A decade of togetherness

First things first. it is not our anniversary today. I though I will clarify this as this label created confusion this morning on Facebook. The 'Decade of togetherness' thought was sparked off by newspaper articles today on the decade of this and decade of that.


Cut to 1990. We were about to appear for our tenth exams. A classmate suddenly pointed out that the nineties would be the year of all our major academic exams... tenth, twelfth, college, post grad, doctorate ( we are Bongs after all) and that the rest of our lives would be shaped by this. We nodded profoundly in agreement. Oblivious to the fact that there could be more to life than academics. This was the era before 3 Idiots .

If the Nineties were the degrees of academic certificates than the Two Thousands was the decade when I moved away from the scholarly Bhramyachari ashram (bachelor) stage to togetherness and companionship. I met K in 2000. Or possibly a week or so before as I had joined the job where we met on 15th December 1999. Hence my label for the decade.


We relived the memory of the latest of our many lovely holidays last night. We took out the packaged Fondues that we bought in Migros at Zurich. We heated these in the microwave for dinner. Blasphemy? Tasted awesome though. Very rich cheese and a strong after taste of wine. As authentic as it gets. It almost seemed like we were sitting at Bebbie at Interlaken and not at Bandra. But then, if we were, how would we have got the fantastic baguette which I picked up from Candies, Bandra? K chopped the bread into tiny Fondue bits with our Ikea bread knife. We couldn't stop praising the bread. It was so nice and soft. Better than the ones at Switzerland.


It was fortuitous that I thought of the fondue because of our sore throats. Turned out that today was the expiry date and they would gave gone waste otherwise.


I was not planning to do a post on this. But then the missus said 'why not' and asked me to get the camera. So here is last night's dinner:




Today is the last day of the decade. I went to By The Way with my office group for lunch.


"I am hungry" "Give me a bite from your plate" "We should have ordered more fish fingers" " I so want a good plum cake" (this was repeated thrice, a wish which got fulfilled later I believe) "The mutton is soooo soft and tender" "The roast chicken is nice" "I want sizzling brownie" "Two sizzling brownies" "Wait I want rabdi" 'Chicken puffs' "More chicken puffs" "Biriyanai..kheema matar...pao" "Do they have birthday cakes?" "The eggless truffles looks even better than the regular ones" "Anybody else for Pepsi?" "Cut me a slice of akoori" '"I was too hungry, couldn't wait for a plate" "The Laganu custard is nice, not too sweet, just perfect" "Give me a bit of your laganu custard!"

Yes I work with a lovely set of people who love food too.


The hot mutton dhansak was just what I needed. A Parsi dish to finish off my first Parsi decade.

By the Way is run by a charitable trust. So one could earn some good Karma while eating and score brownie points before the year ended. I got a chance to meet the wonderful ladies who run the trust. I picked up some handmade Christmas cards too.

By the Way is a nice place to go especially on a crowded festive day. It is relatively empty. The food is homelike and not commercial. It exudes the sort of warmth which makes you feel at peace and count your blessings.


Dinner's going to be at home. Curled up on the sofa. Our sore throats don't leave us with much choice in food. Toying around with the idea of cold cuts, sushi and chocolate cheese cake from Sante, Spice and More's gifts of cheese and Teachers with warm water.


Here's wishing you a great new year. May your plates always be full. Cups overflow. Thoughts happy. And desserts never ending.



Cheers

A commoner's take on a Nawabi dish: Chicken Rezala

Anyone who has eaten at the Muslim restaurants of Calcutta, in the Shirazs, the Nizams, the Zeeshans, the Rahmanias, the Ameenias, or the Badshahs, would have had the biriyanis there. These are biriyanis which most Calcuttans have given their hearts to. Fragrant rice, subtle masala, well flavoured meat, the mandatory boiled egg and the much sought after boiled potato ... very different from the heavier biriyanis of the rest of India. This cuisine was introduced to the city when the Nawabs of Oudh sought refuge here after the British defeated them.

