to use, here are some questions to ask yourself: Do I want to only wrap the food or eat the leaves as well? For the latter, use edible leaves like pumpkin, bottle gourd, taro. Banana leaves render the smell and flavour but are discarded before eating. What is the size of the ingredients I am planning to wrap in the leaves? Banana leaves have a large surface area and can hold bigger pieces of fish fillets or cuts. Banana leaves must first be exposed over open fire for a bit to help them stiffen and not tear when being folded during the process of wrapping. What is in season? Are there any particular variety of large edible leaves available locally that I can use to wrap food? A chard or a collard can also be an excellent wrapper. Method of Wrapping On the topic of wrapping, I am happy to say there isn't any magic involved. Although it may seem so :) Treat the leaf as a gift wrapping paper. Place spice coated ingredient on the leaf, fold the leaves so that the ingredients are cocooned inside, and use strings to tie the leaf parcel so that it's easy to handle and keeps the ingredients sealed. Method of Cooking For the Odia patrapoda or Bengali paturi: Make the appropriate spice paste Coat the fish or shrimps or mushrooms or paneer or any tender vegetables with the spice paste you prepared. Place the coated ingredient in the leaves, add green chillies and coriander leaves for freshness, drizzle a glug of mustard oil and seal. Place on a hot oil greased griddle or open fire to roast until done. NOTE: If you skip wrapping the food in the leaves, and simply roast the marinated food on a hot oil greased griddle or pan with a tight fitting lid, you will make what is called a daba puda in Odia. For the Bengali bhapa: Make the appropriate spice paste Coat the fish or shrimps or mushrooms or paneer or any tender vegetables with the spice paste you prepared. Place the coated ingredient in a box with a tight fitting lid, add the remnant spice paste, green chillies and coriander leaves for freshness, drizzle a glug of mustard oil and close the box. To steam: In a pressure cooker, add water to the cooker, place the ring in and lower the container. Remove the whistle and steam for 12 to 15 minutes. OR In a microwave oven, combine everything together in a microwave safe bowl. Cover with a lid and cook. The cooking time will vary depending upon the ingredients and the power of the microwave. OR In a steamer, place the leaf parcel inside the basket and steam for 12 to 15 minutes. OR In a tall vessel, create a water bath such that when you place the tightly closed container in the vessel, water should reach only up to 1/3 of the box and not close to the lid. Placing the sealed box on top of a steaming raiser is a handy trick. How do I use this method to make veg and non-veg simultaneously? I choose a single spice paste to keep things simple and move things quickly in the kitchen. For example, I make a maccha (fish) patrapoda for myself and a chhatu (mushroom) patrapoda for my husband. In this case, I make a large batch of the Odia style masala, and the rest is like a breeze! Or say, I make a bhapa maach (Bengali steamed fish) for myself and a chhannar bhapa (Bengali steamed paneer) for my husband. The typical Bengali paturi spice paste works quite well for both these ingredients. To understand or recognize the veg parcels from the non-veg ones, I either use two separate pans when I am running short of time or do it one after the other when I am not rushing. Once you know the basic spice paste, it's easy to add variations. For example, a bunch of fresh green coriander leaves in the Bengali version of the paste works wonderfully or adding chopped onions, tomatoes and spring onions to the coated ingredient in the Odia version adds another layer of texture and breaks the monotony of mustard. Recipe If you are here after reading the post all through, do you really need the recipe now? :) I highly encourage to get a hang of the spice paste by making smaller batches first and using leaves as parcels if you have never done before. But if you really need the ingredients measured by the standard, here's something to get you started. Patrapoda For 2 to 3 pieces of fish or a big handful (about 2 cups) of mushrooms: Ingredients 1 large banana leaf or 3-4 large taro leaves or a bunch of gourd leaves/pumpkin leaves 2-3 tsp black mustard seeds soaked for 1-2 hours and drained (take lesser quantity for less pungency) 1 tsp cumin seeds (optional) 1 dried red chilli 6-7 pods of garlic 1/4 tsp turmeric powder Salt to taste 2-3 tsp cold pressed mustard oil (If you don't have access to mustard oil, then skip it) 2-3 fresh green chilies, optional a handful of chopped coriander leaves, optional 1/2 cup chopped onions and tomatoes, optional Method Make a fine paste of mustard and cumin seeds, dry red chilli and garlic. Add salt and turmeric and mix. Coat the fish/mushrooms well with the spice paste you prepared. Use your hands for this process for better results. If using banana leaves, wipe with water and expose them to heat without burning, to ensure the leaves don't tear apart when folding. For other leaves, nicely wipe with water. Place the coated fish and mushrooms in the leaves, add green chillies and coriander leaves for freshness, chopped onions and tomatoes if using, drizzle mustard oil and seal using cotton strings. Place on a hot oil greased griddle or open fire to roast until done to your liking. If you find that your leaf is torn, wrap another layer of leaf around it. If using taro leaves to wrap, I always place the leaf parcels in a steamer for 5-7 minutes and also use a good squeeze of lime/lemon juice along with mustard oil over the spice coated ingredients. This is to avoid any itching that may be caused due to the oxalates present in taro leaves. When ready, open the leaf parcels and enjoy with hot steamed rice. Bhapa For 3 to 4 pieces of fish like ilish or bhetki (3 cm thickness each) or 2 to 3 pieces of thin salmon steaks (or 1 to 2 fat steaks) or a slab of paneer or equivalent quantity of vegetables: Ingredients 4 tbsp black mustard seeds or 2 tbsp + 2tbsp black and yellow mustard seeds, soaked for 1-2 hours and drained 3-5 green chillies 1/3 cup grated coconut a handful of chopped coriander leaves, optional 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1/3 cup beaten yogurt A good pinch of sugar 1 1/2 tbsp cold pressed mustard oil (If you don't have access to mustard oil, then skip it) Salt to taste 3-4 fresh green chilies, optional Method Make a fine paste of mustard and green chillies by slowly adding water and taking as many turns as needed. Next add the grated coconut, salt, sugar and turmeric and grind again. If adding coriander leaves, skip the turmeric, and grind. In a bowl, mix the paste made in step one with yogurt and 1 tbsp mustard oil till everything is well incorporated into a smooth paste. Coat the fish and paneer well with the spice paste you prepared. Use your hands to ensure the mixture coats all of the fish/paneer. Place the coated fish and paneer in separate boxes, add green chillies for freshness and an extra kick, pour in the remaining spice paste, drizzle a glug of remaining mustard oil and seal tightly with respective lids. Heat a vessel and place a stand/raiser at the bottom. Pour hot water, making sure it doesn’t reach up to more than half the height of your tiffin box, or there’s a chance of water seeping in. Once the water has come to a boil, place the tiffin box on the stand. Cover the vessel and steam on medium heat for 15 minutes. When ready, open the tiffin box and enjoy with hot steamed rice.

