Review: Dhaka Biriyani

The Best Biriyani in East London

Dhaka Biryani on Mile End Road
(Yes, it seems we disagree over the
spelling of biriyani)

Dhaka Biryani is right on Mile End road, and the name makes it hard to miss if you're Bangladeshi. I've walked past several times while promising myself that I'll visit, and spending the day with friends in East London last weekend provided the perfect excuse. This review will be short and sweet, much like the others that I've done for Bangladeshi eateries in London. And just like these other places, Dhaka Biryani is a casual venue, serving up food from a counter with some basic chairs and tables laid out over a small space. In fact, despite the smart facade Dhaka Biryani is probably the most basic of the Bangladeshi places I've been to, including the shop-cum-eatery Amar Gaon. But like Amar Gaon, I'd encourage you not be deceived by looks, as the food here is excellent.

Review: Town Mill Bakery

The Virtues of Fresh Ingredients

On top: an egg and bacon sandwich, served with ketchup
Below: my egg-in-a-basket served with roast tomato and onion relish

I expected seafood to be the culinary highlight of my time in Dorset, but here I am writing about a bakery. The food here was so good that we came back for breakfast twice while in Lyme Regis, and my partner bought a loaf of bread to take home as well. That's definitely unusual, especially for me, as I'm always gunning to try new places no matter how much I may have enjoyed a meal somewhere. 

Another Weekday Dinner

শাক দিয়ে চিংড়ি
Spinach with Prawns

Spinach with prawns, served on a bed of boiled rice

It takes 10 minutes for rice to cook in the microwave, and another 2 minutes for it to cool down. That gives me 12 minutes to whip up a main dish - not quite enough time for anything traditionally Bangladeshi. But if you’re happy to spend just a little bit longer in the kitchen, this spinach and prawn combo will be done in around half an hour. Think 5 minutes of ingredient prep, 10 minutes to temper spices, and another 15 minutes to finish off the cooking process. The amounts below make a generous portion for one, or a side dish for two. It's an easy weeknight venture, making some allowances for the ingredients of course. I'm assuming a kitchen stocked with readymade garlic and ginger pastes, and prawns bought peeled and cleaned from a supermarket. 

It’s very common in Bangladesh for leaves to be cooked with freshwater prawns or the discarded bony parts of fish. The prawns or fish are meant to liven up a purely vegetarian dish, but traditionally they were never the main attraction. As people’s purchasing power has increased, this has changed, and growing up I looked forward to these more as seafood dishes. Across the extended family our parents upped the prawn content considerably, all to get the kids to eat their greens. The spices add a bit of heat to the dish, and the cooking time does mean that both the prawns and spinach are on the stove longer than is strictly necessary. But that’s the idea of the dish - mushy, soupy leaves studded with spiced prawns for a bit of bite. 

Ingredients:

• 1.00 medium onion
• 0.75 teaspoons of garlic paste
• 0.75 teaspoons of ginger paste
• 0.75 teaspoons of powdered turmeric
• 150.00 g of fresh prawns, cooked or uncooked, peeled and cleaned
• 200.00 g of spinach
• Salt, to taste (if using)

Method:

• Put a large frying pan on the stove. Add a tablespoon of oil, and leave to heat
• Finely chop the onion, and add to the pan
• Fry the onions until they go soft, translucent and start to brown at the edges
• While the onions are frying, boil 1.50 cups of water in the kettle
• Once the onions are slightly browned, add the garlic and ginger pastes to the pan. Add a splash of boiled water, and stir everything together
• Add the powdered turmeric, mix in and cook for 10 minutes. If the water starts to dry up add some more, making sure that the onions stay wet enough to form a sauce

The cooked prawns just after they
went into the pan with the onions.
Try and maintain this level of liquid
throughout the cooking process by adding hot
or boiling water as necessary

• Add the prawns - cooked or uncooked will make no difference since raw prawns will cook quickly
• Mix the prawns into the onion based sauce and leave to cook for 10 minutes, again adding water as needed if the dish dries up too much
• Add salt to taste - bearing in mind cooked prawns are already salted and shouldn't need any extra
• Add the spinach, mixing it in as it wilts and reduces

