Bengali on Kitchen3N

Rice Pudding Stuffed Crepes (Patishapta Pita)

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Patishapta pitha was the rare pitha I would eat growing up. Maybe it's a regional thing, but I just did not enjoy most pithas I had. [Pitha: Bengali dumplings. Usually made out of rice flour. Sometimes a combo of rice flour and wheat flour. And in my experience, dry af most of the time. Sometimes sweet with a coconut or jaggery filling. And, as I found out after marriage, sometimes plain, eaten with curry.]

3 Layer Kulfi Cake

Sun, 04 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

My husband and I were so different when we met. He like TV, I liked the arts. He liked iHOP, I liked (and still like) bougie NYC brunch places. He enjoyed test driving cars and playing video games. I liked boutique window shopping and baking.

Coconut Jaggery Hand Pies (Narkeler Pitha)

Thu, 01 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Pitha - a Bengali style sweet dumpling. Narkeler pitha - dumpling filled with coconut and date sap. Usually the dough is made with rice flour and water(?), filled with the coconut mixture, then deep fried. I never learned how to make pitha, but I did teach myself how to make hand pies.

Gajer Halwa Mousse (Carrot Mousse)

Wed, 28 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In my journey of blending the flavors of my ancestral home in the Indian Subcontinent with the desserts I know and love here in America, I pull a lot from you and those around me. In brainstorming dessert ideas, a dear family friend (and ad hoc babysitter - love you Tasfia and Tanifa!) suggested gajer halwa. It's carrots that's been cooked down with milk and sugar so that it's almost a pudding.

Cha Leches Cake

Sat, 24 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000

Most of you are familiar with chai - a spiced tea drink, made with some kind of milk. Most Bengalis I know and grew up with, didn't spice their tea, but steeped some strong black tea and cooked it down with milk, or evaporated milk, and sweetened to taste. This is called dood cha (translation: milk tea). My favorite childhood treat was dunking a piece of Wonder bread in my mother's milk tea. This dessert, an adaptation of tres leches, rekindles that memory. A sponge cake that is soaked in a steeped black tea milk mixture, and topped with whipped cream, recreates that childhood favorite in dessert form. I made it on a whim at my in law's place over the weekend so I don't have many pictures. I tried recreating it with PG Tips pyramid tea bags - and although tasty, did not have a strong enough flavor. Will share more pictures when I recreate it - in the meantime I need to buy up some loose tea of my own, since the tea bags just won't do in this recipe.

Cauliflower Stir Fry

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000

I had to make something vegetarian after my husband made me watch HBO’s Vice the other day. This particular episode was on the industrialization of the meat industry and man was it terrifying. The ghastly amounts of meat we eat day in day out. How the farm-to-table movement is essentially our savior if we want to reap the rewards of our earth in any sort of sustainable fashion. Scary stuff! But we can do our part by 1) supporting businesses like Honest Chops and local farmers market vendors that only source from sustainable farms and 2) eating less meat. There’s a world of protein out there (eggs! chickpeas! tofu!) explore!

Ramadan Round Up

Tue, 21 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

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Ramadan is halfway over, but there’s still time to make some of my favorite recipes for this time of year! Going clockwise from the top left:

Citrus Quinoa Salad with Dates, Almonds and Mint - we consume a lot of dates during Ramadan. This recipe uses up any extra dates you may have in a salad you can feel good about eating at the end of a long fast!

Aloo Chop (Fried Mashed Potato Balls)

Sat, 18 Jun 2016 00:00:00 +0000

Traditional Bengali iftars are an exercise in how many different ways can we consume fried foods. Ground up lentils and herbs? FRY IT! Fresh sliced eggplant? BATTER AND FRY IT! Whole green chilis? FRY IT! Mashed potatoes? FRY. IT.

There’s been a backlash by my generation against the fried iftars of our parents’ generation:

Mustard and Chili Mashed Potatoes and a Giveaway!