When I first told my parents about S, and that I want to marry him, my father was quick to ask, "Does he eat fish?" While this may sound strangely funny and a highly unrelated question with respect to a marriage, it shows how food is intrinsically connected to who we are, how we look at the world and what are our priorities. My family belongs to the coastal region of Odisha (India) where fish is both beloved and auspicious, so much that our wedding rituals are incomplete without it. The answer to my father's question is, no S doesn't eat fish or any other meat for that matter. He is a vegetarian. I eat fish and seafood, and the occasional chicken. We both eat eggs and love our vegetables. I grew up with the typical Sunday mangsa jhola (mutton curry) tradition of most Odia and Bengali homes but eventually grew out of eating it on a regular basis. S grew up with the quintessential Sunday rajma-chawal tradition of North Indian homes, and we both enjoy it even now. On hearing that S is a vegetarian, my father was curious, "So how are you going to eat fish?" "How are you going to cook exactly two pieces of fish in some gravy" was my father's grave concern. His questions stemmed from the fact that cooking separately for two people is usually a chore, especially if you want to eat a sumptuous plate of machcha jhola (fish curry) with rice and your partner doesn't eat any. "We will figure it out, Baba," I told him. "I'm not going to give up eating fish," I had to doubly assure him because most couples who have different food choices tend to settle for one of the partner's choices in the long run. Because how much can you eat of a large portioned chilli chicken takeout from your favourite restaurant and then continue eating the leftovers for the week as you're the only one who can finish it! While S and I have similar views on most things in life, we are different at the dining table when it comes to eating meat. Often while dinning at friends' places where non-vegetarian food was served, S would often get asked, "Why don't you have some fish or chicken to accompany Lopa?" I would be pestered, "You have to get him to eat some form of meat. How else will you continue cooking/eating non-veg for one person?" While all of these solicitations seemed to come from a place of sincerity, it can often be annoying, especially to the partner who doesn't consume the food in question. S, is bothered rarely — almost never — by such coaxing. It's me who gets ruffled. Food is personal, and I would never enforce my food choices on him, and vice versa. Hence I thought of starting this section on the blog, Poles Apart, to document how I cook so that I get to enjoy my meat dish while S enjoys his vegetarian dish without having to do a lot in the kitchen. This of course becomes easier for me as S is extremely flexible in terms of what's cooked as long as it's vegetarian. Perhaps, some people will find me cooking to adjust both our needs conservative or un-feminist. Some will also say S can cook his own vegetarian meal while I cook something non-vegetarian, which he often does. But this has nothing to do with feminism because S and I share responsibilities of the home. This rather has more to do with my happiness in being the primary caregiver at home. S is a functional cook. For me, cooking is more than just a process to get food on the table. Good food, good taste and good health matters as much to me — food is not a mere means of survival in my life. If I am enjoying a chicken biryani, I also want my loved ones to have their share of a delicious vegetarian biryani if they don't eat meat. I enjoy finding ways and means to get the best of both worlds in our family meals. Since we now have a child, I feel an even greater need to introduce as much variety in food as possible to our little one. I want baby A to have food options to explore, taste and understand. If A decides to be a vegetarian like his father, it's a choice he would make having experienced both kinds of food his parents eat. Below, I describe things that I do to keep our food plates balanced with both vegetarian and non-vegetarian options. A mix of common and exclusive food options in a meal Although I eat chicken, fish and seafood, I love my vegetables equally. So, vegetarian sides (and even mains) are for both S and me. If I'm cooking a nonveg dish for a regular weekday meal, I stick to only one dish of this kind, and the rest is all vegetarian which both of us eat. If I'm cooking for a gathering, then I add one or two additional nonveg dishes, depending on the guests. On such occassions, I prep quite a few things in advance. Nonvegetarian dishes often call for some amount of mariantion of the meat. Many times, I clean, prep and marinate and freeze the meat if it's not planned to be consumed quickly. I also rely on frozen meat, and have some ready in my freezer. I also keep bags of frozen vegetables. This comes very handy on days which are too busy with little or no time to cook an elborate meal. Keeping adequate vegetarian protein available I have noticed that a lot of people don't have the understanding of vegetarian protein. So when the time comes to prepare a vegetarian equivalent for a nonvegetarian dish, they either don't make it, or simply serve a salad or steamed veggies. I have a variety of vegetarian protein stashed in my pantry and refrigerator including mushrooms, broccoli, sweet potatoes, tofu, tempeh, edamame, lentils, beans, green peas, amaranth, quinoa, nuts and seeds, eggs, along with dairy options like paneer. Keeping vegetarian ingredients with meaty texture available I don't believe in the concept of "meat substitue for vegetable." Having said that I understand that certain versions of non-vegetarian vedishes taste better with an ingredient which is meaty in texture. For example, mushrooms, eggplants, jackfruit, cauliflower can work really well instead of meat in many dishes. Eggs, cottage cheese, dumplings made of chickpea flour can also emulate meat quite well. When I make a vegetarian version of a dish, I am not just looking for something to replace meat. I pick the ingredient which will taste best in the context of the dish. I don't call the vegetarian dish as an imitation of the non-vegetarian dish. The vegetarian dish is an entity in its own right, and not meant to be had as a replacement for non-vegetarian food. Food is food in our home — the kind of food is a personal choice. Minimizing cooking time To cook two or more varieties of a dish, my trick is to optimize cooking and prep time. For this, two things work for me: Having the same foundation (like the base gravy) for both veg and non-veg dishes Keeping similar flavour profiles for both kinds of dishes so that the same spices, masala pastes and sesonings remain the same Through Poles Apart, I aim to bring forward such dishes — food that I make as a pair — with simple and uncomplicated ways to make vegetarian and non vegetarian versions. You can definitely take these recipes and cook only the version you want. Since I mention recipes, I want to add that I never rely on recipes so much while cooking. It's the process, method and techniques that really are a gamechanger for me, and if there's a story linked with the recipe, that's the best part! Although I will write down recipes in Poles Apart, the focus will be on the process because cooking two versions of the same dish requires some planning as well as time-saving methods. And, home cooking relies far more on the modus operandi than the spoons and bowls for measuring ingredients. I hope you come along with me on this journey, a path of discovering new means in the kitchen to cook and enjoy diverse foods with your loved ones.

Jump to Recipe Not Vegan | Vegan Motherhood for the past fourteen months has been more than what the word busy can describe. I came back to my blog after what feels like ages and scrolled through my draft posts. I knew that if I could sit down for one post today, it had to be chocolate cake — never gets old and hugs you like warm sunshine on a winter day — something that I've been craving throughout this week. So, chocolate for dessert. I'm predictable like that. Some will even say boring, possibly even run-of-the-mill. For me, it comes down to chocolate in the end — a meal, a date, a coffee, all feel better when there's chocolate to linger on my lips and in my recollections. As I watch my little one grow up, many bits of my childhood flash past my eyes. Having children is partly about seeing our older selves in them, at least in some ways. In those early childhood remembrances, I've vivid pictures of my father bringing home chocolates for me and my sisters. Chocolates from brands like Cadbury, Amul, Campco, Nestle and more were common in the stash my father would get. Although my mother baked occasionally, she never baked with chocolate nor that I can remember. Chocolate was something that was always bought in my home, never cooked. But it became my truest love over time maturing like love itself, from the sweet Cadbury treats to cacao — the primary ingredient to make real chocolate — which isn't sweet at all. My husband still doesn't get it how I enjoy a bar of 70%+ chocolate or a dash of chilli on my hot chocolate. I make a version close to what the Mayas and Aztecs called cacahuatl although some sources say the Aztecs drank it cold. In fact, the Mayas and Aztecs prepared cacao in myriad ways with various flavorings, spices and additions like ground seed of silk-cotton tree, maize, chili, vanilla and more that Sophie and Michael D. Coe call as "cacao-extenders" in The True History of Chocolate, an extensive and excellent book on cacao's journey. Chili definitely adds that wonderful "afterburn" and thinking of chocolate as chocolate alone is truly unimaginative. Like the bitter taste of cacao, chocolate has a bitter past, a global history that stretches from chocolate's native home in Mesoamerica to Europe's claimed savoir faire over chocolate making, sitting over a bed of invasion and conquest of the Aztec empire by the Spanish conquistadors, European colonization and plantation slavery. The import of cane sugar and spices from the Global South, where cacao primarily grows, further turned chocolate into the sweet confectionary in continental Europe, the face of chocolate that most people associate with today. Chocolate: Riches from the Rainforest by Robert Burleigh is another enlightening piece of work on how the European nobility indulged in cacao import until production was shifted from Mesoamerica to Africa and Asia in the 1700s. Like most colonial plantations, cacao plantation thrived on a slave market. Centuries later, there isn't still enough acknowledgement to the fact that what passes as European chocolate, is actually grown and raised in Africa and South-Central America, and only processed in Europe. World's major chocolate manufacturers actually rely on exploitative labour, a large part of which involves child labour. From the 2022 Cocoa Barometer, "Child labour continues to be a challenge in West African cocoa production, where children are involved in age-inappropriate and hazardous labour. Gender inequality raises barriers for women, both as rightsholders and as agents for change." To combat