The frying pan just before the cover went on

• Cover the pan and leave to cook for a final 10 to 15 minutes - the spinach should go dark green and mushy, as opposed to bright green and crunchy
• Serve hot with plain boiled rice

Additional Info:

I leave out chillies from this recipe because I enjoy the natural sweetness of the prawns. However, feel free to add either powdered chilli with your turmeric, or some dried whole chillies just before adding the prawns. You can skip the prawns entirely to make this a vegetarian dish, but I'd recommend adding 0.25 teaspoons of garlic on top for a little more flavour. This dish would normally be served as the fish and/or vegetable component of a mutli-dish meal - combine this with recipes for chicken, other meats and carbs for a dinner party. For a purely vegetarian spinach recipe, see here, and for just prawns see here. 

Dhaka-Style Biriyani

মাটোন বিরিয়ানি 

Mutton Biriyani

Biriyani served normally, i.e. not in a flour casing,
because my house isn't try-hard Indian restaurant

This is going to be one of those epic recipe posts. Not so much because I'm going to waffle, but rather because the recipe itself is so long it may as well be a novel. Biriyani I believe needs little introduction: a dish that mixes meat and rice, possibly of Persian origins, it has travelled throughout South and Southeast Asia, and most regions nowadays produce their own varieties. The recipe below is what my mom cooks at home, and is close to what I could call Dhaka-style biriyani - though it is not identical to what you'd get from traditional roadside eateries. I've been building up to this post for a while, watching people cook biriyani and even cooking it with more experienced friends whenever possible. I wanted to wait till I was a reasonably competent cook before I had a go at this myself, so that I wouldn't mess it up and could post an actually workable recipe. 

As luck would have it my mom visited me earlier this year, so the photos you see are of what we cooked together and the recipe below has been signed off by her. A few words of advice though - I used 1.50 kg of meat for 1.00 kg of rice - but be as generous (or stingy!) as you want with the meat to rice ratio. My mom wanted to go for 2.00 kg of meat to 1.00 kg of rice, but I convinced her we shouldn't be eating quite so much red meat. The liver I used is definitely optional - the only way liver ends up in Dhaka biriyani is if there isn't enough of it to make a standalone curry. But liver in biriyani is a weakness of mine, and therefore a quirk in our household. Biriyani houses in Dhaka serve each portion of the dish with potatoes, a boiled egg and a side salad - but I don't mention the egg anywhere below because I don't like eggs have a complicated relationship with eggs.

Finally, I know restaurants around the world serve various types of biriyanis with chicken, fish, vegetables etc., but those didn't really exist back home until recently. Chicken biriyani isn't a thing for example - instead we have a lighter chicken and rice combo sold by biriyani houses called morog-polao (morog meaning chicken). Similarly, we have a fish-based ilish-polao, though this is mostly cooked at home. The spice combinations for these two dishes are different from traditional Dhaka biriyani, and I'm not sure how I would go about cooking them. If you're feeling adventurous, perhaps try cooking a more heavily spiced version of my classic chicken curry into your polao - but you're on your own with that kind of experimentation (though do let me know the results!). 

Review: Kalm Kitchen Café

The Café That Does Everything

Waffles with fresh fruit, berry coulis, maple syrup and sour cream

Kalm Kitchen is the café that does everything I need a café to do. The coffee is good, the selection of teas acceptable, and cold teas are stocked throughout the year. They do breakfast, lunch and Sunday brunch, and maintain a well-stocked counter of muffins, brownies and other tray bakes for the times in-between. Most items are reasonably priced (you can have a decent lunch here for £6) and the staff are always friendly and helpful (except the boss, who is friendly and helpful and scary). The place started life as Glutton and Glee, before changing ownership and rebranding to Kalm Kitchen. A brief dark period followed – the cakes on the counter disappeared and extras on sandwiches became miserly – but that period has passed now. I don’t know the story behind the takeover, but I have come to like the changes. The new owners added some counter style seats, which may not be all that comfy but it means the café (which is tiny!) can now serve more people. The elaborate cream cakes are no longer regular fixtures, but tray bakes, cupcakes and brownies have taken their place. Early on during the switch these would run out too quickly, but nowadays they seem to stock enough to keep them going till closing time. My favourites are the richer options (of course), such as the peanut butter brownie or orange cannoli. 