But there's a lot more to these shops than biriyani. Some of the landmark dishes range from the lofty Chaaps (a meat dish in a very thick, grainy masala paste) to the delicate Rezalas. They are often had as accompaniments to the dryish biriyanis. Or with parathas or roomali rotis.

Rezala has more gravy than chaap. Chitrita Banerjee has written about the popularity of rezala in Bangladesh on the other side of Bengal.

The gravy in Rezala is translucent. The colour is off white. It normally has a thin film of oil on the surface when served in restaurants.

It is an incredibly well flavoured dish. A harmony of the Nawabi taste of ghee, tempered by a slight tanginess brought in by curd, balanced by a subtle sweetness of sugar, climaxing with majestic whole spices or garam masala such as green cardamom, dry red chillies and bay leaves.

The amazing thing is that this exotic princess of a dish is quite easy to make at home. Its subtlety seems ephemeral but is actually quite well proletarian. In fact you can even make a very healthy version of it by not adding any ghee at all. Kainaz used to do that. If you make it with chicken, for example, the natural oil of the chicken and the curd combine to make quite a mesmerising dish. So you get the royal flavour without bothering the Opec for oil.

It is a useful dish to make if you have a sore throat. This is the season for sore throats, and both K and I are down with it. That's why I asked Banu to make it when she called me at work for instructions on what to make for dinner. I didn't have the recipe as K used to make it earlier. So I Googled a few recipes, made my interpretation and then instructed Banu on what to do.

Here's the recipe that I gave her (translated back from broken Hindi):

Take four chicken drumsticks. Put these in a pressure pan. Add 100 g of whipped curd, paste of one ground onion, one tablespoon garlic paste, one tablespoon salt and one teaspoon sugar to the chicken in the pan. (Ideally let this be for half an hour)

Close the lid and pressure cook till you get three whistles. Then let it simmer for ten minutes on a low flame.

Take a tablespoon of ghee heat it and add 5,6 green cardamoms (elaich), 2 bay leaves and one dried red chilly (not if you have a sore throat) to the hot ghee.

Open the pressure cooker lid and add the ghee and spice mix to it.

The oil/ ghee free version could be made by adding the whole spices to the marinade before pressure cooking. On the other hand you can add a lot more ghee if you want a restaurant like feel.

The dish turned out quite well. You can top it with a few drops of rose water if you like. We had it with plain chapatis. The perfect royal broth for angry throats, discerning palates and hungry tummies.

Disclaimer: I did not make the dish myself and instructed Banu over the phone. So I wouldn't know if she instinctively made some changes like adding water, etc. I wouldn't advise the first time cook to try it himself till I cook it myself and ratify the recipe.

So what are you doing on 31st night?

I never did anything on New Year's Eve when I was at Calcutta. I watched TV at home through college and even when I was twenty plus and working. Curfew. Lack of late night transport. The quintessential Bengali bhalo chhele (good boy) as defined by his mother.

My first New Year's Eve in Mumbai was a revelation. I celebrated it on the lawns of Juhu Hotel. I don't know if I was more kicked at being out at that late hour. Or at being able to wear just a Allen Solly Friday Dressing cotton shirt and trousers outdoors. Not the sweater plus 'coat' plus muffler plus Monkey Cap plus 'boots' which made up the gear of the Bengali Alpha male in Calcutta's temperate winters.

It didn't matter that I worked in a sweat shop. That I had to go to office on the First even though it was a holiday. That I had to leave the festivities at midnight because I had to go to work while my friends made plans to go to Maadh Island . What mattered was that I was out on New Year's Eve! That I had grown up.

I was back at Calcutta next year after my training at Mumbai. I was no longer a student. But still at home on NYE. Little wonder that I scurried back to Mumbai in a few months. And stayed put since.

Since then there was the frenetic search for passes/ or things to do on NYE. This saw me at Madness, Khar, one year with fellow immigrants searching for succour in spirits. And then at the Navy Club grounds at Colaba with an office group the next year - blazers, ties, shoes as the dress code.