child labor in cocoa growing communities in Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire, chocolate and cocoa industry companies including ADM, Barry Callebaut, Cargill, Ferrero, The Hershey Company, Kraft Foods, Mars Incorporated, and Nestlé signed an agreement, developed in partnership with Senator Tom Harkin and Representative Eliot Engel, the Harkin Engel Protocol, also called the Cacao Protocol. But the prescribed deadline has failed time and again. Going back to my childhood memories, I remember Dairy Milk chocolate bars and the Bournvita chocolate drink as raging favourites in the 80s-90s, both created by Cadbury (now Mondelez), perhaps the only reigning brand in India then. Like their other colonies, British introduced cacao to India also to satisfy their chocolate cravings. It happened in 1798 when eight plantations were established in Courtallam, Tamil Nadu with the Criollo type cocoa from Central America. However, it was only in the 1960s that Cadbury helped turn cacao growing into a serious agricultural activity in Kerala. But the Criollo variety didn't thrive very well in the area, and was replaced by the Amazonian Forastero variety from West Africa and Malaysia. Despite this, the homegrown bean to bar movement has unfurled only in the last two decades after a market crash in the 1980s left cacao farmers in South India struggling with reduction in demand for their beans and a consequent withdrawal from buyers. And that is when the multi-state farmer co-operative, Campco, rescued the situation. Today, India is home to at least half a dozen homegrown brands who produce chocolates sustainably and use locally grown cacao. Changing face of the Indian chocolate, an article by Anubhuti Krishna, throws light on the Indian chocolate movement, Indian cacao production, sustainability of Indian chocolate and the indigenous and natural flavours and variants. Food is never about just food, is it? The purpose of adding this brief history of chocolate is to bring you closer to the primary ingredient of the recipe I am sharing today. For what's a chocolate cake without chocolate? I have eaten many varieties of chocolate so far in my life, appreciating this gift from the Global South and often wondering if enough is said and known of chocolate being a commodity from the colonized world similar to many other foods with a bitter past. I am an advocate of food being the vehicle of cultural exchange, of food originating in one part of the world and loved and adapted in another, of food being a medium to connect. Having said that, I also value food's context, its story of how it came to be, why and under what circumstances, which are often dire, ugly and exploitative. Once I know this background, I appreciate my plate full of food even more — in this case, a big slice of a good chocolate cake — and never take it for granted. This is my favourite cake. Not too sweet, moist and fluffy with that soul-satisfying flavour of chocolate. I have perfected it over the years baking it on every occasion I could! Here are some notes to bring about variations to the standard recipe: NOTES There are two versions I make, one is the usual egg and oil based without any butter and the other is vegan with no eggs or milk. Both can be made to be gluten free as well. I use Anita's All Purpose gluten-free flour for the no-gluten version. I add a frosting for celebrations otherwise I enjoy this cake just as it is with a cup of coffee. So good! For frosting, classic butter cream, chocolate ganache, peanut butter, and seasonal strawberries, raspberries and oranges or simply dusting powdered white sugar, are all great options. If you like nuts, almonds and walnuts go really well with this cake. Use less than 1/4 cup of almond or walnut flour along with 1 and 3/4 cups of the usual flour for the batter in this case. Sprinkle some flaked almonds or crushed walnuts on top after pouring the batter into the cake tin. Using oil is critical in this cake. Butter doesn't do what oil does for a chocolate cake although butter is great for a lot of other fluffy cakes. I make the with-egg version of this cake with butter milk which is just adding a tablespoon of vinegar to a 250 ml milk, mixing and letting it stand for a few minutes before using. The butter milk really helps with the fluffy texture of the cake and gives that beautiful moistness that we desire in a good cake. You can also use orange juice instead of vinegar or use 1 tbsp each of both. The orange juice adds a delicious flavour and smell to the cake. Try adding orange slices on top of the batter after pouring into the tin for some extra goodness! Hot water plays a major role in keeping the batter of this cake runny which is crucial to how the cake rises and stays fluffy. I add coffee to hot water to enhance the richness of the chocolate flavour. You can skip the coffee if you want. Recipe Checked the notes? Not vegan Ingredients A classic chocolate cake slathered with melted chocolate and decorated with beautiful red strawberries! Dry Ingredients: 1 and 3/4 cups of all-purpose flour 3/4 cup Golden fine grain sugar (or any fine grain white sugar) + 1/4 cup brown sugar (if you prefer your cake to be more chocolaty than sweet) or 1 cup Golden or white fine grain sugar (if you like it sweet or if you're not going to add any frosting to the cake) or 2 cups granulated white sugar (if you like your cake a bit sweeter) 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1 and 1/2 tsp baking powder 1 and 1/2 tsp baking soda 1 tsp instant coffee (optional) A small pinch of salt - about 1 tsp Wet Ingredients: 2 eggs 1 cup milk + 1 tbsp lime juice or white vinegar 1/2 cup neutral oil 2 tsp vanilla extract 1 cup hot water (Optional) For the frosting: 1/2 cup peanut butter (or any other nut butter of your choice) 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips 2 cups fresh strawberries washed and few pieces cut up Method Preheat your oven to 390 F (200 C). Grease a baking cake tin and sprinkle cocoa powder all over the bottom by sieving the cocoa powder. Add lime juice or vinegar to the milk, mix and let it stand for at least 10 minutes. In a large mixing bowl, add the flour, and then add the sugar and mix well with a wire whisk. Next, sieve the cocoa powder and then add it to the flour and sugar mixture. Mix. Add a small pinch of salt, baking powder and baking soda and mix again. Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla extract and mix everything well with a spatula. Add the instant coffee to the hot water, mix well and then pour the mixture into the cake batter. Give a good mix to the runny batter and then pour it into the prepared cake tin. Shake and tap the tin before placing in the oven to help release any air bubbles and then bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. After taking out the cake from the oven, let it cool completely. Once the cake is completely cooled, take it out of the tin. Optional steps (for frosting) While the cake is baking, in a oven safe dish, add the peanut butter and the chocolate chips and melt both together. You can also use a double boiler for this. Mix the melted ingredients and let the chocolate icing cool to room temperature. Once the cake is out of the tin and completely cooled, use a knife to slowly cut off the uneven portion of at the top of the cake. Keep the chocolate cake pieces in a plate and crush them slightly to use with the icing. Flip the cake so that the cut portion sits at the bottom and the bottom portion of the cake is on top. This ensures an even layer at the top of the cake to help in creating an even coating of melted chocolate. Now, using a frosting spatula or a pallete knife, layer the melted chocolate on top of the cake and on the sides. Add some of the cake crumbles, place the strawberries, and sprinkle the remaining cake crumbles on top. Place the frosted cake in the fridge for at least an hour to help everything set well. Vegan Chocolate Cake Ingredients A no-egg no-dairy chocolate loaf that can also be made in a circular cake tin. Dry Ingredients: 1/4 cup cocoa powder 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour 1 cup granulated sugar 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt Wet Ingredients: 1/3 cup oil 1/4 cup liquid coffee (1 tsp instant coffee mixed with 1/4 cup water - skip the coffee if you want) 1 tsp vanilla 1 tsp vinegar 1 cup water Method Preheat oven to 350 F. Grease a baking cake tin and sprinkle cocoa powder all over the bottom by sieving the cocoa powder. In a bowl, mix all the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Gently pour the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients mix and fold the mixture to assimilate. Pour the batter into a prepared tin. Bake for 50-55 minutes or till a toothpick inserted comes out clean. After taking out the cake from the oven, let it cool completely. Bake with a whole lot of love, and I can guarantee that nothing will go wrong. Chocolate has got you covered! You won't regret making this cake on any of those special occasions when something baked at home is all that matters! If you bake this cake, please drop in your comments or tag me on Instagram and share your chocolate love with me! I'll be so glad to hear from you!

Jump to Recipe Different parts of India celebrate different festivals during monsoon. In Odisha, two festivals are extremely popular during the rainy season, mid June to August, Rajaw and Ratha Jatra. Both are incomplete without the renowned rice cake, poda pitha, which has a distinct charred bottom. Poda in Odia means burnt, and pitha means a class of cakes made of fermented, semi-fermented or un-fermented batters of rice, urad dal or semolina, or a combination of these grains and lentils. In the context of poda pitha, poda implies the charred caramelization of the bottom of the cake. Made and perfected through centuries, pithas are undoubtedly the cornerstones of Odia cuisine. I can't think of an Odia festival which does not include some kind of pitha in the celebratory menus. The phone rings for a while as I figure a way to answer it with batter laden hands. "Next week, Monday, is Ratha Jatra", Maa's voice full of beans echoes through the speaker. "Ah! I checked it on the internet. Thanks Maa!" I wipe a somewhat sticky paste of rice and urad dal off my fingers with a soiled kitchen towel. "I already made the batter for poda pitha", I announce. "Oh Google tells everything now..." I interrupt before she can finish her sentence, "But I wait for your call." Ever since I moved from home and started living on my own, Maa continues to remind me of all festivals throughout the year. Makar Sankranti, Basant Panchami, Holi, Rajaw, Ratha Jatra, Ganesh Puja, Durga Puja, Diwali and everything in between are constant reminders from her. As Hindu Indian festivals follow a lunar calendar, the dates of the festivals aren't fixed. For example, Christmas is designated as December 25 irrespective of the year. But Diwali, does not always come on a certain date of the year, although it usually falls on some day during the months of October and November. Hindu Indian festivals follow something known as 'teethi', a particular alignment of planets and stars during specific times of different seasons. So, the