Don't get emotional

Once a friend in college asked me how my mom's baigan bharta tastes so good and I proudly said "she roasts it really well" and the next day she opens hr lunch box with chapatis and some black blob, I made it by roasting very well, taste it!! Oh Kavita, God Bless you!!
The secret to make good bharta lies on roasting. First the eggplants needs to be roasted well, so well that their outer skin gets charred and comes off with a crackling sound. I do this step under the broiler. And the second roasting step is done on the stove when the mashed up eggplant is sauteed with tomatoes and onions. This takes time and patience and if you hurry through this step, the eggplant will be undercooked and you will get that raw taste. Not something to crave or praise!
So if you promise yourself to not skimp on roasting process, here the recipe you can follow. But please don't get emotional like my friend and know when to stop!
Ingredients
Eggplants - 2 big. (while buying the eggplants look for the ones on lighter side, they tend to lesser seeds)
Tomatoes - 2 big , chopped
Onions - One big, chopped
Green Chili - 2 to 3, chopped finely
Ginger - an inch, chopped finely

Turn the oven on the High Broil setting. Make a cut in the eggplants with a knife for the steam to vent out. This is very important or they will burst inside the oven making a huge mess!! Put the on a cookie sheet and leave them in the oven for about 40 minutes.


Take them out of the oven and leave on the counter to cool.



In the meantime chop the onions, tomatoes, ginger and green chilies.
Put a pan on medium flame, put one tbsp. oil and saute onions. Once they turn translucent and little pink in color, put in the tomatoes, ginger and green chili. Keep stirring in between. While this is getting cooked, peel the eggplant and scoop out the flesh, leaving out as many seeds as you can. If the peels comes off very easily, it means you broiled them good. Now mash this flesh with your hands and then toss it in the pan with tomato onion mixture. Put in salt as per your taste, tsp each of coriander powder, cumin powder, red chili powder. Keep the flame below medium and keep stirring in between. It fills the kitchen with a delicious aroma, once all liquid dries up and bharta looks brownish red, its ready. Garnish it some chopped cilantro leaves and serve hot with chapatis and your choice of raita.

Have Spinach, Will Not Puree!

Every few days I get this idea of incorporating more and more greens to our food. Dear Husband says you know most of the wine bottles are green too, why worry with all the chopping and cooking! i say we have a 4 year old, we need to set up an example and then I do want to be here to be able to see her all grown up! And then comes the grocery day when I buy the dreaded old spinach, ehh, yuck! Ma would say , you know make palak paneer, its very good for health and tastes divine. Mother in law will say Palak dal is very yummy, FIl gulps down bowls of it, try it, you will like it. I made all those famous palak dishes and when we sit down to eat, I am unusually the slowest, daughter and father keep moving their spoons in the bowl and finally 4 year old will get the smartest idea of finishing all the paneer, leaving behind palak. Can't blame her, I do not like palak when its made into a puree. It reminds me of henna/mehandi and I just can't eat it. But you got to eat your greens!! So yesterday I sauteed leftover rice with onions, tomatoes and green chillies and threw in the usual salt, red chilli powder, garam masala and when it all got mixed in with rice, I chopped two big handfuls of baby spinach and tossed in, put the lid on and let it soften a little. Just before eating sprinkled a little lime juice over rice and I was in spinach heaven. If you are like me and run away every time you see spinach, I say try it, you might like spinach too!!

Revisiting School Memories

I have been close to bengali culture since childhood. My school used to get aid from the West bengal govt. and in turn they wanted the school to encourage bengali culture. Rabinidra sangeet was our school's forte'.  Most of our teachers as well as classmates were bengalis. Saraswati Puja was our biggest festival which is till today attended by the alumni as well. Every girl would dress up in her best clothes and it was like a red carpet event with seniors standing at the gate and giving a once over to each and every girl entering through the gate. "oh my, what a lovely sari, is it your mom's?" hey that lehanga looks nice and the more so called modern ones would go for trendy jeans and skirts which were otherwise banned in school!

"Bolo bolo saraswati mai ki, Jai" sounds would fill the ambiance from aarti pandal. Nostalgia :-)

Surprisingly I never got introduced to bengali food!! But yesterday, over at Asha's food blog , I read about Luchis and it being a bengali bread, brought back all memories from school. I recreated her recipes today and the biggest food snob, our 4 year old gave the verdict "Thumbs Up".

I did use haldi to make luchis yellow in color but surprisingly they turned pink, no one is complaining though! We love pink! I served those with Chana masala following Asha's recipe. Delicious!

Thank you Asha!