An office romance followed. And thus came about an out of town trip on NYE to Alibag. A hallowed hotel called (eeks) Sai Inn. The most memorable part of the trip was walking into a huge office group at the Apollo Pier. They were heading to Alibag too. We turned redder than Rudolph the Reindeer's nose as we tried to pretend that we were hanging around idly. Sab Golmal hain as they say in Bollywood. We were not officially a pair yet.

We got hitched that year and no more Hrishikesh Mukherjee tableaus happened after that. Eating out and socialising were at a premium for the two of us. Mumbai is tough on the finances of newlyweds after all.

We accumulated all our 'going out money' for that one plush bash in the year. Even if it cost as much as six to seven outings through the rest of the year.

I would scour the papers to find out the best deals. Starters and More, Marine Plaza with its many sections, the Taj Asian thingie at NCPA, Golden Gate Bandra, all whizzed by in a blur. Loud music. Congested dance floors recreating the Mumbai local train experience.Traffic related panic attacks about whether we would reach our destination before the stroke of midnight. 'Unlimited' drinks which meant that the 'unlimited' food remained untouched. I was serious about having fun.

Year after year I continued to be manic about bringing in the New Year with K gamely playing along. Not always silently.

Then we did something different. We went to a sit down dinner at Zenzi. There were no 'unlimited' drinks. And the food wasn't a buffet trough. An elegant seven course meal under the starry sky. Each dish which came out was a petite princess, pretty and elegant. I began to see the argument in favour of fine dining over binge eating. The Knife was beginning to take a more genteel shape.

We tried Zenzi again the next year. Couldn't get reservations. We walked back morosely till I had a Eureka moment and we picked up a Spaghetti Carbonara and something with penne for K from Pizzeria at JATC. We had a drink at home with this and brought in the New Year with When Harry Met Sally which we picked up from the DVD rental while walking home.

I was grown up enough to admit that the missus was right. That this was one of our nicest New Year Eve's. And cheapest too.

The 'party like there is not tomorrow' ritual came to an end. As did spending NYE by ourselves last year.

As you can see we eat out quite often now. So the desperation of yore to forget constraints and celebrate on this one evening is gone. And this year saw us spend a lot of lovely evenings with friends at our place, us at their places and all together eating out. The good cheer spread through the year. Once again, gone was the need to paarrrty hard for at least one day in a year.

I don't know what we'll do the day after (31st). I doubt if we will be in a smokey place, packed with people, thousands of Rupees short.

Is this old age? Is this wisdom? Or maybe I am back to being a bhhalo chhele?

Old wine in new pasta ...white cheese sauce with a dash of red wine

It's that time of the year. The time to celebrate. To feel merry. To go out and party. To be with friends. Or to have friends over.

It's possible that some of your guests would have gifted you bottles of wine if you host a party. And, horror of horrors, some of these bottled might be opened and left unfinished. Wine doesn't last for more than a couple of days once opened. So what do you do with the remaining wine? What if you can't finish it?

You could make a red wine sauce with it. Or even use red wine in a simple white cheese sauce. I don't know if this would make puritans want to roast me in the oven for suggesting this. But we did get a nice spring in our white sauce when we added red wine (!) to it on Saturday.

Here's what I did. I boiled 150 g of penne and set it aside. Then I dissolved a table spoon of corn flour in a glass of milk and kept it aside to make the sauce.

After this I heated some olive oil in a pan. I then sauteed a tablespoon of chopped garlic pods in it (garlic is the key to 'Italian' cuisine the way we see it). I then added half a finely chopped tomato and sauteed it. When it became a bit soft I added two Amul cheese cubes after slicing them into slivers. This began to melt to form the cheese base. Slicing the cheese versus grating leaves bites of cheese which adds to the the final texture.

I then added 250 g of finely chopped chicken sausages to it and stirred everything in the pan. Chicken is said to be healthier though Chef Max says that people would laugh uncontrollably and might put you in a straight jacket if you mention 'chicken' sausages in Italy.