Hindu festival calendar, known as pānji in Odia and panjika in Hindi, has brand new content every year. The concept of monsoon doesn't exist for me after moving to Canada, though the festivals associated with the season remain unchanged, and Maa's aide-memoire keeps me afoot of the impending celebrations, nourishing those bonds that tie me back to the place I was born and raised in. Lord Jagannath's favourite dessert This year on July 12, Odisha's favourite lord, Jagannath, will travel from his holy abode, Shri Mandira, in Puri to the Gundicha Temple, along with his siblings, Subhadra and Balabhadra, sitting upon wooden chariots hand drawn by thousands of devotees. After eight days of pampering at his aunt's home, Gundicha Temple, he will commence his return journey to Shri Mandira, and halt at Mausi Maa temple to eat poda pitha. The lord is known to love poda pitha. It's also believed that in an earlier incarnation as Shri Rām, he had promised Rani Kaikeyi— his father's second wife— that in a later birth he would come to her and savour this dessert. This promise was to console a grief stricken Kaykeyi who realizes her folly of sending off Ram with his newly wed wife, Sita and brother Lakshman, to live in the forests for fourteen years, when her own son, Bharat, confronts her. The Mausi Maa temple at Puri is believed to be Kaikeyi's abode and poda pitha represents her motherly love for Shri Rām. Traditional way of making poda pitha When we look at how poda pitha is traditionally made, we fathom the effort involved, something you would do out of sheer love for someone. The process begins with washing rice. Washed rice is spread upon thin linen or cotton clothes and left to be sun-dried. Next, the rice bereft of any moisture is hand-pounded to powder, chaula chuna, in a tool called dhenki. Fragrant and fiery spices like black pepper, bay leaf, ginger, cardamom and camphor are added to the powdered rice along with some sliced and grated coconut. Then, water is added, little by little, to form a paste-like batter which is cooked on slow heat to form a loose dough. Think of non-glutinous flours which are made into doughs using hot water. The same method is followed to make a dough from the hand-made rice flour. The loose dough is wrapped in leaves, either sal or banana, greased with ghee and stitched with twigs. This ensemble is then placed in an earthen vessel over wood fire, and many cinders are kept on top to gradually cook the dough. The resulting steamed cake has a caramelized layer at the bottom, the result of rice and jaggery burning and sticking at the base. This burnt base is what christened the cake as poda pitha. To enhance its wholesomeness, lentils like urad dal, soaked overnight and ground on stone mill, are also added to the batter. The truth behind the fable of Kakeyi's poda pitha is debatable. Although it subtly explains why the queen would want to make this dessert for Shri Rām to make up for the injustice she inflicted upon him. Puri and Poda Pitha The town of Puri dotted with many narrow lanes, crisscrossed with human-pulled rickshaws and straying cows tussling to own their space, often maddens me, yet continues to beckon me no matter where I live. Perhaps it's the numbing serenity creeping amidst the chaos of the lord's temple and the many facets of past on its ancient walls, or the lord himself with his deep alluring eyes, ebony skin, or maybe the unremitting waves of the Bay of Bengal roaring and falling between ombré and sublime moony nights, or the eternal expanse of golden sands kissing and sending back the surging foams of green and white. Perhaps it's the train rides to Puri taken in childhood that sparkle in my mind like a firefly or the pouring crowds rushing to pull the lord and his siblings' chariots during Ratha Jatra, the cart festival, or the beaches teeming with chaat and jhaal mudhi wallahs in the evenings and Baba's narrations of lores about Jagannath, his voice clashing against the backdrop of the deafening sea. And, how can I forget the food of the lord which upkept culinary art of Odisha amidst other art forms, and that attracts you like a magnet for a bite, only to make you come back for more. Like chenna poda, the burnt cheesecake of Odisha, poda pitha remains sough-after in many markets of Puri, which is known to serve some of the most toothsome versions of this rice cake. There are no two thoughts about it. If the lord adores it, then the best kind of the pitha ought to be made in Puri. Hiatus from rice growing and a celebration of womanhood Some weeks prior to Ratha Jatra, the festival of Rajaw is celebrated, a time of transition from rabi or dālua (summer rice) to khariph or biāli (autumn rice). With the completion of sowing rice for a new season, farmers take a hiatus from rice cultivation, and let the earth, also hailed as Bhoo Devi, rejuvenate before a new season of growing rice. During the four-day long celebrations, the earth's resting period is symbolized as her mensuration, a reminder of the fertility of the soil that provides us with food for survival. Women are revered like the earth, as they too give birth to new life, and Rajaw celebrates this. In olden times, with the clay oven, wooden hearth and the cooking and prep equipment mainly on the floor, activities in the kitchen involved significant load on the earth. During Rajaw, no intensive cooking was done to ensure the earth could repose, like women during their period. So, poda pitha with its 4-5 day shelf life and nutritive benefits, apart from being utterly tasty, fit the bill for Rajaw. Tribal food, rice farming and the cult of Jagannath - Poda Pitha in between the three Ratha Jatra which celebrates the humanness of Lord Jagannath, bringing him to the streets to mingle with the masses and Rajaw that celebrates the glory of the Earth goddess, both have poda pitha entwined in their rituals and practices. While poda pitha's connection with Rajaw bears pragmatism, its correlation to Ratha Jatra seems fabled. Or is it? Rice is the soul of Odisha. It's so pertinent to the Odia diet that a meal is akin to bhāta or cooked rice. "Bhāta khāila ki" which translates to did you eat rice, implies did you eat or did you have food. Most festivals in Odisha revolve around rice and its many growing phases, and involve not one but many dishes made of rice. Poda Pitha is one of them, a pitha with relatively higher longevity requiring minimum supervision when slowly cooking on its own — practical and sustainable amidst the lull in cooking and farming during Rajaw. Of the many desserts made from rice, Jagannath is believed to relish poda pitha the most, a cake that goes way back into the state's food history, to a time when Odisha was a giant kingdom of many tribes, Kalinga, and secluded from the rest of India, over 500 years before conquerors like Ashoka came to own and change it. The traditional method to make this pitha is nothing short of a craft, and many historians believe that olden agrarian Odia tribes pioneered it, who are also known to have unfolded the festival of Rajaw. Lord of the universe, Jagannath, is also believed to be Sabara Dāru Debatā, lord of the sabara tribe, one of the oldest in Odisha, where dāru means wood. The Jagannath cult with the parallel impetus of Shivaism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism has symbiotically grown with ancient Odisha which was largely tribal, each tribe specializing in farming, foraging, seafaring, trading and other crafts. It's plausible that spiritual and religious waves of thought are also influenced from tribal or Atavik ways of worshipping divine powers in the form of a log of wood, a post or stone pillar, and the prasad or food offerings to the deities is logically inspired from tribal ways of cooking and serving food. Similar to dalma and pakhala, poda pitha perhaps also made its way from a tribal plate to the lord's platter. Modern day cooking of poda pitha Modern kitchens and cooking appliances have transformed the way poda pitha is made in homes. Temples still follow the older method. At home, I bake the pitha in an oven. I begin with soaking rice and urad dal overnight, and making a slightly coarse batter in the morning by grinding the two in a blender. I make a rustic batter by adding jaggery, black pepper, bay leaves, ginger, fennel and coconut, and pour into a cake pan or tin. I let it bake at 375 F for about 45 minutes, and increase the temperature to 400 F for the last 5 to 7 minutes to render a char on the cake. This cake is a traditional pitha, and tastes best with its rusticity intact. The fieriness of pepper and ginger is balanced with the sweetness of jaggery and coconut, and complements the earthiness of rice and urad dal. A faint aroma of fennel, bay leaves, ghee and banana (or sal) leaves floats on top, and the sliced coconuts with fried cashews and raisins add crunch and texture. Many varieties of poda pitha Poda pitha can be savoury or sweet, like the one I have shared in this post. Both use a batter base of rice and urad dal. The savoury versions, also called luni poda pitha (luni means salty in Odia) use vegetables like bottle gourd (laau poda pitha) or a mix of new age vegetables like carrots, cauliflowers, bell peppers along with onions. These are usually served with savoury curries or as is. The sweet versions use sugar or jaggery, coconut, nuts, and sometimes milk (khira poda pitha) or vegetables like pumpkin (boitalu or kakharu poda pitha). Recipe Ingredients 1 cup rice 1/2 cup split or whole hurled urad dal 1 cup jaggery 3/4 cup grated coconut 1-inch ginger chopped and pounded 1 tsp crushed green cardamom pods and black peppercorns 1/4 tsp roughly crushed fennel 5-6 bay leaves 4 tbsp ghee (or oil - although oil will not taste the same) 1 tsp salt 1 tsp baking powder 1 tbsp brown sugar or jaggery powder to dust the cake pan 1/4 cup thinly sliced coconut 1/2 cup cashews and raisins 1-2 banana or sal leaves to wrap the batter (optional) Method Soak rice and urad dal for 5-6 hours or overnight. In the morning, wash and drain the water. Then grind into a coarse paste with as little water as possible. Leave the batter to ferment for 3-4 hours. If you live somewhere extremely hot, you may leave it to ferment for an hour or so too. In a pan, add 1 tsp ghee and roast the cashews and raisins until the raisins puff up. Keep aside. Grease a baking pan or tin with some ghee, dust it with brown sugar or jaggery powder, tear 4 bay leaves and lay them on the pan, and keep it ready. If using banana or sal leaves, then line the cake tin with the leaves first. Preheat oven to 375 F. In a bowl, pour the fermented batter and add jaggery, grated coconut, half the sliced coconuts, remaining ghee, cardamom, pepper, fennel, remaining bay leaves torn to bits, salt, baking powder and half the cashews and raisins. Mix everything well. Pour the batter into the cake tin and layer the top with remaining cashews, raisins and sliced coconuts to decorate. Place the cake pan or tin in the oven and bake at 375 F for 40 minutes. For the next 5 minutes, bake at 390 F. Check for doneness by inserting a tooth pick - it should come out clean. Else bake again for 5 minutes at 375 F. Note: Baking at 390 F for 5 minutes is optional. I do it to ensure a char but I usually succeed without it too. Ovens can be different and their heating can vary. If you do this step, make sure you don't cook the cake too long at this high temperature. Let the cake cool completely before slicing. Enjoy as is or a hot cup of lembu cha or lemon tea! It stays well on the kitchen counter for 3-4 days.