Coconut Balls in Bengali style or Narkel Naru

If you want laddus in a jiffy, Narkel Naru or Coconut Laddu is for you. It’s super easy to cook; requires only a couple of ingredients and it is a hot favorite with kids. This Bengali sweet-dish is prepared during many of the Bengali’s festivals like Durga Puja, Laxmi Puja and Swaraswati Puja. Like many Bengali’s this is the very first sweet-dish I learnt to prepare. It’s a simple recipe and will take not more than 10 mints to prepare.

Ingredients:
1.Grated coconut (200g)
2.Palm Sugar (50g)
3.Water

Method:
Heat a heavy bottom pan or non stick pan in high flame. Add the palm sugar and let it melt. Add a little bit of water if the palm sugar sicks to the pan. Keep on stirring till all the palm sugar turns into a saucy liquid. Add the grated coconuts and keep stirring the mixture till the coconut is mixed with the sauce properly. Within 2-3 minutes, the mixture will become brownish in color and start leaving oil. It will become a lot less stickier. This is the time when you turn off the flame. Keep it aside for a 2-3 minutes to cool. Don’t leave the mixture to cool off for more than 5 minutes; otherwise it may become solid.

Make small round shaped balls with the mixture. Although it seems pretty simple to hear, but the first few balls will be difficult to make since your palms will not be accustomed with the heat coming out of the mixture. But after one or two balls, it won’t hurt anymore.

Enjoy.

Mo

Quick Biriyani with Egg!!!

It was raining heavily outside; raining since early morning; a well planned weekend was destroyed by this never ending rain. We waited till noon, but the Rain God showed no intention of slowing down. What a sorry day it was; only thing that could have saved the day was good food. Hence, we decided to order Biriyani from a nearby restaurant. I called up a nearby restaurant to order Biriyani only to know that they could not open because of water-logging throughout the city. But I was so desperate that I decided to cook my own Biriyani. It was an experiment which turned out to be an immense success. I am, going to share my recipe with you.

Traditionally, cooking Biriyani involves an elaborate process and takes a lot of time. Generally it is cooked with chicken, lamb or beef. On that rainy day, I did not have any meat at home but, I had eggs and Biriyani Masala handy; and I was desperate. I cooked my Biriyani in a pressure cooker. It’s definitely not the best way to cook Biriyani, but definitely the quickest and the end result is really good. The whole thing takes around 35-40 minutes to complete.

Ingredients:
1. Eggs (4, Hard Boiled)
2. Potato (1, Boiled and halved into two pieces)
3. Onions (2½ medium size chopped and ½ medium size sliced)
4. Bay leaf (1, small)
5. Clove (2-3)
6. Cardamom (2-3)
7. Cinnamon Stick (1-2)
8. Red Chili powder (1 teaspoons)
9. Turmeric Powder (½ teaspoon)
10. Salt to taste
11. Ginger garlic paste (2 teaspoons)
12. Basmati Rice (1½ cups)
13. Mustard Oil (2 teaspoons)
14. Biriyani Spice Mix* (1 teaspoon).
15. Tomato (1 small chopped)
16. Curry leaves (7-8 leaves)
17. Cilantro
18. Curd/Yogurt (2 tablespoons)

*Biriyani Spice mix can be easily found at your nearest Indian grocery shops

Steps:
Wash the Basmati rice and keep it aside. Shallow fry the boiled eggs and sliced onions with a bit of turmeric and keep them aside.

Heat the mustard oil in the press cooker without the lid. Temper the oil with bay leaf, cloves cardamom and cinnamon sticks. When the oil heats up and you can smell the aroma of the added spices, add the chopped onions. Sprinkle a bit of salt to make the onions cook faster. Fry the onions till they become translucent. Add the ginger-garlic paste and fry the mix for 2-3 minutes. Then, Add the curry leaves to the mix and saute for another 2 minutes in low flame. Make sure you don’t burn the spice. You can sprinkle water when required.

Add the tomatoes and fry the mix while stirring constantly. When the tomatoes will become soft, add turmeric, red chili powder and the Biriyani mix. Soon the mix will start leaving oil. Add the yogurt/curd to this and mix well. Add the fried eggs (only eggs not the fried onions). Add half a cup of cilantro leaves. Gently mix all the things together; make sure you don’t break the eggs.

Add the rice and 1½ cups of water to the spice. Since we are adding water, we also need to add a bit of salt too. Adjust the salt to your preference. Give it a gentle mix and close the lid of the pressure cooker. Pressure cook it for 2 whistles. Your Egg Biriyani is ready. Garnish with the fried onions.

You can pair this up with a little bowl of curd or Raita. I like it raw, unadulterated.

Enjoy.

Mo

Vermicelli kheer with palm sugar

Makar Sankranti is almost here. With festivities going on all over India, it is perfect time to cook something sweet. Bengali’s celebrate Poush Sankranti during this period. Bengal is known for her Rosogolla and Mishti Doi. But on Poush Sankranti, both of them take back seat and make way for Dudh Puli, Nolen Gurer Sandesh and every damn desert with jaggery in it. Respecting the same trend, I will prepare a very simple desert… of course with jaggery. Traditionally, this is supposed to be made with Nolen Gur; but since it is impossible to find it anywhere in Thailand; I will make this with Thai Palm Sugar.