Tue, 19 May 2015 00:00:00 +0000

There’s a lot going on in today’s post. Firstly, we’re talking vegetable peelers and a giveaway! My good friend’s husband has started a company selling premium kitchen products, with their first being this awesome curved Japanese blade vegetable peeler! Using mine was a breeze - the sharp blade made for smooth cuts and the design definitely required less pressure from the hand doing the peeling. The sprout remover on either side helped get those little “eyes” out. I tackled these buds in no time. I will say, though, if you are used to the vertical peelers, it may take some getting used to. But as with any sharp edge, take care to curl the fingers of your supporting hand away while using!Because this is such a great product and think you guys would love it, too, we are giving one away! To enter, simply comment on my FB page responding to this question: What’s the first thing you would use ChefBasix Vegetable Peeler for? Good luck!Secondly, we’re talking about ghee - clarified butter that South Asians use to cook (some dishes) with. It doesn’t have the milk solids of butter, so it has a higher burning temperature. This picture shows how it happens. After melting the butter over low heat, you keep it on until it attains this golden color, not the amber color you would look for while making browned butter. We are just looking for the milk solids in the butter to toast up to give the ghee a nice nutty flavor. You don’t want to get to that light brown stage, otherwise you will lose too much moisture. Once you’ve gotten the right color, take it off the heat. You can let it cool in the pot, but I poured it into this bowl to show you what was going on. The milk solids sink to the bottom so you only spoon off the fluid on top. Left to cool long enough it will congeal and resemble the store bought ghee. This last step is not totally necessary in today’s dish, as we are not cooking with the ghee. It’s more for aesthetic purposes so you don’t have bits of brown running through the mashed potatoes (don’t toss it, though! spoon it over toast for a snack!). Finally, we are talking about aloo bhorta (mashed potatoes)! It seems like potatoes are a universal comfort food. When coming back from a family trip, or on days when we were low on groceries, dinner looked like this: steamed rice, aloo bhorta, an omelette and daal. South Asian immigrant parents have an almost militant attitude toward eating out. Take out was a non-existent concept. As newcomers, our parents had to reign with frugality. Though we were brats about it and whined about wanting pizza or burgers, our parents did the hard work of making every single meal from scratch. The aloo bhorta and omelette were studded with pieces of raw onion and slivers of green chilis. Most of my time during those meals were spent picking out the aforementioned bits to get to the good stuff. I was never a part of the set-my-mouth-ablaze-to-enjoy-my-meal set. So now, since I’m in charge of my kitchen, I’ve started to substitute scallion for the raw onion and dried red chili for the fruity spice of the green chili (or Thai chili as it’s known to some). The dried red chili still has some heat - just not as explosive as its green counterpart.

Mughlai Paratha

Fri, 21 Nov 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Mughlai paratha is a traditional flatbread they serve in Bangladesh. It’s a rich dough, stuffed with eggs, cilantro, onions, chili peppers and sometimes ground chicken. It’s pretty hard to track down a recipe. This post is a culmination of verbal consultation with my mother, taste testing at Bengali fast food joints, and YouTube research. It’s a little bit ridiculous, I know, because it’s not exactly a 30 minute meal. There are several steps, practice and patience required. But I figured with the upcoming holiday weekend, we all might have some extra time to get in the kitchen (it’s cold outside!), roll up our sleeves, and maybe even involve the kiddies (my little ones LOVE getting their hands on the rolling pin and dough whenever they can). Also, there will no doubt be lots of leftovers that would work perfectly as a filling for these guys. This baby has been in the pipeline for a looooooong time. I’ve been meaning to make it for ages. I’ve been experimenting recently, since I’ve been getting to know my rolling pin a bit better (hello, pie season). I’ve tried making it with pizza dough (which was delicious but resembled more of a calzone than a traditional mughlai paratha) and all kinds of ghee to flour ratios and cooking techniques (shallow fry, deep fry). And this is the glorious, delicious result! Yes, that is my Fresh Tinted Lip Balm on my kitchen counter. Where else would it be? I would love to add more filling. It would make the paratha even more delicious. But I err on the side of less filling just to avoid leakage and it running all over the pan. You, though, are at liberty to experiment with as much filling as you’d like!For those of you who aren’t familiar with ghee, it’s delicious. It’s butter that’s been melted, milk solids removed. You do that by melting a stick (or two) of butter in a small saucepan, allowing the solids to drop to the bottom, then utilizing the melted fat on top. It’s slightly nutty and has a higher burning temperature than regular butter, which is what makes it so great for this recipe (among others: pancakes, mashed potatoes, and so on). So I hope you guys give this recipe a try! And don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t come out super thin the first time. Practice makes perfect!

Rhubarb Mango Chutney

Thu, 15 May 2014 00:00:00 +0000

Is rhubarb out of season yet? I am way behind with this post, I know. I have been behind on life, in general, as of late. So even though I made my husband track down rhubarb when the season for it first came around (it is surprisingly difficult to find around these parts) and serendipitously also had some delicious, though overripe, Haitian mangoes on hand to make this weeks ago…I am only now sharing it with you. Sad face.

Coconut Egg Curry (Deem Bhuna)

Wed, 26 Feb 2014 00:00:00 +0000

This weekend was a welcome respite from the bitter cold of the past few months. Temperatures soared to the 50s (watch out LA, we’re catching up). I refused to wear socks…despite that fact that all the snow hadn’t fully melted. We took it all in. Enjoyed our walks instead of rushing from building to car to store then back.