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe An easy delicious rendition of all-time favourite potatoes with the freshness of onion stalk flowers, versatile enough to substitute the onion stalks with chives or scallions, is my go-to comfort food and comes together in a breeze! I never recognized this early on but I can bet that I have always loved my food. I cared deeply about what mother served us at the table and packed in our lunchboxes. There's a childlike happiness that fills me up when I hark back to those tiffin boxes I took to school. Although following a pattern of roti-sabzi, some sort of pulaos, chow mein or stuffed parathas, they were never mundane. As much as I was intrigued and interested in what my friends had in their dabbas, I was always proud of the meals my mother prepared and savoured all the smells wafting from my lunchbox. Balanced in nutrients, tasty and so easily digested between the study and play at school, those lunchboxes were often the highlight of my day! If I think of my favourites from those tiffin lunches, aloo bhujia or aloo bhaja has to be the forerunner. A tasty aloo bhaja/bhujia is easy to prepare and takes very less time, and no wonder it's one of the most common items packed in my lunchbox. Strips of potatoes cut like matchsticks—think thin French fries—sautéed in mustard oil, cumin and red chili still has the power to uplift my mood on any day. This already special treat becomes stellar with a hue of green from tender onion flower stalks, a seasonal veggie that's abundant in winters in India, especially in Odisha and West Bengal. Onion Stalk and Spring Onion - what's the difference? It's easy to confuse spring onions with onion stalks, commonly called as piaja sandha in Odia and peyajkoli in Bengali and hara pyaz in Hindi. Onion stalks are simply the green stems of an onion. Growing as a bulb beneath the ground, the onion shoots up five leaves and a stalk with a flower on top above the ground. During the shoulder season of winter, say November to December, the stalk is cut off and consumed in various food preparations. The onion bulb continues to remain underground till all the leaves dry off, and the onions are finally harvested between January and May. Now, spring onions are also from the same onion plant. But they're available year round. This is because spring onions are a premature version of onions. If onions are taken out of the ground before they become fuller bulbs, those are referred as spring onions. So, you'd always notice a smaller white or red bulb at the base of a spring onion, depending on the onion variety. These have thin long leaves, and are usually used as garnish than as a veggie that's cooked. Scallions or green onions are a prior version of spring onion, and thus don't have the white bulb underneath. They are also grown from some varieties that do not bulb at all. While spring onions are sweeter and milder than regular onions, their leaves are more intense in flavour than regular onions, and so should be used thoughtfully when interchanging in a recipe. All about chives While scallions and spring onions are abundantly available in Canada, I haven't found onion stalks, piaja sandha/piyajkoli here yet. However I found that chives along with their flower stalks work really well as a substitute. It wasn't totally a surprise as members of the Amaryllidaceae family have similarities. Now chives are again of two kinds. Onion chives, commonly called as only chives, have the botanical name, Allium schoenoprasum. They have hollow tubular leaves, taste mild oniony, usually bear pale purple flowers though other colours are not unknown and bloom in spring and early summer. Garlic chives, Allium tuberosum, on the other hand have wider flat leaves, taste mildy garlicky, bear white flowers and bloom in late summer and early fall. A slight touch of heat helps bring out the flavour of chives, making them ideal substitutes for onion stalks in this recipe. They're however delicate than onion stalks, and should not be overcooked. Pro Tip: Aloo Bhujia or bhaja needs only two things to make it perfect. Chopping the potatoes thin and long and tossing it at medium to high heat. This recipe can be made without any other accompanying veggie although I never miss adding chives or onion stalks when they're in season. If using onion stalks or chives, chop the greens the same size as the potatoes, and maintain the same thickness. This will ensure all ingredients are cooked thoroughly and cook fast. I highly recommend not overpowering this dish with a load of spices because that takes away from the beauty and central idea of an uncomplicated stir fry. Recipe Did you check the pro tip? Ingredients 2-3 medium sized potatoes, washed, peeled and cut as thin long strips 1-2 bundles of onion or chive stalks with flowers (or use scallions as replacement), cut into strips the same length as potatoes 2 tbsp mustard oil (or any other oil of your choice) 2-3 whole dry red chilies 1/5 tsp panch-phoron (equal parts of cumin, mustard, nigella, fennel and fenugreek seeds) You can use 1/2 tsp turmeric 1 tsp jeera-lanka gunda (roasted cumin and red chili powder) or 1/2 tsp cumin powder plus 1/2 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Place a heavy bottom pan on medium high heat, add mustard oil and heat it till its smoking point. Then add the dry red chilies and once they puff up, add paanch phoron. Sauté for a couple of seconds and add the potatoes. Toss the potatoes for a few seconds and then add turmeric, cumin-chili powder and salt. Now stir to combine and continue to stir intermittently until the potato sticks turn tender but continue to hold shape. If you're using onion stalks, you can add them along with potatoes and cook together. If you're using chives or scallions, follow step 3. When the potatoes are almost done (90% cooked), add the chives or scallions and stir again to combine. Cook for a minute or two and remove from heat. Serve hot with rotis or parathas or as a side with dal-chawal.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipe | Homestyle Preparation | Temple Style Preparation My everyday Indian home cooking journal cannot be complete without dalma, an almost no-oil medley of dal and vegetables from Odisha cooked with minimal spices. A dalma can make any meal wholesome, leaving you with a feeling of satisfaction and comfort. This quintessential preparation of lentils with vegetables from the state of Odisha is ancient, being as old as the region of Kalinga perhaps — the older larger region from which Odisha emerged as a state later — and is food of the people in homes and gods in temples alike. Although more popular in the coastal belt of Odisha and a regular in the prasad offered to Lord Jagannath at the Puri temple and many other temples across the state, dalma is prepared in other parts of Odisha as well, at least on special occasions if not regularly. My parents and their extended families belong to coastal Odisha, from Berhampur to Bhubaneswar, and needless to say that dalma was a constant in my meals while growing up - no matter which part of the country we were at the time. At around 3 p.m. in the afternoon, I and my sisters would return home from school, ready to unfurl our bag of stories in front of mother. After some serious tattle telling and delayed washing and cleaning of hands and feet, we would settle to eat, eyeing everything at the dinning table. "Is there paneer today?", sister P would be quick to ask. "I won't eat if there's no egg", sister M would announce. "Ma, please! I want some bhaja now", I would chivvy. Mother was always patient and let us have anything, only under one condition—we had to finish our bowls of dalma first. There was no exception to this rule just like santula at dinner, a masala free mix veg preparation which had a distinct garlicky tempering in my house. A dalma generates a feeling of satiation, of being full in a happy way. It has everything that a hungry stomach demands: a dal typically tur or chana (although a specific type of dalma called habisa dalma uses moong dal) boiled with a delicate balance of root and water-based vegetables lending a subtle sweetness, and a bare minimum of oil or ghee fragrant with a hint of spices balancing the overall flavours, ladled on a bed of rice or scooped with parathas. In the image: From left to right - Tur, Moong and Chana Dal Depending on where it's prepared, the constituent vegetables and spices vary. In temples, particularly Jagannath temple at Puri, only indigenous and local vegetables are permitted and all forms of red and green chilies are prohibited. Peppercorns provide the heat quotient while spices like coriander, cumin, fenugreek and black cardamom lend earthiness. The taste of cinnamon is quite prominent in a temple dalma too. The proportions are of course not an open book, although it's known that cumin is more than coriander in the spice mix. The famous Odia cookbook writer Usha Rani Tripathy spells out a version for Chef Kunal Kapoor on a cooking show. The technique of cooking at the Puri temple is somewhat secretive and magical at the same time. Earthen pots, kudhuan, are stacked up, one on top of the other, on wooden ovens and the contents are never stirred. The topmost pot's contents cook first while the contents in the bottom most pot get cooked in the end despite being closest to the fire. Dalma at the temple is also prepared using the same mechanism, tasting distinct and special. Typically in homes, there's no limitation on the vegetables or spices except when the dalma may also be a part of the prasad, offering to gods. The characteristic tempering for a homestyle dalma is phancha phutana or paanch phoron (mustard, cumin, nigella, fennel and fenugreek seeds) and bhaja jeera-lanka gunda (roasted and pounded cumin and dry red chilies). All Odia home pantries are stocked up on these two spice blends, which are sufficient to change anything bland into everything delicious and heavenly. Dalma, a dish from the past Although many theories exist on the origins of dalma, the one that makes most sense to me is how food writer Madhulika Dash's article, Dalma: A Dish from the Distant Past explains dalma's connection to the ancient tribe of Savaras in Odisha. The Savaras were also the first to worship Lord Jagannath as Neela Madhaba. Dash elaborates, Traditionally, dalma was essentially chana dal boiled with vegetables grown by the tribes such as eggplant, elephant's foot, arbi, shallots and pumpkin among others. Served during festive occasions when bhaat or boiled rice was made alongside saag (greens), it was served with a dollop of ghee for aroma and taste. For many back then, Pokhala (fermented water rice) was a staple. It was this preparation that made it to the Puri temple. To me, this theory feels logical. My father who is my go-to guide on all questions about Odia food and cultural history and the cult of