Try TANGRA this week end !!

• Tangra Fish : marinated with salt, turmeric powder and a pinch of red chilly powder.
  
• A fine paste made from black mustard and a few dry red chillies.
• Mustard oil.
• Panch forone.
• Finely chopped corriander leaves.
• Finely chopped tomatoes.
• Green chillies.
• Green peas
  

• Heat mustard oil and fry the Tangra fish till golden brown. Close the lid while frying. Keep aside.
  
• In the remaining oil add panch forone to splatter.
• Then add the tomatoes,green chillies and green peas.
• Add the mustard paste and saute for 2 minutes.
• Add a little water and then add the fried fish.
• Close the lid and bring it to boil on a slow flame to ensure complete cooking.
• Add 2tbsp Mustard oil and chopped corriander leaves on top.
• Serve with hot rice.
  

Prawn Malai Curry

• 
• Prawn: shelled, deveined and cleaned thoroughly
• Coconut: grated and ground in a mixie along with green chillies, nutmeg and javitri.
• Ghee and Mustard oil
• Ginger paste
• Onion paste
• Garlic paste
• Garam Masala: Coarsely ground
• Green Chillies
• Kismis and Bay leaf
• Salt, Sugar and Turmeric powder

Heat oil in a pan. Fry the onoin paste till golden brown. Add garlic and ginger paste, bayleaf, and a hand full of kismis (rasins). Saute for a few minutes. Then add the coconut paste along with salt and sugar as per choice. Sprinkle turmeric powder into the mixture. Then add the Prawns. Fry them in the thick gravy for five minutes. Add a little water and bring it to boil. Add ghee on top along with Garam Masala. Garnish with green chillies.

Serve hot with rice/chapati/fried rice.

Refresh your mind with this week-end BRUNCH at the end of Festivals!!-

• COLD COFFEE MOCHA with a hint of fresh HONEY...in vanila icecream with sprinkled chocolate chips on top,served with waffers.
• CHEESE BURGER ...made with cheesy-veggiies tossed in a white sauce made from butter,black peeper, milk and a little Mayonise.
• PAPAD WRAP..made from roasted Papad with a grated cocoanut, finely chopped fresh corriander leaves...served with black Tamarind Chutney.

Malpoa

Malpoa is a delicious sweet dish generally prepared on the occassion of Janmastami or any other Vaishnava festival, after all Lord K came from a family of milkmen and so milk based sweets must be big favourite for him !

But for us, any festival -- Durga Puja or Kali Puja -- is good enough. During the festive season my refrigerator is packed wth sweets of various kind. Relatives or friends whoever comes to visit brings lots of sweets. Ultimately all these sweets end up with unfinished packets of old pera or an odd number of sandesh pieces etc etc which no one wants to touch anymore. Finally the homemaker who is in charge of the kitchen has to do something with these residual sweets -- something other than throwing it away ! ... This is where the malpoa step in ... to rescue the left over sweets and turn them into something useful.

This malpoa recipe, that I have inherited from my mother is a true saviour for all the left over sweets in your fridge. You can use them for by mashing them all together and mixing with milk. But if you do not have these left over sweets then you can use the khoya and the cottage cheese of course.


Milk : 1/2 litre
Khoya : 50 gms
Cottage cheese : 25gms.
Sugar : 250gms.
Ghee : 3 tbsp.
Refined oil for frying
Semolina (suji) : 4tsp
Flour (maida) : 4tsp
Black Cardamom :(crushed)
Saunf (mouri) : 1tsp
Water for making sugar syrup (Chasni)




Boil milk to reduce to half its original volume. Add khoya, cottage cheese, flour, semolina, 1tbsp ghee and 1tsp sugar into the milk and mix thoroughly to make a consistent and smooth mixture. Sprinkle black cardamom powder and saunf into it. This is the malpoa mix.

Now heat refined oil and 1tbsp ghee in a nonstick pan and pour 1tbsp malpoa mix on it. Spread it around to form small, circular pancakes and fry then one or two at a time till the malpoa becomes golden brown and crispy.

Meanwhile make the sugar syrup by boiling 1 cup of water and dissolving 250 gms sugar in it. Add 1tbsp ghee in the sugar syrup. Keep aside.

Soak the fried malpoa in the thick sugar syrup, turn it upside down and arrange them in a platter.

Egg-Devil

Boiled egg (cut lengthwise in 4 pieces)
Boiled potato (mashed)
Salt, Black pepper powder, Red Chilly powder
Lemon juice.
Ginger (grated), Garlic (finely chopped) and Green chillies (finely chopped)
Bread crumb.
One egg (well beaten ) and mixed with corn flour.
Refined oil ( for frying )


Mix mashed potato along with salt, black pepper powder, red chilli powder, ginger, garlic, green chillies and lemon juice. Make small balls. Wrap each egg piece with the flattened potato balls, coat it with beaten egg-cornflour mixture, and then with bread-crumb smoothly. Deep fry in refined oil till golden brown.
Serve as a evening snacks with tomato ketchup/salad/mustard.

Special Egg-Curry

Duck Eggs : 4 (boiled)
Onion : 1 large (grated)
Ginger-Green Chilly paste (2tsp)
A thick paste: made from 4tsp kuskus (posto), 8 Cashewnuts
Curd :2tsp.
Green Cardamom : 3-4
Refined oil
Green Chillies (for garnishing)
Salt to taste
Sugar : 2tsp


Heat oil and fry the boiled eggs for 2 minutes. Add green cardamom and the grated onion and fry till brown. Add salt, sugar, ginger-chilly paste and the curd. Saute for 3-4 minutes. Add the kuskus-cashewnut paste and a little water. Bring to boil. Then add the fried eggs.
Sprinkle green chillies.
Serve with roti or rice.

Topse-Fry (FRIED MANGO FISH)

" TOPSE "( aka MANGO fish) in Bengal is a delicious sweet water fish. It is abunduntly available in summer time when the mango is also available. The word TOPSE came from the Bengali word TAPAS which means SAGE. The fish is saffron in colour with lots of tentacles. In this way it resembles a sage. So it is called TOPSE.
TOPSE FRY is one of the exotic dish, specially served during the BENGALI NEW YEAR celebrations. It is pretty expensive.

Ingredients:
Topse mach ( MANGO FISH) : de-scaled and cleaned thoroughly, marinated with salt and a pinch of turmeric powder and lemon juice.
Green chillies, garlic and ginger (ground together into a coarse paste) required to marinate the fish.
For 4 pieces of fish 4tsp paste is required to marinate .
Gram flour (Besan) : well beaten in a pan with cold water to mke a thin paste adding salt, red chilly powder, turmeric powder, kalojeera and 1tsp kusksus (posto or poppy seeds).
Mustard oil for frying.

The fish is marinated with the chilly-garlic-ginger paste for at least 1 hour.
Heat oil in a pan and coat each fish in the batter (previously made from besan) and deep fry till golden brown.
Serve hot with mustard sauce as a snacks.