Pumpkin gives all – leaf, flower, fruit, seed

In some regions of the world, every part of certain animals killed for food is eaten. In parts of rural Eastern Europe, for instance, nothing from a pig is wasted. Apart from the meat, almost all organs are eaten.

Offal is an acquired taste, but how about vegetables that yield every part of them in every stage of their lifecycle? Hats off to them, for they surrender themselves totally to human consumption.

One such example is the humble pumpkin. In Bengal, every part (except the root) of the pumpkin plant and its fruit, including seeds, is eaten. (I learned only recently from a recipe that pumpkin seeds are eaten in America, too). In Bengal, the leaves are eaten as “shak,” which is a generic term for edible leaves cooked simply with few spices.

I have never been a big lover of pumpkin, except as a Halloween symbol. But one part of pumpkin that I really like is the flower. In fact, I like pumpkin flowers more than the fruit. The way Bengalis eat pumpkin flowers is to make fritters of them.

They make a batter of besan, or chickpea flour, seasoned with chilli powder and salt. For texture, a little bit of khaskhas, or poppy seeds, is added. Some cooks add some rice powder for extra crispness, but this is optional.

Here is the recipe:

Ingredients

10 fresh pumpkin flowers (only petals)
2/3 cup besan
½ teaspoon chilli powder (or paprika, if you prefer mild)
⅓ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon poppy seeds (available in Indian grocery stores)
⅓ cup water
Oil for deep-frying

Method

1. Remove the calyx and the centers of flowers, keeping only the petals.
2. Make a batter of all the ingredients, except the flowers.
3. Heat oil.
4. Dip each flower into batter, shaking off excess, and deep-fry in batches.
5. Serve hot, with ketchup or mustard.
   

Serves 2-3

Try this, and let me (and others) know how it turned out. Until then, bon appétit.

From Bengal to Boston and beyond

This post is prompted by a reader comment. The anonymous reader says I seem to lack nationalistic pride in Indian cooking.

This blog is about cooking Bengali food, but it’s also about cooking in general, and, to me, cooking knows no boundaries of country or region. True love of food and cooking embraces many cuisines, for food, as an art, benefits from wide knowledge. A healthy curiosity about global cuisines is a hallmark of a good cook, I think.

Today, so many chefs are experimenting with world cuisine: They borrow techniques or ingredients from other cuisines to come up with their own special creations. See how appetizing exchange of culinary knowledge is?

In a later post, you will see how my long stay in America has helped a frail, 70-year-old Indian woman who has never set foot outside her country learn about American food in her home. Stay tuned.

In search of the classic marinara

In my last post, I mentioned marinara, one of the basic Italian pasta sauces. Spaghetti with marinara is a staple in many American homes.

I wanted to replicate that dining experience recently in my Calcutta home. I bought imported Italian spaghetti and fresh Indian tomatoes – I haven’t so far seen canned Italian tomatoes in Calcutta. And, I made the marinara from a recipe by acclaimed Italian chef Lidia Mattichhio Bastianich, but it wasn’t the same as I had tasted in America several years ago. The marinara ended up too dry and chunky; so much so that it didn’t quite mix with the spaghetti as other sauces do.

Here is my recipe for the classic marinara, as adapted from Chef Bastianich:

Ingredients

3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 cloves garlic, peeled and crushed
1½ pounds fresh ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
Salt, to taste
Crushed red pepper, to taste
5 fresh basil leaves, roughly torn (or ⅓ tsp dried basil)

Method

1. In a medium-size, non-reactive saucepan, heat the olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add the garlic and cook until lightly browned, about 2 minutes.
3. Carefully add the tomatoes and their liquid (Because I didn’t have canned tomatoes, I tried to catch as much of the juice while processing them, using a strainer).
4. Bring to a boil and season lightly with salt and crushed red pepper.
5. Reduce the heat to a simmer, breaking up the tomatoes with a whisk as they cook, until the sauce is chunky and thick, about 20 minutes.
6. Stir in the basil about 5 minutes before the sauce is finished (I cheated here – I used dry basil.)
7. Taste the sauce and adjust the seasoning, if necessary.

After I finished step 7, I had an extremely chunky and dry sauce. It tasted fine. It had the nutty flavor of browned garlic and of the blend of tomato, basil and olive oil. I realize that the sauce is expected to be chunky, but, as I said earlier, my creation was too dry to mix with the pasta well.