The milk and corn flour mixture went in next. I let this boil and then let it simmer till the sauce thickened.

I then added half a glass of red wine (Sula Zinfadel, anything could do though) and saw the sauce turn a faint purple...more creamish actually.

The boiled pasta went in next. I added a tablespoon of salt and gently stirred the dish. I topped it with a pinch of dried Oregano and crushed pepper to season it. I plated it with a bit of crumbled Cheddar on the top.

I didn't take any pictures as I thought it looked like any of the earlier pastas in white sauce.

But it tasted different. It had a nice, wholesome warm taste from the marriage of milk and cheese. The wine gave a slight sweet and sour relief to the thicker taste of the sauce. In fact it added a sort of light zing to the dish. The dish tasted very fresh and playful.

A bit like a granny enjoying Christmas with the family along with a teeny weeny bit of Christmas Sherry.

"All is well" ... when the Cloudcutter bakes

Cloudcutter had baked a cake for M's birthday at our place. Based on my brief C suggested moist chocolate cake, melted dark chocolate, whipped cream and walnuts and then headed for the oven to create magic


M fed Kainaz a bite of the cake in the party.



Now let's go back a bit. K is the one who aroused the dormant sweet tooth in me. She introduced me to the wonderful world of chocolates. And then went off the chocolate wagon a few months back! Since then her weight loss has been a source of wonder for many and consternation for moi.

OK back to the cake ...The music was over. Our guests left.

I saw something whizzing to the fridge a few times since then. Was it a Plane? Was it a Super Mouse?



And then I saw that Eve had found her Garden of Cake.

Munch munch munch she went... oblivious to the flashing bulbs of the Blogerazzi

"Oops"

And then came the applause and the citations

"Where were you all this while"

"This is lust"

'This is porn"

'This is something to be tucked in the mattress of the mind"

"This is something else"

None of these, I can assure you, were meant for the dutiful husband

The Remains of the Cake ...

Well I doubt if it will last for long. K set off for a walk humming 'tonight's gonna be a good night'

The first ever Finely Chopped Christmas Bash

It all started with Agent Green Glass's plaintive cry for a Christmas party invite. Like any chivalrous blogger I offered to host a party. It didn't matter that we hadn't met yet. AGG had promised not to empty all the bottles after all. And had offered to perform what we called a 'variety show' in Calcutta. And get a one man 'Orchestra' too.


A few comments were exchanged, plans were made and fellow blogger, Cloudcutter, offered to get Christmas Cake (for moi) and rum balls for all. K was updated on the blog chatter. A few more friends called. The lone vegetarian warrior H. And M who was missing Bangalorean Christmases. Another Ms M who shared the same birthday as J C and we were ready to roll for the first Finely Chopped Christmas bash.


Mistletoe Moments

We live in a Catholic society and it seemed as if the building was dressed up for our party. You get a sneak peak of the rather shy Princess Lea in the picture below.





I have always had a Christmas tree at home while growing up. From real ones in the UK to artificial ones in Calcutta and then the one we made at my Grandmom's place with a dry branch and paper trimmings which saw me through till I left Calcutta. Ten years in Mumbai and we finally bought our first Christmas tree from Hill Road this year. I had to make two trips after I was berated for my spartan approach to trimmings by the Missus.



And then the Santas dropped in for the party. H with a sepia globe to go with the study and birthday girl M with another (!), more distinguished tree. So no tree for ten years and then suddenly two.

Yo ho ho

And then the games began. The crowd began to grow well beyond what we started with. Like a well baked cake. Bloggers (Mentally) , colleagues, college bonds discovered (Mentally and M, Apu and me), food lovers, neighbours and 'young' Jo Jo dropping in straight from Delhi airport into our lives... all sorts of connections were made over guitaring, some soulful serenading, cake cutting, a Bachanalian haze and our busy hostess running in with supplies from the kitchen... nursing a sore throat with green tea.