Jagannath, also affirms to this reasoning. Both dalma and pakhala fit the bill of being tribal dishes in their primitive forms. The frugality and simplicity associated with both these foods writ large on the common people's meal platter. Lord Jagannath is revered for his humanness, a god who comes to the roads and moves on a chariot amidst the masses once a year. It's plausible that he is also offered the same food as the common people eat albeit with many improvisations. To make things ouroboric, it becomes the food of the common people once it's offered to the lord. It's not served, referred as abhada (a distorted form of the Odia word badha meaning served/to serve food), rather taken and embraced by all irrespective of who they are. We often visited Puri in my childhood. We still do — every time I'm visiting my parents in India. Now that my parents live in Bhubaneswar, it's an hour's drive. The sea beach and the temple (not so much for religion but the art) were always my favourite spots despite that we went there at least twice a year. Fascinated by the history, architecture and culture of the temple and the many gods and goddesses it houses, I always had questions probing my mind. Going around the premises of the main temple, from one smaller temple to another within the campus, my father would answer all my queries. While my mother trailed ahead of us, I'd clutch my father's little finger, pulling him closer and ask further. By the end of it, we would be at Ananda Bazaar, buying abhada or mahaprasad. Although mother made dalma almost daily at home, I'd still be waiting to eat the Puri temple version. As clichéd as this may sound, it truly tastes like ambrosia. The flavour is etched in my memory, its smell lingering like the last page of a favourite book I always want to revisit. Dalma which is a hallmark of the Odia cuisine, is taken for granted in the taste although loved with devotion nonetheless. It's that mundane food which you don't realize how exceptional it is until you don't get to eat it often. When I left home and started cooking by my own, it was no sweat to make an everyday dalma. I had seen my mother making it enough number of times to understand the process, which isn't painstaking at all. But to make the kind of dalma which leaves you feeling gratified, that demands a certain appreciation for beauty in simplicity —the backbone of Odia cuisine —without overplaying the ingredients or the technique. Homestyle vs Temple style I make it both ways depending on my mood and occasion. My home style version has a basic paanch phoron (and a bit of asafoetida at times) in a spoonful of ghee and a generous sprinkle of homemade roasted cumin and chili powder, and occasionally tomatoes for the much needed acidity. Grated coconut or coconut shavings are also usual in my dalma though not mandatory. I usually don't use onions in dalma unless I feel like having some change or I'm making a non-vegetarian version with shrimps. For the temple style version, I make a special spice blend bereft of paanch phoron and chilies, which I add to the dal and vegetables after boiling. The key spices are coriander, cumin and fenugreek seeds, peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves and black cardamom. For the tempering, I use ginger, asafoetida and cumin in some hot ghee. Freshly grated coconut and a unique kind of badi called as nadi badi provide the temple style dalma its characteristic texture. As compared to a usual badi, nadi badi is pre-fried and readily added to any dish as a finishing note. It mixes with the dalma while still holding its shape. Regular badis are sun-dried lentil dumplings which are shallow fried before adding to gravies, dals or greens. Pro Tip Don't overdo the spices or oil/ghee in a dalma! The real taste lies in the individual vegetables that get boiled with the dal. Spices are only added for a slight kick. If you add too much of the masala or a ton of other ingredients, you're only taking flavours away from the dalma. Choose a combination of root and water-based vegetables to go with the dal. Although there isn't any restriction on the vegetables you may use, sweet potatoes, yam, colocasia/taro, spiny gourds, pointed gourds, plantains, yardlong beans, eggplants, radish, elephant apple and pumpkins are extremely good options. You can also use carrots, French beans, cauliflower florets or potatoes. Look inside your fridge, and try with any vegetable you have. A simple chana dal and any kind of pumpkin makes a delicious combination for dalma too! Pegion peas, horse gram, split chickpeas and slit yellow moong dal, any of these can be used to make a dalma. The kind of dal and the combination of vegetables determines the overall taste. Either way, you will not go wrong! I generally use a pressure cooker to make dalma for faster cooking. Although you can make it in a vessel or tall pot as well. Whether you're using a pressure cooker or a vessel, start with boiling the dal. Once it's halfway done, add vegetables and cook till they are tender. This ensures everything is cooked evenly, vegetables hold some shape and generate a nice texture which is neither watery nor mushy. Recipe Did you check the pro tip? Home Style Dalma Ingredients 1/2 cup tur dal (Pegion peas) washed, rinsed and soaked for at least 20 minutes It's okay if you don't have time to soak the dal, although soaking dal ensures faster cooking 1/4 cup of 3-4 different vegetables or 1/3 cup of 1-type of vegetable, cut into big chunks (see pro tip for suggestions on the vegetables) For reference: about 4-5 chunks of each vegetable 1 medium sized tomato, sliced into four parts 1/4 tsp turmeric For tempering/tadka: 1 tsp ghee or neutral oil, 1 tsp paanch phoron, 1/4 tsp asafoetida, 2 dried red chilies 1 tsp (plus extra for taste) roasted cumin and chili powder Dry roast 1 tsp cumin with 1 dry red chili, and pound in a mortar-pestle or grind in a spice mixer. You can also make a bigger batch and store for future use. 1 tsp salt or to taste (optional) 1 tbsp grated coconut Method In a pressure cooker, tall pot or instant pot, add the dal with 1 and 1/2 cup of water, sliced tomato and turmeric. Start boiling on medium heat. After 5-7 minutes, add a quarter of the salt you wish to add in the entire recipe and stir well. Next add the vegetables, beginning with the hardest vegetable, waiting for a minute and adding the next. If you're using only one vegetable, you'd just add that. Stir well. Add more water if the vegetables don't appear submerged. Close the lid of the pressure cooker, and cook for 5 minutes (1 whistle on high heat, and 1 one low to medium heat). If using an instant pot, cook on high pressure for 5 minutes. If using a normal tall pot, cover and cook on medium to low heat until vegetables are tender and dal is soft - should take about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the pressure cooker from heat and let the steam release naturally. For instant pot, let the steam escape naturally too. Open and taste. Adjust salt if needed. Pour boiling hot water if the dal is too thick and stir. Keep the pressure cooker back on the stove on low heat/switch on the sauté mode for instant pot/ reduce the heat for normal tall pot. In a fry pan or tadka pan, heat ghee or oil. Once hot, add paanch phoron, dry red chilies and asafoetida. Let everything crackle and if you have any big chunks of tomato in the dal, pick out and add them to the tadka now. Mix well and pour the tadka over the dal. Take some dal and add to the fry pan, swirl the pan and add it back to the dalma. Add the roasted cumin and chili powder and let the dal simmer for a minute. Add grated coconut if using. Switch off the heat and serve warm! Temple Style Dalma Ingredients Please note the ingredients are for a temple-style inspired version of dalma made at home. The actual dalma made in temples is restricted to specific vegetables. 1/2 cup tur dal (Pegion peas) washed, rinsed and soaked for at least 20 minutes It's okay if you don't have time to soak the dal, although soaking dal ensures faster cooking 1/4 cup of 3-4 different vegetables or 1/3 cup of 1-type of vegetable, cut into big chunks (see pro tip for suggestions on the vegetables) For reference: about 4-5 chunks of each vegetable 1/4 tsp turmeric 2 bay leaves a handful of nadi badi 2 tbsp grated coconut (or coconut chunks chopped very fine) 1 tsp salt or to taste For dalma masala: 1 tbsp coriander, 1 1/2 tbsp cumin, 1 tsp peppercorns, 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds, 2 black cardamom, 4-5 cloves, 1-inch cinnamon Dry roast in a pan (adding spices in the order as mentioned) and pound/coarse grind. For tempering/tadka: 1 tsp ghee or neutral oil, 1/4 tsp asafoetida, 1 tsp cumin, 1/2 inch ginger pounded Method In a pressure cooker, tall pot or instant pot, add the dal with 2 cups of water and turmeric. Boil the dal until half done (roughly 7-10 mins). Next add the vegetables, beginning with the hardest vegetable, waiting for a minute and adding the next. If you're using only one vegetable, you'd just add that. Stir well. Add more water if the vegetables don't appear submerged. Close the lid of the pressure cooker, and cook for 5 minutes (1 whistle on high heat, and 1 one low to medium heat). If using an instant pot, cook on high pressure for 5 minutes. If using a normal tall pot, cover and cook on medium to low heat until vegetables are tender and dal is soft - should take about 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the pressure cooker from heat and let the steam release naturally. For instant pot, let the steam escape naturally too. Open and pour boiling hot water if the dal is too thick and stir. Keep the pressure cooker back on the stove on low heat/switch on the sauté mode for instant pot/ reduce the heat for normal tall pot. As the dal simmers, add bay leaf, salt, nadi badi and coconut. Stir and then add the freshly pounded/ground masala. Stir again, cover and let it simmer on low heat. In a fry pan or tadka pan, heat ghee or oil. Once hot, add asafoetida, cumin and ginger. Mix the ingredients and swirl the pan, and pour the hot tadka over the simmering dal. Switch off the heat and serve warm! If you enjoyed this recipe, share your creations with me on Instagram. Tag me and tell me how you liked it! I'd love to hear from you.