What went wrong? Was there something inherently wrong with the recipe? Is 20 minutes too long for the simmer? I do know from Internet research that some chefs use tomato puree instead of, or in addition to, chopped tomatoes. Post your comments.

Winter’s bounty a delight in India

At no other time does God’s hand in what we get to eat seem more apparent in India than in the winter. This is the season of plenty. This is the season when vegetables are freshest and juiciest – and cheapest. When I lived in America, I used to shop for vegetables in supermarkets, also called grocery stores. Every vegetable seemed available all year round.

But, in India, certain vegetables, until a few years ago, appeared only in winter – tomato, cauliflower and green pea, for instance. Now, thanks to hybrid varieties and advanced farming, some of these vegetables are available all year round.

In any case, though, never are they cheaper and prettier than in the winter. I go grocery-shopping in Central Calcutta on Saturday mornings. Although, there are now several supermarket-style grocery stores in Calcutta, they don’t match the freshness of produce found at farmer’s market-style vegetable “stalls,” which are merely heaps on emptied jute bags laid on the ground. The vegetables make the street come alive with bright colors.

I buy from a sabziwala -- or vendor -- I have known for the past several years. He brings his fare from rural Bengal. The eggplants he sells are huge and purple or green with red streaks. Both varieties are wonderful – soft and mildly sweet, never astringent. In the winter, especially, they shine in the morning sun in all their purple or green glory. The cauliflowers are white, firm and hefty. And, the tomatoes blush in their scarlet best. The desi, or indigenous, variety is orange, and has notches running down – they aren’t perfectly round and beautiful, but, as Ashok, my sabziwala tells me, they are juicier. True, they are. Once I tried to make the classic marinara sauce with them. That’s another story; I reserve it for the next post. Until then, dear reader, I have a couple of questions for you. If you live outside South Asia, are certain vegetables seasonal in your country? Do you buy vegetables from supermarkets or farmer’s market-style vendors?

New year resolution

Today is New Year’s Day. Wish you all a happy and appetizing New Year.

New Year is a time for eating, drinking – and resolutions. Last night, as the year drew to a close, I made one: to write and keep this blog updated. As the clock struck midnight and crackers went off in my neighborhood, I had a pen in hand and a notebook under it.

True, I had a drink by my side, but that was merely a glass of white wine, and I was writing, all by myself, because, as family lore has it, you would be doing all year long what you would do on the first day of the year.

I wrote in my journal: “This year, let the beginning be calm and solitary … Let 2007 be one long night of writing …”

So, keep coming back. And, above all, post comments.

A summer hot as hell, but sweet as an apple pie

Dear reader, I owe you an apology. I haven’t been able to update my blog for a long while. I have been busy: office work, house work, and baby care. In addition to that, my Internet connection had been cut off for a while.

But, I haven’t stopped cooking – and writing – though. Even in the heat of the Indian summer, I cooked every weekend. One such session was my first pie-baking experience. I made, with my mother, an apple pie the very first time, although I had lived so many years in America.

That experience is recorded in an article I wrote for InMamasKitchen.com, an Internet site run by a gracious lady called Diana Serbe. Read my article on her site, if you will.

Let me know what you think about the article and about baking an apple pie. Don’t hesitate to give me any tips. BTW, thanks to all those who've posted comments so far.

Until then, au revoir.

Live from New York City

In my mayo-related posts (see "Making Mayonnaise" and "Tuna Sandwich, Transformed in Bengal"), I wrote about the twist I give to the classic tuna salad. The tuna sandwich becomes, in my hands, a bekti sandwich, which tastes as good.

Another classic salad made with mayonnaise is the Waldorf salad, which is a fruity variation of the regular chicken sandwich filling. Waldorf salad originated in New York’s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in the 1890s.

I replicated exactly the classic Waldorf salad recently. This time I hadn’t wanted to give any twist of my own to a classic. I wanted it to be 100 percent authentic: You could have it in the hallowed NY hotel or the tacky duplex I inhabit in a seedy Calcutta neighborhood, and the taste should exactly be the same. This was my goal from the very beginning.

Every ingredient of the salad that I would normally have in my pantry would be the same anyway – except the apple’s variety. All a Waldorf salad would need is cooked chicken (I prefer breast for a mild flavor), mayonnaise, celery, spring onion, walnuts, lemon (or lime) juice, apple and, of course, seasoning.

For the apple, I wanted Granny Smith, no other. Not that apples are in short supply in Calcutta. In crowded Sealdah, the largest market of its kind in Asia, fruit vendors sell several kinds, among them Red Delicious, round the clock. They are red and sweet, the kind most popular in India. They come from Himachal Pradesh and Kashmir, two Himalayan states in the north of the country.

