Post-Work Dinner

হালকা সাগ ভাজি
Shallow-Fried Spinach

The chilli isn't just to make the dish look pretty

I've written about this before, but growing up I hated most vegetables, especially if they were cooked the Bangladeshi way. I was partial to a few veggie bhortas, sheem (broad beans) and notably, spinach. When I say spinach I don't just mean the (single?) variety one can buy in UK supermarkets, but an entire range of leafy vegetables eaten in Bangladesh: red amaranth, Malabar spinach and even potato leaves. We have a collective word for these leafy vegetables in Bengali, shaag, and our family has always used spinach as the rough English equivalent.

There is good reason for the proliferation of these dishes in Bangladeshi cuisine. The plants in question are widely available, often growing wild, and can be foraged for free if you're eating the more esoteric varieties. This is important to many Bangladeshis who have to manage their diet while exercising limited spending power. Back home, leaves are often fried quite extensively, especially as people tend to use the older, tougher parts of the foliage and stem so as to not waste any part of the plant. The recipe I'm sharing below has a lighter touch. It's also mostly devoid of spices - something I know is often added as part of the typical Bangladeshi preparation - but I grew up without. An easy 15 minute dish that's great if you're running short on time on a weekday evening, although most typically shaag is eaten as a side as part of the bigger meal.

Lost in Translation

পেয়াজ পাতা দিয়ে গরুর মাংশ 

Beef With Leeks

Completely unrelated to the post - I need a new wok

Procuring and perfecting this recipe has caused unnecessary anguish in my life - driven primarily by Bengali-English translation issues between my mom and me. I grew up knowing that this dish was beef cooked with "piyaz pata", or translating literally, onion leaves. I'd always assumed that onion leaves referred to spring onions, but no matter how much of it I used, I never managed to recreate the flavours I remembered from my childhood. It was only by chance that my mom offered to teach me how to cook this a couple of years back for the blog, and in the process I realised the onions leaves in question were actually leeks! Queue a fond reunion with a long lost food memory, and a slight improvement to my atrocious Bengali vocabulary. 

This dish is a stir-fry that back home would be categorised as Bangla-Chinese - a type of cuisine reliant on "Chinese" ingredients and cooking techniques - but manipulated extensively for the local palate. Bangla-Chinese has quite a history in Bangladesh, stemming from the old trendy "Chinese" restaurants that sprang up around the city mid 80s and onwards. Even my mom's wedding meal was held in one of them. These restaurants have taken a bit of hit now that a greater variety of venues have set up shop in town, but the food remains popular in Bangladesh. Just Google a recipe for "Chinese vegetables Bangladeshi style" and it'll quickly  become obvious how widespread a phenomenon this is.