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipes | Odia Style Bhaja | Odia Style Chadchadi | Punjabi Style Sabzi Summer is here, and so have arrived my beloved gourd vegetables, and bitter gourd happens to be my absolute favourite — a vegetable vastly underrated and dismissed for its bitterness. I've loved bitter gourd since I was a baby, and I'm not joking. Today, I've not one but three easy and delicious ways of making bitter gourd! Three recipes also mean three stories where I take you from Odisha to Bombay through fleeting memories of my childhood and growing up. I also touch upon local contexts of how different versions of the same bitter gourd are made. Bitter Gourd, the vegetable Bitter gourd, also known as karela in Hindi, is one of the oldest vegetables adopted in Indian cuisine. Colleen Taylor Sen rightly says in Feasts and Fasts: A History of Food in India, "The cucumber, ash gourd, snake gourd and bitter gourd are very ancient and play an important part in the Indian diet." Although so old and full of health benefits as well as the ability to blend with many flavours, the bitter gourd somehow is also "one of the most reviled vegetable in the subcontinent" as Anoothi Vishal describes in an NDTV Food article. If bitter gourd was a person, I think they would always be judged for being intense, like mustard, and nothing beyond that would get appreciated! Summer means the arrival of many squashes, melons and gourds, and many such softer vegetables that cook fast, render delicious dishes and are light on the stomach. Imagine the extremely hot Indian summers, and then all the gourd based summer recipes from an Indian kitchen will make more sense! Bitter gourd happens to be amongst my favourite summer vegetables. There's so much that you can do with bitter gourds if you open your mind to see its goodness beyond its bitterness. Bitter is also an essential flavour. It's neither salty nor sour, and has a distinct pungent note. Most raw vegetables, citrus peels, greens, cocoa also have a bitter taste to them, although less pronounced than bitter gourd. The good thing about the bitter flavour is that you can combine it with complementary flavours to create complex and appetizing flavour profiles. Bitter gourd, also known as bitter melon, comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and varying shades of green. The Indian bitter gourd is narrow and somewhat stout in the center and pointy ends, and has a jagged or ridged surface. The Chinese bitter melon on the other hand is oblong, pale green in colour and has an undulating surface. There are other varieties of bitter gourds too. Small baby bitter gourd varieties are usually preferred to stuff with spices and shallow fried or made into pickles. Odia Style Bhaja I was always a vegetable-loving child. I've distinct memories of sitting outside the kitchen while my mother cooked, and handed me small portions in a bowl to taste. She would blow air on the food a few times before she let me eat it, and the moment I ate I'd be quick to show my reaction. I ate bitter gourd that way too. Small spiky rings of crisply pan fried bitter gourds, kalara bhaja, were welcome on my tongue. I gulped and asked for more, banging the bowl on the floor or against the door. Those early introductions to bitter gourd perhaps helped me establish a love-love relationship with this otherwise undermined vegetable. Mother makes a basic version of the Odia style kalara bhaja for everyday meals. She slices them not too thin neither too thick, rubs salt, chili and turmeric powder, and powders them with some homemade rice flour, chaula chuna as it's called in Odia. This is left to sit for about 10-15 minutes, and then the dry battered slices are pan fried with little oil. Serve it with some rice and dalma or plain dal. You definitely don't need anything else on the side! Pro Tip I find making chaula chuna at home a bit tedious. You need to wash and dry the rice (dry very well), grind it to make a powder, and then dry the flour again to lose any remaining moisture! So, I rely on store bought rice flour, and that works just fine. You can also skip the rice flour. In that case, you may want to cook a bit longer to achieve more crispiness. Odia Style Chadchadi Another version of bitter gourd that's popular at my parents' home is kalara chadchadi. The chadchadi made its way to our home from a small rather dingy eatery located between Balasore and one of many villages on the Odisha-West Bengal border's proximity. I must have been less than 5 years old when my father often travelled for work to smaller towns and villages in the district while we were based in Balasore city. On the rare occasions that he didn't carry his lunch box from home, he went to eat in one of the many joints that serve simple local food on the highways. These are not your Punjabi dhabas. These are much smaller, often with thatched roofs, and a lone wooden bench outside the stall where people can share space and eat. If you have tiffin box, the stall owners are happy to pack your meal, often so full to the brim that you must be careful when open the lids! So, Baba, my father, once ate the kalara chadchadi and came back home to sing praises about it. Maa, my mother, sent him back to the eatery during his next trip asking for the recipe, and wasn't surprised to learn that it was a mustard paste with hints of cumin, garlic and dried red chili. Similar to a Bengali chorchori or charchari— a dish whose origin ranges from Bengal's extravagance to resourcefulness— the Odia chadchadi is also a stir fried ensemble of one or more vegetables. Some recipes may also have slight gravy in a chadchadi, and may also use tomatoes. Bengali charchari may or may not contain mustard paste, and when it does, it's either simply mustard or mustard with green chili. The Odia chachadi usually employs the mustard paste which also has some cumin, garlic and dried red chili. At a distance of just about 100 kms from West Bengal, the Bengali influence is clear in Balasore and its neighbouring areas. Rising as a popular port-town in the 1730s, Balasore was part of the Bengal Presidency during British Raj, then became part of Bihar province and finally a part of Odisha somewhere around 1936. The town also had extensive coastal trade with Calcutta, Dhaka and many ports along the Coromondel Coast. An influx of mixed influences was natural in Balasore which harboured cultural elements of both Bengal and Odisha. The chadchadi is most likely the result of this culinary exchange. It tastes great with pakhala, a congee like dish of rice and fermented rice-water or dal-rice or even rotis or parathas. Pro Tip If you find the taste of mustard too pungent, you may use one or half a tomato in the mustard paste. You can also tone down the mustard by using somewhat less mustard or using yellow instead of black mustard. Punjabi Style Sabzi This version of the bitter gourd stir fry is starkly Punjabi, a common side dish that accompanied dal and roti at Auntie A's home. If you have been following me here for a while, you'd know she was my land lady in Bombay. We both shared our love for bitter gourd. I have spent many Sunday mornings stuffing spicy onion fillings inside baby bitter gourds while I listened to her stories or one of the many Mohammad Rafi songs on her age-old radio. Bombay summers are brutally sticky, and the only respite while working in the humid kitchen were endless glasses of aam panna (drink made with raw mango) and Auntie's rib-ticklers. On days when we only had the longer slender gourds and no patience to make the masala for the stuffing, we would make this quick and finger-licking stir fry with onions and tomatoes. The bitter gourds' skins need a slight scaling with a knife, a gentle salt-rub and a light water bath for this. We would then make a perfectly cooked and well seasoned pyaaz tamatar ka masala, onions and tomatoes with spices, one of the fundamental things that Auntie taught me in Punjabi cooking. Onions nicely browned, ginger-garlic sans its raw taste, apt amount of red chili and turmeric, generous spoons of coriander, tomatoes completely cooked and blended with the onions and spices, and just a whiff of garam masala — that's the secret of this simple and homestyle karele ki sabzi. Pro Tip Cook the onions and spices properly before adding the tomatoes. This is indicated by a brownish yellow colour of the masala with oil appearing on the sides. The idea is to slightly caramelize the onions which add a sweet note and help balance the bitterness of the gourd. The sourness of tomatoes also helps take the attention away from the bitter taste. Recipe Did you see the pro tip? Punjabi Style Sabzi Ingredients 400 to 500 gm bitter gourd 1 medium onion, sliced 1 medium tomato, pureed or chopped fine 1 tsp ginger-garlic paste or minced 2 tbsp oil 1 tsp cumin 1 tsp turmeric 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp red chili powder 1/4 tsp amchur/dry mango powder 1/4 tsp garam masala (optional) 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Wash the bitter gourds under running water. Slightly scale off the skin of the bitter gourds, taking care that you don't remove all of its skin, slice into 1/4 cm thick roundels. Add the roundels into a bowl, sprinkle salt, mix and leave aside. Heat a heavy bottom pan on medium heat and add oil. Once the oil is hot, add cumin and then add onions. Sauté the onions until they turn pink, and then add ginger and garlic. Continue tossing for 1 minute, and then add the bitter gourds. Stir to combine everything and reduce the heat slightly. Add turmeric, chili powder and coriander, and keep stirring in between. Once you see the gourds getting almost done and the onions almost brown, add the tomatoes. Mix well and add salt and amchur. Cook till the tomatoes are done and sprinkle the garam masala if using. Switch off the heat and adjust salt if needed. Odia Style Chadchadi Did you see the pro tip? Ingredients 4-5 bitter gourd, washed, cubed or chopped into medium size - about 1 and 1/2 cup 1-2 potatoes, washed, cubed or chopped same as the size of bitter gourd - about 1 cup (keep the cut potatoes submerged in water to prevent them from turning black) For sorisa bata (mustard paste): 1 tsp cumin, 1 tbsp black mustard, 4-5 garlic pods, peeled and washed, 1-2 dried whole red chilies 2 tbsp mustard oil (or any other oil of your choice except extra virgin olive oil) 1/2 tsp pancha phutana (equal parts of cumin, mustard, fennel, fenugreek and nigella seeds) 1 dried whole red chili 1/2 tsp turmeric powder 1/2 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Soak the ingredients mentioned under sorisa bata/mustard paste in warm water. Drain the water from the submerged potatoes. In a bowl, mix the bitter gourd and potato cubes along with salt, turmeric and red chili. Keep aside. In a wok or pan, heat oil till it smokes. (If using any other oil than mustard, ensure it's hot enough.) Add the dried whole red chili, and once it smokes up, add pancha phutana. Immediately add the potatoes + bitter gourd cubes. Sauté for 4-5 minutes, and reduce heat. Cover and let it cook in its steam. Drain the ingredients mentioned in step 1, and make a fine paste by adding some water. Open the pan/wok, and give everything a good mix. Sauté for another 3-4 minutes and then add the mustard paste. Now, mix for about a minute (don't over do as mustard can turn bitter). Throw splashes of water, cover again and cook on low to medium heat until done. Odia Style Bhaja Did you see the pro tip? Ingredients 400 to 500 gm bitter gourd 1 tbsp rice flour (optional) 2 tbsp oil 1 tsp cumin powder 1 tsp red chili powder 1 tsp turmeric powder 1 tsp salt, or to taste Method Wash the bitter gourds under running water and then slice into 1/4 cm thin roundels. Add the roundels into a bowl, sprinkle salt, turmeric, and rice flour (if using). Mix so that the spices and rice flour coat the roundels well. Keep aside for 10 minutes. Heat oil in a wok or pan. Add the bitter gourd and sauté for a minute. Then add cumin and chili powder and mix again. Continue sautéing on medium heat, adding water splashes if needed, for 15-20 minutes until crisp and cooked well.

