Panch Phoran

The CC has posted about this classical Bengali five-spice mixture before but the sheer beauty of the spices compelled him to post it again.

It composes of equal parts of cumin, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, nigella, and radhuni.

The CC is aware that most online sources suggest mustard seeds but this is wrong. The spices may be fried in mustard oil but you need to have radhuni which are arguably closer in flavor to celery seeds than anything else.

Kookoo Sabzi

This is not a difficult dish but it requires effort. The CC assumes that everyone understands the difference between the words "difficult" and "effort".

Ideally, this dish needs a buncha Jamie's in the house all shredding the greens to precise effect. In their collective absence, you'll just have to shred them yourselves (or get a personal Jamie to do it — you do have one, don't you?)

The goal is an almost insane amount of fragrant greens all held together by just the barest amount of egg. This is an "inversion" of the frittata which features eggs as the main ingredient. Here the eggs are just there to hold everything together and they are cooked to a dark brown. The greens, barberries and nuts are the stars not the eggs. We are clear on this concept, aren't we?

It's best served with a sweetish side salad — Green on Green — there's a hit album in here!


Ingredients

All the cup measurements are after the chopping. This means that, yes, there's almost an insane amount of greens but we were clear on that, right?

2 cups Italian parsley (finely chopped)
2 cups dill (finely chopped)
2 cups chives (finely chopped)
1 cup cilantro (finely chopped)
1 cup mint (finely chopped)

4 tbsp. dried fenugreek

1/2 cup.barberries (zereshk)
1/2 cup. walnuts (chopped)

2 tbsp. flour
2 eggs — keep an extra egg or two around.

saffron
milk

salt
black pepper

Recipe

Note: Most recipes online call for turmeric not saffron because the latter is very expensive. However, there is no substitute. Use the real thing. This is for the betterment of your soul.

(The recipe was traditionally served at Nowroz — the New Years' Day because of the obvious metaphor between greens and prosperity.)

Preheat the broiler.

Heat the milk gently. A microwave works great as long as you don't let the milk spill over. Dissolve the saffron in the milk.

Beat the eggs with the flour, saffron, milk, salt and pepper. Add all the greens.

The CC has found it practical to add an extra egg if the mixture looks too stiff. It's very hard to predict this given the variability in the moisture of the greens and the size of the eggs. The mixture should barely hold together.

In a skillet, heat up some oil at medium-high heat. Add the mixture to the pan and cover. Cook for about 12-16 minutes.

At this point you can either flip the omelette or just put it in the under the broiler like the CC does. The top will turn beautifully golden and green.

Let it sit for about 5 minutes. (Yes, this matters and if you don't know why then you really need to read this.)

Slice and serve.

Bengali Cookbook Authenticity Gauge-Meter

There's a shockingly simple way to gauge it.

Just peruse through and check their ingredients for panch phoran (five spices.)

If it features radhuni, it is authentic. If it features mustard seeds, it is not.

For the record, panch phoran consists of radhuni, cumin, fenugreek, fennel and kalonji.

Life can be so simple sometimes.

Mutter Methi Malai

Theplaa

The quintessentially Gujarati dish. Stereotypically even.

So stereotypical that we used to refer to the more rural types as theplaa's back in the day. Heck, the typecasting seems to have spread far beyond the borders of India because a Japanese-American friend of the CC's who lived in London commented on it once.

That having been said, let us not be deprived of the brilliance that is theplaa.

Just for the record, the concept is pseudo-generic. You really can use any flour. However, if you are a moron that uses only wheat flour (like most of the Gujarati population), you will what the CC considers the main feature of theplaa namely that chewing it turns the spicy deliciousness into sweet (thank you, chemistry of saliva!)

You must use millet for that. The CC will flat out not eat theplaa that does not feature millet. It's cheaper, has a fantastic non-boring texture, and a rich taste.

Why on earth would you possibly go against that?

Ingredients

3 cups baajri flour (millet)
1 cup wheat flour (read instructions below)

1 cup chopped fenugreek leaves (methi)

1" ginger
3-4 garlic cloves
3-4 Thai green chillies

1 tbsp sesame seeds
1 tsp ajwain seeds
1 tsp asafoetida
2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground red chilli powder

yogurt mixed with water (to make the dough)

salt (to taste)

Recipe

ginger-garlic-green-chilli paste
Add salt, turmeric, red chilli powder, sesame seeds, and the ajwain seeds.

Add the rest of the ingredients. You can see the darker color of the baajri flour along with the lighter wheat flour. Somewhere underneath you can see the fenugreek leaves too.

Don't add all the wheat flour. Keep some aside.

Now, you need to knead the dough with the yogurt-water mixture.

It is absolutely critical that the dough be made with the yogurt-water mix not just water.

The dough is going to super soft and a bit sticky (there is complex chemistry at the heart of this.) Gently keep adding more wheat flour, until the dough becomes manageably solid-ish. It will NEVER get truly solid, and always remain slightly soft.

You need to gently roll it out, and pan fry it. Another trick that works is to just roll it out with your fingers on a lightly oiled piece of aluminum foil before pan frying.

Theplaa

A Note on Frozen Spinach

The CC recognizes the need to not do stuff from scratch. Sometimes it's just not possible, and sometimes you have a choice between getting ingredients in frozen form or not at all. This note really applies to all frozen greens.

First up, thaw the thing. Just throw it on the counter in the morning, and you'll be fine in the evening. If in a hurry, put it in a colander, and a basin of warm water. Periodically replace the water with more warm water.

Now, this is the good part. Most recipes call for you to stir-fry this stuff. With both fresh and frozen stuff, you need to squeeze the water out of the stuff.

Squeeze that mother; squeeze that mother dry; when you think you can't squeeze no more, squeeze it some more. SQUEEZE THAT THANG!!!

Ahem.

That's enough screaming for one day.

You'll get brilliant results with the above technique.

Why? Well, sweethearts, the science will just have to wait for a future post, won't it?