But now the week has begun and and with it, freezing temps. So you can imagine my efforts to avoid multiple trips to the store. I’m pulling out all the stops to use up pantry ingredients. And I know how my readers love a CHEAP, QUICK and DELICIOUS weeknight meal.This doesn’t look like your usual curry (for lack of liquid). This type of dish is called a bhuna: where the liquids are allowed to evaporate for the most part, leaving a concentrated flavor enhanced usually by a large amount of caramelized onions. Most Bengalis would leave a dish like this for special occasions, typically shunning the high amount of cholesterol by the egg and coconut milk combination. Except now, according to recent studies, the cholesterol/fat found in both is good for you (but perhaps not for South Asian populations??). Who knows what to believe anymore with studies constantly disproving what we thought to be true for so long. I’m going to go with my usual wisdom: enjoy in moderation!

Shrimp & Green Bean Purée (Chingri ar Beans Bhorta)

Tue, 31 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I don’t really give a lot of thought to New Years resolutions. Calendars are such a man made construct - how is tomorrow more or less relevant than today? I know I seem like Buzz Killington here, while everyone is hastily getting ready for their NYE parties (and hey, I am, too). But I just got this email from wordpress reviewing the year in stats that made me reflect a bit. Although it is nowhere where I’d like to be, I’ve come a long way from the early days of dinky pictures in low lit spaces. I’ve learned a lot and have put a lot of work into sharing content that I think will be meaningful you guys. And as I make my way through my late twenties, I definitely feel the pressure to do something I am proud of, improve and grow, and do right by my kids.Some of my favorite posts from this past year was Julia Child’s glorious ratatouille, the traditional Bengali Rice Pilaf that was actually approved for submission into Foodgawker, and the Sticky Toffee Pudding that I thought photographed so beautifully. I am proud though, of the progress I’ve made. Starting out with some not so relevant recipes to some pretty handy dandy ones for newbies to the [especially Bengali] kitchen. And though I haven’t garnered nearly enough traffic to consider myself a success, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hearing anecdotes from you guys about the different recipes you’ve tried and your personal success stories in the kitchen. A friend of mine posted on my Facebook page saying, “You inspire me to cook!” and I thought to myself, that is the whole reason I started this blog in the first place. To share some recipes or insights with people who don’t have the time or resources to spend in the kitchen. So to them, and to anyone else reading this, THANK YOU for making 2013 such a great year for Kitchen3N. I look forward to sharing more goodies with you guys in the years to come. Now, what is a bhorta? They are usually made from boiled/steamed vegetables or dried fish, then ground to a pulp using a shil pata (stone slab, kind of like mortar and pestle), along with raw onions, green chilis, salt and mustard oil. Sometimes dried red chilis. They are CRAZY good. My mom’s experimented with the preserved fish readily available in this country: anchovies, sardines, etc. But this one is the best. Some permutations include lime leaves (which can be hard to find, which is why I improvised with lemon zest and lemon juice). These aren’t traditional ingredients but they help brighten up the flavor without using way too much salt. It’s a great low fat side. Be warned though: it is spicy! Of course you can adjust it to your taste, but for an authentic Bengali experience, crank up the heat!

Mixed Vegetable Stir Fry (Bhaji)

Mon, 28 Oct 2013 00:00:00 +0000

When I go to a Bengali restaurant for takeout, I usually overlook the greasy curried meat dishes or the fish floundering in murky masala waters and the bhortas that usually fall short of the homemade version. At most Bengali places, these dishes are laid out buffet style so you know exactly what you’re getting. I usually opt for one of the Biryanis (chicken or goat) and a side of some sort of mixed vegetable stir fry. These things always get me salivating. I guess it’s because they strike a fabulous balance of spice and sweetness. I’m not the type of person who goes gaga for sweet and spicy, but the sweetness in this dish is brought out by the slow caramelization of the vegetables (rather than sugar or honey) and just rounds out the flavor from the usual round up of spices, plus the extra Bengali zinger: pach phorom. Pach phorom is a combination of five aromatic seeds: black mustard, cumin, black cumin (also known as nigella), fenugreek (methi) and fennel. It can be found at any Indian grocery alongside all the usual spices. They have a licorice flavor, which adds an extra dimension to the dish’s flavor profile. This is important for vegetable dishes that have to compete with a follow up course of a rich meat or curried fish dish. This is something my mom made at the beginning of the week to just last the course of the whole week. It starts out with a base of softened onions, spices and garlic/ginger paste. You can play around with the vegetables to add your favorites, but to start, I used the two vegetables I found consistent in most Bengali mixed vegetable dishes: cauliflower and cabbage. Now, the two put together makes A LOT, so make sure your wok or pot is large enough to accommodate everything. I had to add the vegetables slowly, allowing some of the cabbage at the bottom to wilt and decrease in volume before adding more, and mixing to combine. While that goes, you’ll want to work on the second batch of veggies in a separate pan. I used just 2 cups of plain old frozen mixed vegetables. You can use the equivalent amount of zucchini, pumpkin, butternut squash, peas, string beans, whatever you like as long as you have a balance of green, orange, and white veggies. The cauliflower and cabbage steam in the wok for about 20 minutes. They get all tender and sweet. I ended up needing a shocking amount of salt but feel free to start out small and gradually increase to taste. Top with fresh cilantro. Serve alongside rice or naan or stuff inside a pita for a delicious wrap!