But, I wanted Waldorf-Astoria in my humble home; I wanted Granny Smith, which is crunchy, juicy, and tart. So, off I went to New Market.

And, lo and behold, I found plenty. Green, round, smooth, firm, with a label, “Washington Apples,” in boxes with the lids ripped off. What more could I have asked for? But, the price? Rs. 150 (about $3.5) a kilogram, which is about 2 lbs. That is a prohibitive price in India. But, I wanted authentic; so, I picked a single apple weighing a little less than 200 grams (7 oz) despite the storekeeper’s murmur of discontent.

“We make no money on one,” he said, putting the apple in a thonga, or a newspaper bag, which is a smaller and cheaper version of the staple brown-paper bag at US supermarkets.

I returned home with the booty. I created the Waldorf salad. Just to compare, I prepared a second batch with a red apple. They weren’t the same. The red apple-Waldorf salad was too sweet for my taste despite my effort to balance the flavor with extra lime juice. Sweet is good when used in desserts or eaten plain, but in chicken or something predominantly savory, I prefer tart. That is another debate, another story, another post, though.

What's the Theme Nonight?

Several years ago, when I lived in the United States, trying to finish up my graduate degree and living life to the lees, if you will, I cooked for my roommates and friends. Cooking would be the brightest spot of the day, a grand finale, even though it was routine -- my roommates took turns in cooking.

On my turn, especially when I would have guests, I often declared the theme of the dinner ahead of time. "Tonight's theme is ginger," I would say, for example.

On a night, when my roommates were starving and waiting hungrily for me to finish, one of them might ask, "Angshuman, what's tonight's theme?"

A theme, I thought, made me look fashionable, my cooking sound special. A theme, or a single flavor, meant elegance.

Now, I am happy to say, that concept is more than just fashion or elegance; it's a diet idea!

Earlier this year, David L. Katz, M.D., a top authority on nutrition and weight control (and disease prevention), came out with his Flavor Point Diet. He published a book, based on research at the Yale-Griffin Prevention Research Center, that says if people consume a single flavor in a whole day's meals, they would lose weight without starving!

After I wrote to Dr. Katz, a professor at the Yale med school, complimenting on his research and this happy coincidence (my penchant for "themed" dinners), he responded with equally kind words. How great it feels to hear from such a luminary!

In a later post, I will give you a few recipes based on a dominant flavor. How about ginger?

In the meantime, read more about The Flavor Point Diet on ABC News.

Tuna Sandwich, Transformed in Bengal

True to my promise, this post is a recipe for the fish sandwich I described in my previous post. I use bekti, a fish prized in Bengal for its soft, flaky flesh full of flavor and omega-3 fatty acids, which are so healthful. This sandwich, served with potato chips, could be a simple lunch or even a light dinner.

Bekti sandwich

Serves 4

Ingredients

For the salad:
½ lb (225 gm) cooked bekti, boned and skinned
½ cup of chopped celery or green bell pepper (capsicum)
½ cup of chopped green (or spring) onion
¼ cup of mayonnaise (see recipe in earlier post, “Making mayonnaise”)
2 tbsp of vegetable oil
1 tbsp of lemon (or lime) juice
salt and pepper to taste

For the sandwich:
8 slices of large sandwich bread
lettuce, one head, or four large leaves
2 medium-sized tomatoes, sliced

Method

1. Mix all the ingredients for the bekti salad.
2. Place a lettuce leaf and spoon about 1/4th of the salad on each bread slice.
3. Put tomato slices and press another slice on top. Put extra pepper, if you so desire.
   Cut each sandwich diagonally and serve with potato chips or French fries and ketchup.

Note: To get ½ lb (225 gm) of bekti, boil or steam about 1 lb (450 gm) of fresh fish in salted water. In India, canned bekti is unheard of.

The Story of the Tuna Sandwich Retold

Forgive the delay in this posting. Since my last posting, last year, I have had so many things to do at the same time that I haven't had the time. One reason is my little baby, just a little older than four months. My shoulder smells of her milky spit even as I write this post.

Yet, she is a source of joy, and nothing better could have happened to me last year. My only problem with her is that I can’t indulge in my fondest pleasure as much as I used to.

Yes, that’s cooking. But, I do squeeze out some time from the whirl of office, baby care, and a zillion other things, for there is nothing so energizing, so life-affirming than cooking.