Ingredients:
1. Vermicelli (50g)
2. Milk (500ml)
2. Palm sugar
3. Ghee or clarified butter (one teaspoon)
4. Cashew nuts (10-12 pieces)
5. Almond flakes (Optional)
6. Saffron (Optional)

Method:
Heat clarified butter in a pan and roast vermicelli until light golden brown. Keep it aside.

Bring the milk to boil and add palm sugar to it. Keep stirring the milk so that the palm sugar gets melted and mixed with the milk. Simmer the milk for 2-3 minutes. Add the vermicelli. Cook on a low flame until the vermicelli strands becomes soft. Add the broken cashew nuts. You can add raisins, broken almonds or any other dry fruit of your choice.

Top it up some almond flakes and sprinkle a pinch of saffron. Your jaggery powered Vermicelli Kheer is ready.

Enjoy.

Mo

Panch-Mesali Chorchori or Bengali Mixed Vegetable

Panch-Mesali Chorchori is one of the most popular dishes in Bengal. It’s very easy to cook and really good to eat. You can prepare this dish with very less amount of oil, a few spices and varieties of seasonal vegetables; which makes this a very healthy dish. Panch-Meshali means combination of five; traditionally, this dish is prepared with five different seasonal vegetables. You can prepare this with whatever you have at hand.

Ingredients:
1.  Vegetables: potato, drum sticks, pumpkin, eggplant, green tomato and yardlong beans
2. One dry red chili
3. One or two green chilies as per your preference
3. Panch-Phoron* (one tea spoon)
4. Salt to taste
5. Turmeric (one tea spoon)
6. Cumin powder (one tea spoon)
7. Bay leaf (One)
8. Ghee (2 teaspoon, optional)
9. Cilantro
8. Mustard oil (Vegetable oil or olive oil will also do)

*Panch-Phoran is an authentic Bengali Spice Mix used in most of the Bengali vegeterian dishes. It includes Cumin seeds, Nigella Seeds, Fenugreek seeds, Fennel Seeds, Mustard seeds. We mix all these together and make panch phoron

Steps:
Heat oil in a pan. Add bay leaf, dry red chili and panch-phoron mix to the hot oil. Wait till the seeds crackle and add all the veggies. Sprinkle a teaspoon of turmeric. Cook this in high flame so that all the veggies cook  properly. Add some salt, cumin powder and give it a mix. Cover it with lid and cook for 3 minutes in low flame.

Remove the lid and add some water. Add the green chilies. Give it a good mix and cover it again for another 5 -7 mints. The dish is ready. At this point of time, you may and little bit of ghee which basically ads to the aroma and taste; but this is totally optional. Sprinkle chopped cilantro on top and you are ready to go.

Serve with steamed rice.

Enjoy.

Mo

Shrimp in mustard and coconut paste

Shorshe-Narkol diye chingri is one of my favorite dishes. It’s quick and easy to cook and good to eat. If you have cleaned shrimp ready, you can cook this up within 20 minutes.

Ingredients:
1. Shrimps of medium size (250g)
2. Coconut Flesh (50g)
3. Yellow mustard seeds (2 teaspoon)
4. Onion (1 big onion chopped)
5. Green chilies (1 whole, 4 slit)
6. Garlic Cloves (5-6 coarsly chopped)
7. Coconut Milk (Optional)
8. Salt to taste
9. Turmeric (2 teaspoon)
10. Cumin powder (1 teaspoon)
11. Mustard oil (2 tablespoon)

Steps:
Marinate the shrimps with a pinch of turmeric and salt for 5 minutes. While the shrimp is getting marinated, prepare the paste for curry. Put yellow mustard seed, 1 green chili and coconut into the grinder and make a coarse paste. If the coconut is very dry, you may add a tablespoon of water to it and grind.

Shallow fry the marinated shrimp in mustard oil very gently for two minutes. Keep the flame low and make sure you don’t break the shrimps in the process.

Heat mustard oil in pan. When the oil is hot, add the chopped garlic and let the oil soak the aroma of garlic for half a minute. Add the chopped onions. Add a teaspoon of salt to this and fry the mix until the onions become translucent. Add the remaining turmeric and cumin powder to the onion and fry for a minute. Add the mustard-coconut paste to this and cook for 5 minutes.

Add the fried shrimps and a bit of coconut milk to this. Add the rest of the slit green chilies. Cover this with lid and cook for 2 more minutes. Shrimp in mustard and coconut paste is ready. Serve this with steamed rice and don’t dare to pair this with Roti!!!

Enjoy.

Mo

Hello World!!!

Hi There!!! Welcome to TheOrangeBowls… you, me and good food.

I have been a foodie all my life, like most of the Bengali’s. I always wanted to share my love for food with everyone, the way I want. Blogging is not new to me, but most of my blogs haven’t moved further from being drafts in my blogging accounts. Some of them were about recipes, others about photography. I like photography as much as I like food; so this time the blog will be about both. I wish to be precise and to the point, no TLDRs.

Wish you all a very happy and prosperous new year!!!

Mo