JC's wasn't the only birthday that was celebrated. Everyone gravitated to birthday girl M as she cut the cake which Cloudcutter had baked. The cake turned out to be the centre of attraction.

In case you are wondering, Cloudcutter prefers to remain an anonymous baker, and isn't in the pics.

How good was the cake? Well I woke up next morning and I saw my diet evangelist wife, who couldn't drink water because of a sore throat, in the fridge with her face covered in cake, moaning in joy.

Cakes and ale

The morning started with a couple of young girls in our building coming over with a treasure trove of local Christmas goodies. Well, as they say, morning showed the day.

This was followed by a lovely cocktail lunch at the house of the other M. A great hostess who was trying to rekindle memories of Christmas in her home town of Bangalore.

Then our evening of cakes and ale began. You have heard of the birthday cake made by Cloudcutter. Then there were the rum balls that she got for the party. Bundles of high spirited choco raisin mouthfuls of ecstasy. A sampling of one of the twenty Christmas cakes that she had baked. Accompanied with wines from the various Santas.

I wanted to have a Goan Catholic theme for the dinner. A tribute to the Catholic neighbourhood of Bandra which I call home.

So Candies it was. I placed my order the previous day. Mutton chops (mince meat in mashed potato fried in bread crumbs) which birthday girl M who avoids mutton polished off in glee. Prawn puffs made with Goan rechado masala livened up the party.

Don't go by the pictures below but we had two amazing dishes for the dinner. The sorpatel was perfect. Slightly sweet in a Goan fashion. The chopped pork was tender and juicy with tiny blobs of fat.

And there was the Goan fish curry. I am not too fond of fish curries from the West Coast. But the one at Candies was phenomenal. The curry was slightly sweet, had a tomato base, the spice was just right and very polite, not fiery. Long, timid green chillies to add a bit of sauciness.

Cloudcutter, a Goan with a point of view on food, approved both the dishes. As did the Bongs approve the alu dom which we made with Cookme packaged masala.

The find of the evening was Bangaluru M. She has flair for the the heady stuff which amazed us all. She created magic with chocolate cubes, a copper bottom pan and some neat rum and Scotch.

A fantastic close to a great night with friends, food, fun and frolic which brought back memories of many Christmases of yore for K and me.

Yummy dogs and the joys of last minute shopping

It was the 24th evening and time to shop for Christmas. So off I went to Shoppers Stop, Bandra. My toe had just been unwrapped and I needed a place where I didn't need to move around too much.

Now I can't shop on an empty stomach. So I went to check out a new stall called Yummy Dogs in front of the Mall. Recommended by a couple of food lovers earlier.

I tried a Lebanese Dog. A 'pup' actually. It came with a garlic flavoured and very succulent chicken frank . A subtle hummus and mayo marinade gave the perfect backdrop for the scintillating frank. A bit of salad and a pickled chilly and it was quite a happy mouthful. The bread was from French Loaf and I must say that it was nice and fresh. Call me racist if you want but I chose the white over the brown bread.

All dogs come in two sizes. Regular and Pup. I had the Pup which was Rs 49 (1 USD) and quite filling for an evening snack. They have other flavours like Classic (with barbecue sauce and caramelised onions), Indian (tandoori flavoured darker franks) and Japanese (Teriyaki sauce).

All non veg dogs are made with chicken. They have vegetarian ones too!

My shopping trip was successful and I finally found a top which was extra small and clingy enough for a food writer and wannabe chef's super slim wife. A lost key led me to a fellow blogger, Agent Green Glass' house. I met her and her husband for the first time. They are guests at our 'party' tomorrow night. A couple of rum and Cokes at their lovely house and I was back to the missus who had returned with the keys.

We put our tree up today. My first after ten years at Mumbai. Gifts were exchanged. And I don't have an excuse to go late to work. Still need cotton for snow on the tree before I put up pictures.

Sorpatel, Goan fish curry (to celebrate M's return to fish), meat chops and prawn puffs have been ordered from Candies while the Cloud Cutter's cakes snore in the kitchen.