In my next post, I will continue my love affair with mayonnaise (See my previous post). I will show you how I replicate the simple pleasure of the tuna sandwich with Bengal’s very own bekti, a sweet, flaky fish prized for some of the finest delicacies in this fish-loving state.

Making Mayonnaise

I love mayonnaise. I don't care how much bad cholesterol or how many unwanted calories it may add to my body, although, at my age, I should. I find the creamy concoction with that hint of mustard irresistible.

I fell in love with mayo (as it is called in cooking jargon) in America, where I started cooking with real interest and - if I may add - and flair. I first ate it in sandwiches in fast-food restaurants. But, I felt its real charm when I first ate tuna sandwich. This was in Corvallis, Oregon, where I was doing a summer internship. I couldn't believe fish in a sandwich could taste the way it did as I ate the "welcome lunch" for interns at a quaint restaurant I can't place now. The sandwich was magical.

After I returned to India, my home country, I used store-bought mayonnaise for chicken and fish sandwiches. Then, I thought of making mayonnaise myself. I wanted to make Waldorf chicken salad with home-made mayo.

I trawled the World Wide Web for a recipe for the humble mayonnaise. I found several, but, given my phobia of salmonella poisoning, I picked one that involved pasteurizing. I think the site was USDA's - some organization that recommends sterilized mayonnaise.

My attempt turned out to be a disaster. When I warmed the egg yolk in a double boiler with a thermometer dipped into it for precise temperature, it curdled. One egg and some oil wasted from a poor cook's pantry.

The words of a cookbook author, Barbara Beckett, sounded, at that moment, ironical: "It is quite magical to make the first time." (I had read her recipe for mayonnaise in Learn to Cook Poultry, one in the Learn to Cook series of the publisher, Harlaxton.)

Then, I tried a recipe from allrecipes.com. This one was more forgiving - no sterilization required. The lemon juice would be enough to counteract any ill effect of the raw egg. The only variation I did was to use vegetable oil instead of olive oil.

And, lo and behold, my mayonnaise took shape drop by drop. It was, indeed, quite magical to make. Only, it was the second time, not the first.

Since that unnerving first time, my mayo has turned out smooth and nice every time. So, I am no longer a mayo virgin.

Here is my recipe for sure success:

1 egg, yolk separated
1 cup vegetable oil
Juice of 1 lime or lemon
1 tsp of dry mustard paste (with 2 tsp of water)
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Take a bowl - I use a deep glass bowl - and put the yolk in
2. Pour the lime or lemon juice.
3. Whisk with a wire whisk. The mixture should look a pale yellow.
4. Add oil drop by drop, whisking after each addition. If the mixture still looks smooth, you are doing fine. If it looks curdled, you have messed up - start over again.
5. Keep on adding oil, a few drops at a time. As the mayonnaise stabilizes, you can add oil a little faster, but never faster than a thin stream. Keep whisking.
6. Add the mustard and seasoning.

Note: Your kitchen equipment must be spotlessly clean. Store the mayonnaise in a sterilized jar. To sterilize, boil the jar in water for 20 minutes. Screw it tight. The stuff will keep for a maximum of 2 weeks in the refrigerator.

The Joys and Sorrows of Baking Muffins

I remember the first time I ate muffins. I waited tables then at Faculty House, a dining club for University of South Carolina faculty. I was a graduate student at the university trying to keep body and soul together and my grades respectable.

At Faculty House, after the lunch hour, when the guests had left, my colleagues, including Lianji, my Chinese friend, and I sat down to lunch. I ate blackened wahoo or chicken piccata with rice or whatever was on the menu that day - I just happen to remember some dishes. And, always Lianji made sure we got our muffins. He would carefully stash away in the warmer a few before our lunch.

I would slather butter - I remember the pats with parsley sprinkled on them - on the muffins and watch the butter melt slowly down the sides. Oh, how we looked forward to that communal lunch after a hard shift!

Several years later, I baked my first muffins in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where I lived for almost a year. I had bought a non-stick muffin pan. The muffins came out perfectly fine.

I replicated the success a year ago back home in Kolkata, India. My interest had been rekindled by "Muffins," a book by Elizabeth Alston, the food editor at Woman's Day magazine.

But, I recently messed up a batch of muffins. I'd started out to make orange marmalade muffins. I followed the recipe precisely except for the size of the egg - I had a small egg, while the recipe called for a large egg.