#rozkakhana series Jump to Recipes | Odia Style Patua | Bengali Style Ghonto Morning light of late autumn streams through the windows of the kitchen, one that's older than the occupants of the house, faintly illuminating the dark corners. My mother and her mother, sit on a long pidhā (low rise bench) surrounded by the day's vegetable paraphernalia, occasionally stirring pots atop the gas stoves. Modern stoves replaced earthen chulhas many years ago in this kitchen but the utensils and equipment still survive, narrating stories of the past. K, the house-help brings water that shew drew from the well in the backyard of the house and spills a few drops as she places the kansa (bronze) vessels on the floor. A hail or two from my Aai, grandmother, who is known for her quips with K. Half-asleep and half-awake, I've entered the kitchen, looking for my mother who is busy cleaning a plate of banana blossoms along with a bunch of greens, which have marked the forthcoming winter with their arrival. The air is fragrant with the smell of tea and resounding with the chatters of aunts who are discussing the fate of the cleaned flowers of bananas — whether they will be made into cutlets or chops or will they be mashed with a potato or simply steamed in banana leaves with oodles of mustard. K now takes over the meticulous task of cleaning the flowers from my mother who moves onto other cooking errands. She removes the reddish purple petals and carefully separates the bunch of florets, which resemble bananas, and hands over to Aai. Aai then opens one floret at a time, removes the translucent cover and discards the style and stigma, and collects the cleaned floret in a bowl. They work for an hour — clearing flower after flower, floret after floret — until they come across florets which are too tender and the perianth or outer cover which is too tight. An aunt takes these and chops them straight. This collaboration continues until a point when the banana's whitish heart is seen. By now mother has served breakfast, eaten hers, and takes over the home stretch of the banana flowers' cleaning. I join her to drench the cleaned florets and the sliced heart in water, and then adds them into the pressure cooker for a quick whistle or two. After this, the florets are ready to be cooked into healthy delicious dishes only to be finished in minutes! Amidst this warm nostalgia, one thing stands out more than anything. The womenfolk of the household behind all chores of the kitchen. Banana blossoms or flowers, which are native to southeast Asia, are one of the oldest vegetables grown and eaten in India. And, like many indigenous tubers of India, banana flowers make some of the most traditional Indian recipes. Although so ancient and full of health benefits and taste, their popularity declined over the years owing to the time-consuming process of cleaning them. As Vikram Doctor rightly says in an Economic Times article, "...what we think of traditional Indian food depends on the generally undervalued labour of wives, daughters-in-law and servants", and given an option, they're willing to pick less laborious food preparations even though those are less traditional. Banana flowers like many other indigenous foods of India got tremendous revival during COVID-19 lockdowns — a time when tattered cookbooks were sought to dig up old recipes, forgotten ingredients were delved upon and cooked reminiscing grandma's cooking, forgotten equipment like grinding stones were rescued and arm muscles were exercised. A new era heralded in the Indian food arena — regional food and practices packed with a dose of nostalgia. While all of this is much needed and easy to glorify as culture and tradition, the underneath fact — women slogging in the kitchen — that led to these 'difficult vegetables' disappearance from our food scene mustn't be ignored. Those who do the daily cooking, irrespective of the sex of the person, are usually also responsible for other demands of maintaining the household. So, if they're unwilling to clean a banana flower or grind a chutney on a sil-bata and rather pick an ingredient or equipment that saves them time and helps them ease a bit in the kitchen, we mustn't complain, judge or attempt to preach "old is gold!" What else if no banana flowers? When you have time at hand and access to banana flowers, I've two easy recipes for you to try from eastern India. Mochar Ghonto from Bengal, which is much popular on social media and Kadali Bhanda Patua from Odisha, a lesser known dish. Taste wise, banana flowers are close to a well cooked red cabbage, which is much easier to handle. Although most will not agree. So, if you can't find banana flowers, you may try these recipes with red cabbage. Bengali Mocha'r Ghonto The Bengali ghonto and the Odia ghantau are a class of dishes that are a mélange of ingredients, a mish mash or a mixture presenting a variety of seasonal vegetables. Roasted lentils or legumes or fish/shrimp usually accompany the vegetables to add texture and proteins. Ghontos usually don't rely on a lot of spices and bring out the most of the vegetables themselves. They're not stir-fries and neither gravies and usually have a consistency of a mash where the vegetables don't loose their shape entirely but are thoroughly cooked. Sometimes, ghontos are named as per the number of vegetables used. For example, a paanch mishali torkari has five veggies while a saat mishali torkari has seven. Chorchoris may also be thought as ghonto although the former tends to be close to a stir-fry. In Bengali, banana blossom is called mocha. The mocha'r ghonto (banana blossom's ghonto) can be made both as vegetarian and non-vegetarian. For the vegetarian version, Bengal gram or black chickpeas are soaked and boiled and added to give texture while the non-vegetarian version has shrimps or small freshwater prawns. The vegetarian version can also include red lentil (masoor dal) dumplings, dale'r bora. The addition of Bengal gram, boras or prawns adds a layer of crunch to the steamed and mashed mocha. >> Go to recipe Odia Kadali Bhanda Patua The Odia patua is similar to the Bengali paturi. Patua and paturi are class of dishes in which the ingredients are either wrapped in leaves and steamed or roasted or the ingredients are laid out in thin layer on a skillet or pan and then covered and cooked. However, paturi and patua are usually associated with the idea of ingredients wrapped in leaves. Food historian Pritha Sen elaborates that paturi isn't limited to the technique of leaf parcels alone. In this video, she prepares a mulo'r (radish) paturi which is baked in an oven. In Odia, banana flowers are called kadali bhanda. The kadali bhanda patua involves mixing the cleaned banana flowers with a mustard paste along with thinly sliced or finely chopped potatoes or other soft vegetables like eggplants, dousing a glug of mustard oil and some green chilies and then slightly cooking it in a pan before spreading out in a layer and steaming on low heat. You can make a Bengali version of this dish too, mocha's paturi. The only difference will be the the addition of grated coconut, an ingredient commonly used in East Bengali cooking. >> Go to recipe Cleaning Banana Flowers Start with removing the outer petals or bracts. For each bract removed, collect the florets in that layer and keep aside. Keep doing this until you reach the inner most layer where the whitish heart of the flower exists. Keep the heart aside. You may oil your hands to prevent stickiness. Go back to the florets. For each floret, discard the calyx, which is the scaly translucent covering, and the pistil (style and stigma) which has a thick stalk and a sticky bulbous head. Keep the remaining floret separately. Continue the same process for the rest of the florets. Chop the cleaned florets and keep them in water/lime water or buttermilk to prevent blackening. Take the heart of the banana and cut it into half. Then slice lengthwise and then chop evenly. Keep the chopped heart with the cleaned florets in water until cooking. Recipes Mocha'r Ghonto Ingredients 2 small to medium sized or 1 large banana blossom 3-4 tbsp Bengal gram or black chickpea (kala chana) soaked overnight or 70-80 gram small prawns or shrimps marinated with a pinch of salt and turmeric 1 potato chopped into cubes For tempering: 2 tsp mustard oil, 2 dried red chilies, 2 bay leaves, 1 clove, 1 cardamom, 1-inch cinnamon, 1/4 tsp cumin 2 tbsp grated or desiccated coconut 3-4 green chilies slit lengthwise 2 tbsp ginger paste Dry ground spices:1 tsp turmeric, 1/4 tsp chili powder, 1 tsp cumin powder, 1/4 tsp Bengali garam masala (cloves + cardamom + cinnamon ground) Salt to taste and a pinch of sugar 1/4 tsp ghee Method Clean the banana flowers. Drain the water in which they're soaked and then add them to a pot of boiling water or a pressure cooker with water. Cover and cook with 1/2 tsp salt and turmeric. For pressure cooker, 1 whistle is enough. Otherwise cook for 5 minutes. Strain the cooked banana flowers and let them cool. Once cooled, mash them slightly but take care to retain some texture. If using prawns, heat 1 tsp mustard oil in a wok or pan, let it smoke and then add prawns to it. Fry on medium heat for about a minute and then take the prawns out. Keep aside. Heat the mustard oil, then add dry red chilies, bay leaves, cardamom, clove and cinnamon. Toss them around and then add cumin. Next add chopped potatoes and sauté till golden. This will take about 4-5 minutes. Meanwhile, make a paste of ginger paste, turmeric, chilli powder and cumin powder with little water mixing with a spoon in a bowl. Add grated/desiccated coconut to the potatoes and stir to combine. Then add the ginger-spice paste and sauté. Add salt and sugar, give a mix and then add half of the green chillies. Stir again splashing water to prevent spices from sticking to the pan/wok. Add the soaked and drained Bengal gram, mix and cook for about 5 minutes. Add the strained and mashed banana flowers, sauté, then cover and cook for 6-7 minutes on low heat. Open in between to check and add the remaining green chillies. Give a good mix. If using prawns, add them upon opening and then mix well. Add some water or milk if the dish is too dry. Cover and cook on low heat again for 3-4 minutes. Upon opening, add ghee and Bengali garam masala. Give a good mix and turn off the heat. Serve with hot steamed rice and dal! Kadali Bhanda Patua Ingredients 2 small to medium sized or 1 large banana blossom 4 tbsp black mustard seeds or 2 tbsp black + 2 tbsp yellow mustard seeds 4-5 cloves of garlic 2-3 green chillies 1 dried red chilli 1 tsp turmeric 1 potato very thinly sliced or finely chopped 2 tbsp mustard oil salt to taste Method Soak the mustard seeds in warm water along with 3 garlic cloves, 1 green and 1 red chillies. Clean the banana flowers. Drain the water in which they're soaked and then add them to a pot of boiling water Cover and cook with 1/2 tsp salt and turmeric for 5 minutes. Strain the cooked banana flowers and let them cool. Drain the mustard and other soaked ingredients and then make a fine paste. Mix the banana flowers and the potatoes in the mustard paste, add salt and turmeric and 1 tbsp mustard oil, and mix thoroughly. Now add this mixture to a heated pan along with 3-4 tsp water and sauté it for 2-3 minutes. Reduce heat to low and spread out the mixture as a layer. Cover and cook on low heat for 8-10 minutes. Or Add the mixture on a banana or gourd leaf, cover and cook in a pan on low heat or in a microwave for 8-10 minutes. Open, add the remaining chopped garlic and green chilies and serve!