Merry Christmas everybody.

Blogroll: Sydney to Mumbai

Eat My Globe is the name of Simon Majumdar's book on his food adventures through the world. He often connected with local food bloggers during the journey. I would have referred to last Sunday night as an 'Eat My Globe' evening but for Spice Girl's aversion of the a "English football hooligan stomping his way across the world". Well she is from Sydney after all. A city Simon Majumdar pans.



The Spice Trail begins

It all started when 'Spice Girl', from Spice and More wrote to me here saying that she was coming to Mumbai and wanted some restaurant tips. I jumped in with detailed suggestions and then suddenly said, hey why don't you drop in at our place. Many mails later Spice Girl arrived with her husband and two children at our house in Bandra all the way from Sydney.




Spice Girl is a Goan from Pune who moved out of India when she was fifteen with her parents.They still make sorpatel and vindaloo though in the Southern Hemisphere now. Her husband Andrew, an architect, from Brisbane seemed to have gelled easily into the Indian diaspora and was sad to hear that we had not put green chillies in the shammi kebabs. Their two children were very sweet and well behaved. They crashed out in the bed, fatigued after a rough flight where the calendar girl air hostess offered tea when the kids were throwing up.


Us four grown ups chatted for ages about our lives, our countries, our food, writing, our cultures, mixed marriages, our jobs, our cities, our holidays... it hardly seemed like we were meeting for the first time. As Spice Girl said possibly due to common interests. The evening reminded me of my chat with Scarlett in Calcutta.

The gift of the Magi

Our guests from Syndey gave the three Wise Men a run for their money with their gifts for us. Spice Girl had read my post about cookies . She baked a batch for me, sealed it in a vacuum pack and got it. The vacuum pack machine was bought just for this. And the cookies were my favourite type - milk based with milk, dark and white chocolate chips. Even Santa wouldn't pay so much thought to gifts.


I thought I would open them on Christmas. I couldn't wait opened them yesterday! A whiff of butter of surrounded the room immediately. I thought I will have half a cookie. I had two. And one more this morning. They are amongst the best cookies that I have ever had.




And that was not all. Spice Girl had asked me if she could get anything more. I casually mentioned cheese. Well now I have a treasure trove of varied cheeses from them. Enough to last me for a year. They had even got some soft cheese packed with soft drink bottles to keep the cheese firm. The customs guys didn't appreciate their sentiments and those had to be abandoned. Oh and did I tell you that they carried all this from Sydney to Singapore and then to Mumbai.

I told told them 'you shouldn't have'. But I am so happy that they did :)

Andrew got an Australian wine, Pikes, for us. His plans of getting kangaroo meat were shot down apparently.

I couldn't resist the cookies but will open the cheese and wine by the Christmas tree on Christmas. Or will I wait? What do you think?

Howrah Mail

Our menu was largely Calcuttan. Banu cooked while I stood on one foot and directed. The hit of the evening was Banu's shammi kebabs. You could see the life flow back into the jet lagged couple, frazzled by Bandra Linking Road's Sunday shopping crowd, as they bit into the kebabs.

Banu's alu posto turned out to be pretty good. She is a good student. Our guests seemed to have taken to this novel dish. Spice Girl wanted the recipe.

The green moong dal todka tasted straight from the streets of Calcutta thanks to the Cookme tadka mix. Andrew, who earlier groaned at the mention of dal, liked it too.

This was topped off by what Spice Girl referred to as my 'special mutton dish', kosha mangsho. It was great to see our guests from overseas mop it all up with Banu's parathas.

Sweet Bengal's kheer kodom and nolen gurer shondesh helped us finish their orientation to Calcuttan food in Mumbai in a sweet way.

Yes, yes, the shammi kebabs were a Muslim Mumbai treat and we had a Mumbai Bawi hosting us through her fever. The Knife's angels?

