On Bengali cuisine

There has been a lot already written about Bengali food and cooking but I want to add my bit to it. It's possible to write page after page on Bengali cooking - starting from the appetizers to the dessert, subtle flavors, methodical use of spices, about particular shapes of potatoes required for specific dishes... there's truly a lot of stuff to write about...

My encounter with Bengali food dates back to the same time as my experience with Bengali language. From the time I have started speaking a few broken words in Bengali, I have also started eating rice and fish. So, it's quite clear that it's impossible for me to write an unbiased article on Bengali food. I'm plainly in love with it.

I'm a super non-vegetarian, that means I thrive mostly on animal protein and I love it! After coming to the US I have experienced a lot of different cuisines as well, I love Asian food - dumplings, tom yum soup (among the top favorites, especially the one cooked by a Thai friend of mine), yakisoba. I live on varieties of pasta when I'm on a scarcity of time to cook. I LOVE bacon and anything that has bacon in it. Burgers and fries have made my dinner many many days... but at the end of the day, call it my comfort food or my fall-back-on food, it's always rice and fish (Bengali style).

I'll not try to write about all the different kinds of ঝাল - ঝোল - অম্বল (curries, soups, etc - bad translation) that we eat, I'll only jot down the ones I love most from the main courses this time. Sweets and snacks will follow in another article, sometime later.

1. শুক্ত (Shukto) - a bitter preparation of diced vegetables (potato, green banana, bitter gourd, drumsticks, etc) in a light curry. It is flavored with aromatic spices like whole mustard and asafoetida. I don't know if any other cuisine has bitter tasting dishes, but Bengalis love eating this. It is always eaten as the first course.

2. উচ্ছে ভাজা (Uchhe bhaja) - Fried bitter gourd. Such a simple thing to cook but so tasty! Another bitter preparation made by chopping bitter gourd into thin slices, smearing some turmeric and salt and deep frying them. It goes well as an accompaniment to daal and rice.

3. মুসুর ডাল (Masoor daal) - This is called "poor man's meat" as it is a good source of protein but cheap enough to be affordable by poor people for whom meat is too expensive. Daal is lentil soup so this particular daal (in a can't-be-mistaken shade of red, unlike others which range from pale to dark yellow) is cooked in a soupy way. I like it plain, with whole green chillies and a few cilantro leaves added for flavor.

4. লাল শাক (Laal Shaak) - Red leaves (a very bad translation)  It's a red leafy vegetable, like spinach, which when mixed with rice turns the rice to a rich red color. I don't know how to cook it, as I've never seen it around here. The one that's cooked at my home in Calcutta is awesome! That's all I can tell :-)

5. মোচার ঘন্ট (Mochar ghonto) - It is said that no part of the banana tree is ever wasted. Green bananas are eaten as vegetables, ripe ones as fruits, the leaves are used as plates and the stem is eaten when young, for older trees, the stems are used as lightweight dinghies. Baby bananas are made into a spicy dry curry and it tases very good. I haven't tried to cook this either.



6. আলু পোস্ত (Aloo posto) - Poppy seeds with potatoes. Like it's other variant ঝিঙে পোস্ত, is one of the most common favorite foods. Originating from West Bengali houses, now Calcuttans in general are in love with this dish. I had it for Saturday lunch for many many years. The potaoes are diced and lightly fried, then a paste of poppy seeds and green chillies is added to it and boiled with it for a few mins. That's it!

7. কলাই ডাল (Kolai daal/Urad daal) - This is always paired with the dish just mentioned above. They have been cooked together so many times in all households that now it's impossible to have one without the other. Also, people would name them together as well. Urad daal is cooked with fennel and asafoetida as the only spices. You just need to boild the daal with those two and you are all set!

8. পাঁঠার মাংস (Panthar mangsho) - Aaah...it brightens up my day to even think of this. I haven't tried cooking this mutton curry and haven't had it in a long while though, but it always makes me happy. This is a rich preparation which requires onion, garlic and gorom moshla (garam masala, hot spice(?)) and I don't know what else. It might be a little too much to digest, but the taste is awesome by all means.

9. মুরগির ঝোল (Murgir jhol) - This is a lighter version of the above one, made with chicken. Though using almost the same ingredients, the curry is lighter and it always has potatoes cut into quarters with it. A speciality for Sunday lunch, I have made it many times and is quite simple to cook. Kids love this very much.

10. লুচি (Luchi) - Puri but more refined in texture and taste. An invention hailing from Calcutta, the white fluffy balls of flour are darlings of Bengalis all over the world! Generally loved with mutton or rich chicken curry, it can be eaten with anything from fried potatoes to any kind of vegetables. The dough of flour is made into round balls and rolled to small discs. Those are then deep fried in oil (traditionally in ghee - clarified butter) and they pop up as thin white balls! It gives a heavenly satisfaction to eat it!

11. Fish - Probably I'll need to write a separate article just for fish. You've read about my ode to Ilish I guess, but that's just the tip of the iceberg! There's small fried fishes like Puti and Mourala, huge ones like Rui or Katla, Pabda to make a mustardy curry from, Bhetki to be made into fillets and fried, Chingri, best loved in a curry of coconut milk... oh this will go on and on...

Before I make you all super hungry, let me end this article here. Here's a platter of traditional foods from my wedding...