When I folded the wet ingredients - egg, yogurt, butter and vanilla - into the dry mixture of flour, sugar, baking powder and salt, I ran out of the wet portion. The flour mixture became dough instead of batter. I ran to my mother with the mixing bowl in hand. I was sweating profusely in the hot Kolkata afternoon. I was baking this for my colleagues for my birthday treat.

My mother suggested adding another egg or a little milk. I chose the extra egg, beating it into the dough-like mixture.

When the muffins came out of the oven, I gingerly broke one to eat. The marmalade looked and tasted fine in the core, but the texture of the muffin seemed tough and chewy, and, worse, it smelled of egg!

I took the muffins to office anyway. My colleagues ate one each. They downplayed the flaw, but one was candid enough to say the muffin smelled of egg.

When I analyzed the flaw, I thought the last-minute addition of the extra egg undid the muffins. Or, else why would they be so tough? True, I hadn't sifted the baking powder with the flour for even distribution, but was that fatal?

I have no idea. It's for you to judge without eating the muffins - I wouldn't even offer them to you. What went wrong?

In her book, Alston talks about the two main kinds of muffins based on the procedure of mixing: stirred and creamed. I have baked cakes and brownies before with great results, and all I can say is I am more at ease with the creamed method, in which the dry ingredients go into the wet and not the other way round.

But, the big question is: Will I continue to bake both kinds of muffins? You bet.

Bengali Food an Emerging Cuisine

Yesterday, I wrote about Bengali cuisine. Actually, if you live overseas, you might not even have heard about this regional cuisine, for Indian food -- if there is a pan-Indian cuisine -- has long been dominated by North Indian, or Tandoori, Mughlai (the food of the former Muslim rulers) and South Indian cuisines.

Tandoori is, indeed, the face of Indian dining abroad. When I lived in the United States, every Indian restaurant I went to had Tandoori delights on the menu. Ask anyone familiar with Indian food and that person will probably say Tandoori chicken before you can say chutney. Even in India, it's these cuisines that stand for Indian food.

However, Bengali food is becoming popular in India. A recent article, "Bengal on the Menu," in The Telegraph (See the Links section on the right) talks about how Bengali cuisine is finding its rightful place on restaurant tables around the country.

Welcome to Cooking in Calcutta

Today is Mahashtami Day, the second day of the annual Durga Puja festival in West Bengal (or, in short, Bengal), a state in India. Let this day bring joy and blessing to you, for Durga is a goddess all of Bengal (and, indeed, almost all of India) worships.

On this day of worship, I launch for you, the reader, Cooking in Calcutta, a log of musings on food and cooking -- Calcutta (rechristened "Kolkata") is the capital of Bengal. Cooking in Calcutta is an offering from a devotee who worships food and cooking. As drumbeats fill my neighborhood, I dedicate this blog to you.

I have been thinking of starting this blog (short for Weblog, as you probably know) for a while. After reading about food blogs and just a few entries of those blogs, I realize how similar food bloggers are even though they live in different continents.

I live in Kolkata, a state in the east of India (more about the history and culture of Bengal in later, I promise); yet, I discovered a moment ago, I am so similar to a popular food blogger, Clotilde Dusoulier, of Chocolate & Zucchini (See the Links section on the right).

Clotilde lives in Paris, I live in Calcutta. But, like Clotilde, I am a food fanatic who loves to cook. But, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Like Clotilde, I
-- work in a software company
-- want to be a full-time food writer
-- want to open a restaurant someday
-- spent several years in America before returning to my home country

Isn’t this amazing? Food and cooking geeks have one giant common thread running through them.

Yet, each blog should be individual, quirky, for these are the adjectives that describe blogs best. Cooking in Calcutta is about cooking in, well, Calcutta. But, what does that really mean?

It means this blog is about something specific to Kolkata (and Bengal) and to the writer. Bengal as a region -- as I said earlier -- has its own distinctive history and culture, and that binds two Bengals, East (now called Bangladesh, a separate country) and West (West Bengal, the Indian state).

And, Bengal is about fish, mustard and rice. From the turbid waters of the Ganga come silvery fish, and on the fertile delta of the river grow yellow mustard and verdant paddy.

So, Cooking in Calcutta is about cooking with these things, but it’s also about international (or "ethnic") cuisines and drinks, for, like the bloggers, food today is truly global, and so should the coverage of food be.

So, all ye readers, from Paris to Patna, from Tampa to Timbuktu, jump onboard. Browse the words on the platter I offer you, and rant or rave. I will take all.