I drew up a South Mumbai travel plan for our Aussie friends for the next day. Don't know how it went yet but Spice Girl did text me that they had a lovely lunch at Britannia, a place I recommended for Parsi food. They managed to get Raspberries too apparently.

And hopefully Chitrita Banerjee's Eating India would be a good companion as they explore India.

The evening brought back memories of Durga Puja 1981 or 82 in Calcutta. I had invited my Polish classmate Robert home for lunch. My dad had arranged for special khichudi from the Puja and local gifts (batik shirts, saris) for Robert, his brother and his parents.

The next dinner at our place is on the 25th. We are planning to order Goan food from Candies. The guest list includes two bloggers I haven't met so far. Couple of friends from 'real' life. And a couple whom I first new through the virtual world of Orkut.

Gosh it's difficult to keep count of the number of wonderful people that I have got to know through blogging.

That Seventies Show: Alu Posto

Alu posto is a rare Bengali vegetarian classic. It's popularity cuts across folks from different communities. But then potatoes are addictive. As are poppy seeds! And no animals are harmed are in its making. So alu posto's universal popularity is no surprise. And, of course, there is the little detail of it being a very light and delicately flavoured dish.

Intrigued by the 'Seventies Show' tag? Well alu posto means potatoes (alu) cooked in poppy seeds (posto). The Flower Child of the food world.

I had not posted this recipe as most Bengali food blogs have it. We served it to Australian food blogger, Spice and More , and her lovely family when they visited us on Sunday night. Mama and Papa loved it and wondered why I hadn't put up the recipe so far. (The kids were jet lagged and sleeping inside).

Taking up from the earlier poppy discussion, Spice and More told us about how she was once stopped at Singapore airport when she was taking khous khous in for cooking. Now who would explain the magic of Lebanese cooking to the sniffer dogs and their vigilant masters?

I used to count days for my trips back home when I moved into Mumbai. My mom's alu posto would call out to me.

Survival warranted that I learn to make it myself. It is quite a simple recipe actually which I have learnt through trial and error. I have trained my cook, Banu, to make it. She made yesterday's version and I must proudly say that she did a very good job of it.

So here's how you can make a heady alu posto for four:

Ingredients:

• 2 dry red chillies
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/2 tea spoon: kalo jeera/ kalonji/ onion seeds/ nigella seeds (different names for the little, black seeds)
• 1/2 a red onion, shallot ... finely chopped
• 6 potatoes: cubed and parboiled. Parboiling ensures that you don't have to use too much oil
• 50 g Posto/ poppy seeds, khus khus in Hindi, Khous Khous in Lebanese: ground into a powder and then made into a thick paste by adding a bit of water
• Spices: 1 tea spoon each of turmeric and cumin powder. 1/2 tea spoon each of red chilly powder and sugar. 1 tea spoon, or more, of salt
• 3 green chillies spilt into half
• 1 table spoon cooking oil. While any oil will do, the traditional Bengali oil of choice is mustard oil. I can't stand it!

Process:

• Heat oil in a pan
• Add dry red chillies once the oil is hot
• Let it splutter, add bay leaves
• Let it crackle, add the black onion seeds
• Add onion and stir till they turn translucent
• Add potatoes (which should already be soft)
• Add poppy paste
• Add spices and a tea spoon of salt
• Throw in the green chillies
• Stir. Should be done in 5 minutes. Add a bit of water of the potatoes are hard

I like to dry the dish at the end and prefer the potatoes to have a slight edge or crunch. Ideally the potatoes should look braised. There are other versions which are slightly more soupy or squishy. I don't like them

This is best enjoyed with steamed rice. You can also have them with rotis or plain parathas. There is nothing to stop you from having them with bread or by itself either.

It is addictive. You have been warned.

Read this later: Hurry to the Bandra Gym Christmas Fair

Agent Marzipan


I have a new food informant who wrote in after I put my mail id on the blog. She prefers to stay out of the limelight. I have decided to refer to her as Agent M (M for Marzipan) in the blog till she decides to come out in the open.