Curried Shrimp & Okra (Dharosh ar Chingri)

Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:00:00 +0000

One week left in my $50 Sur La Table Giveaway!! Ends 9/25/13

My semester abroad in Rome was the most fantastic 4 months of my life (no offense husband, kids). Immersing myself in a language and culture I had studied and seen from afar for YEARS was just so rewarding. Living down the street from the pantheon and campo dei fiori was just other worldly. But what was even better than living down the street from the pantheon, was living down the street from the gelaterie by the pantheon: gelateria della palma and giolitti. And what was so awesome about campo dei fiori is the open air market that sits daily. Needless to say, I had amazingly fresh food every day. I remember the very first thing I ate was bruschetta with kind of lackluster tomatoes (it was January, duh) but with such fruity olive oil and complex, crusty bread, that I was completely satiated. And I ate like that for about a week or two, pizza al taglio, pasta a cacio e pepe, stuffed zucchini flowers, fried artichokes, all the non porcine Roman specialties. Until I started getting homesick. When I got homesick, I called my mom, and made Bengali food. And for some reason, the first thing that came to mind when I thought of comfort food was mashed okra (dherosh bhorta). So I dragged my roommate and dear friend Jess (who just got engaged!!) across town, to the Bengali market. There, I found some puny okras, red onions, green chili and the mustard oil necessary to complete my gustative trip home (Jess, for the record, did not partake because of her texture issues. If you, like her, have an aversion to squishy foods, okra is not for you). After that, it kind of became a tradition…we would invite our friends over for a traditional Bengali meal in our tiny Roman apartment, usually consisting of rice, daal, chicken curry and some sort of fried veggie or salad. Then go out for gelato. Yeah, we knew how to party.Since then I always associate okra with Bengali comfort food. And this dish is just such a tasty (and quick!) way to experience it. I made this EXACTLY like my mom, not straying the least bit (except that I use Kosher salt; she swears by the iodized stuff). There is, surprisingly, no garlic or ginger. It is a tad salty, but feel free to adjust it to taste. This usually isn’t served as the main accompaniment to your rice…those would be more along the lines of chicken, beef, mutton or some sort of large fish. But it’s definitely enough for me, as I could probably destroy the whole thing in one sitting. Enjoy!

Mashed Eggplant (Begun Bhorta)

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

I feel like most people, when asked what their favorite vegetable is, would say corn or butternut squash or potatoes (though I bet they actually like the salt and fat that comes with the potatoes). Or perhaps mushrooms. But not me. I. Love. Eggplant. Stewed with tomatoes (imam biyaldi). Simply fried with salt and turmeric (chaak bhaji). In a curry with the insanely boney hilsa fish. In the Sicilian sweet/savory relish known as caponata. In every way except babaghanoush (sorry, haters gon hate). Or this way: charred over an open flame, peeled then mashed with simmering onions, tomatoes, garlic and spices.

Bengali Chicken Curry

Sat, 09 Mar 2013 00:00:00 +0000

There is no coconut milk in your chicken curry if you are Bengali. There is no curry paste or any other amalgamation of ingredients someone else deems necessary for your comfort-in-a-bowl chicken curry. There is only your mother, your childhood, the pieces of white meat that no one ever wanted, the potatoes that you cared for only on some days, the jhol (broth) that was literally chicken soup for your soul (but only the first day, after that it just got too cardamom-y), and the leftover bones that you LOVED to chew on as you churned out every last drop of flavor but NEVER admitted to doing outside of bengali circles.

South Asian rice pudding (Kheer)

Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0000

Apologies for dragging him into yet another one of my posts, but I’ll do it anyway. One of the many things my dear husband and I bond over is our mutual disdain for South Asian sweets. It seems they’re all permutations of milk products or by products, overly sweetened and offering little by way of depth of flavor (think: golap jam, rosh golla, malai kari and so on). We have, however, a few exceptions: sweet doi (yogurt), rosh malai and my Rahima Aunty’s kheer.