My fellow Finely Chopper, K and I were gearing up for the Bandra Gym Christmas Fair ever since Agent M told me about it. We had made our plans in advance. We went yesterday to avoid the crowds on the last night.

We couldn't have chosen a worse day. I was sleep deprived. And then was bursting from an ajino moto overdose at the Noodle Bar Buffet in an office lunch outing. I was so tired that I crashed out when we then went to the 4 PM show of Avatar. Partly because the story didn't keep me awake.

The rest of our Bandra Gym gang, specially the ad folks, had been working late for many nights and looked haggard.

Inglourious Red

The four of us finally reached the Fair. A huuuuuuuuuge affair. Millions of little 'stalls' set up on bare tables in the large ground. Trinkets, shimmering party wear, tees, handicrafts, kebabs, marzipan, sorpatel, Goan sausages, vindaloos, gelatos, roast tongue, prawn curry, Bottled Masala .... everything was on sale. Most of the stuff was made at home by enterprising housewives.

There was a dance floor which meticulously shut at ten. The bar, the most popular, point shut at eleven. Most revellers made trips back with three to four glasses of whisky in hand while we gingerly nursed our Cokes.

Our bones were weary but the flashes of red in the posters, in the sequined dresses and in the vindaloo mixes fired us up as we chatted into the night ... our cell phones tucked away out of sight.

Pigging it





We first went to a stall run by the restaurant, Simply Goa. We had some nice Goan sausage chilly fry from there. The sausage was slightly soft and boiled rather than fried. The sourness was tempered down a bit. Full of potatoes the way we like it. A nice start once we found some plastic chairs to sit in.



We then moved to Jonas' stuff from the Bandra Gym. We picked up roast honey chilly pork which we so loved last time. It was a bit dry this time though. Not as full of chubby fat.

Had the standards dipped or were we too drained to enjoy it? I, for one, wasn't hungry to be fair.


Our next stop was a stall run by a lady who had come all the way from Irla. Pork Sorpatel, Vindaloo, prawn pickle, roast tongue ... she had it all

I am not much of a vindaloo fan but hers was was really good. The quality of the pork was phenomenal, tender to the T. The curry was deceptively red and not fiery. The spices were balanced just right. The curry teased you but didn't shock you. A chirpy red happy curry is how I would put it.

The prawn pickle was a hit among our group of three Bongs and a Bawi. Millions of tiny prawns. A very thick sharp masala paste as the base. Yet not pungent or overpowering. Each bite invited you to have one more.

The sorpatel was very interesting. A dry and different take on this curry based dish. The little pieces of pork, organs and fat gave us many moments of scrunchy joy. This was the one dish which we fully finished.

I remember that the sorpatel which we had last time at Bandra Gym was different too from the ones we have had in the past. Wonder if sorpatel, like butter chicken, lends itself to many interpretations.

(Update: I put this question to Mrs D Sousa of Marks Cold Storage this evening. Aunty said that in Goan sorpatel the pork is cut into smaller pieces, fried, is slightly sweetish and made with ground spices. The East Indian version apparently is made with larger pieces of pork, which are not fried. It is no sweet and East Indian bottled masala is used)

We couldn't finish the vindaloo and sorpatel. But they came in little plastic containers and we got them home. Am looking forward for lunch.

A round of gelatos from the Gelato Italiano stall and we were smiling again.

The Bourdain moment

We had walked in to the evening battle weary from a week which had sapped the life out of us. Some big smiles all around, lazy chats, lots of pork, dancing taste buds, giggling kids, boisterous families, gelatos, a trundling Santa Claus, whiskey breath and we suddenly realised that the weekend had began. That we could rest our work entities and let our Avatars live it up for a while.

Notes:

• Today, 19th December is the last night
• The fair goes on till midnight
• The average dish price is about Rs 100 (2 USD)
• Alcohol is cheap
• Entry fee for non members is Rs 100
• There are non pork and vegetarian fare too and it is worth going for the experience