Review: Gram Bangla

More Bengali Food in Brick Lane

Left to right: biriyani, chicken curry, daal, tomato "tok",
lotar shutki and piazu

Forays into East London are rare for me, given my southeast England base is in Surrey. But I escape when I can, and last weekend I used my freedom to try out another Bangladeshi joint. Gram Bangla in Brick Lane follows a well-known recipe: a basic restaurant space, a little traditional decor, and the day's menu served canteen-style from a counter. The food is the main reason anyone would come here, and so that's what I'll focus on right away. Find yourself a table, drop off your bags and coats, then walk up to the counter to find out what's on offer. There is no written menu to be had, so ask the staff for descriptions of anything you don't recognise. The selection isn't vast (the whole place is half the size of Amar Gaon, my favourite in Brick Lane), but adequate. Between two, we asked for servings of chicken curry, lotar shutki, lamb biriyani, daal and plain rice, while our server also upsold us a plate of piazu.

The food counter (or about two-thirds of it)

We sat back down at our table, grabbing drinks from a fridge on the way. Our food arrived in batches, in a mostly sensible order. The piazu was served with onions and chilli, which I thought was a nice touch, and I've filed the idea away for future salads. It was well spiced, had a hard crunch, and would have been excellent when fresh - a limitation of the canteen format. The biriyani was a similar story - all the right flavours but obviously made a while ago. A better recipe than what I've had in say, Kolapata, but less fresh. It was also very generously meaty - uncommon in any Bangladeshi restaurant that I've visited so far. It was vastly improved by the daal, a mixed grain affair with a lovely cumin-onion shombar. The basic chicken curry was also good - but it was hard to get excited by something I can do better at home. The shutkir lotha was a bit disappointing - quite tasteless despite the generous amounts of prawns and shutki cooked into it. I would guess this is because the actual vegetable is not grown locally, and loses it's potency during import.

The interior

Our meal was satisfying, but I can't get recommend Gram Bangla as a "find" for great, authentic Bangladeshi food as I did for Amar Gaon a few months ago. The food cost £21 with two cans of coke though, so Gram Bangla is definitely the cheaper option if you want a Bangladeshi meal in London. Service wasn't particularly great - I feel like we only got words out of the man at the counter because we spoke Bengali and Sylheti, and even then he wasn't all that interested. It was empty on the Saturday night we visited - this place doesn't serve alcohol and doesn't aim for the weekend party crowd. This is something of a mixed blessing, as you'll definitely get a table, but they won't have bothered to keep the food fresh. I imagine the quality improves during the week, when the target market of local workers and families are more likely to visit. The verdict: consider this a cheap and cheerful lunch spot more than anything else - but be prepared to provide the cheer yourself. 

Food: 6.5/10

Service: 6.5/10

Atmosphere: 6.5/10

Value: 8/10

Final Score: 6.5/10

Contact Information

A: 68 Brick Lane, Shoreditch, London E1 6RL United Kingdom
T: +44 (0)20 7377 6116
W: www.facebook.com/Gram-Bangla

NB. The final score, while influenced by the sub-scores, is a qualitative reflection of my overall impression of the establishment.

Completing the Classic Sweetmeat Trio

গোলাপ জাম 

Golap Jaam

Golap jaam in rose and cardamom syrup,
served with crushed pistachio

This post about golap jaam (and by extension kalo jaam) feels like a big milestone. Being able to cook these sweets, along with roshogolla, completes an important trio of Bengali sweetmeats that I grew up with. Roshogolla, golap jaam and kalo jaam were the safe, go-to desserts in our family, bought en masse for special occasions, celebrations and the traditionally Asian practice of delivering sweets with good news. They are rarely cooked at home in Bangladesh. All three are milk-based, but while roshogolla is traditionally made from boiled cheese curd, golap and kalo jaam are made from deep-fried milk solids. The difference between golap and kalo jaam is the sugar added to kalo jaam, which creates a dark, caramelised outer layer during the frying process. Some sweet shops even add purple food colouring to their kalo jaam, making it look more like the fruit it is named after. This recipe is obviously not all that traditional, constrained by ingredient availability and practicality outside Bangladesh. It grew from a mishmash of recipes collected by word of mouth, with ingredient amounts cross-referenced from various sources online. As such, I don’t really want to claim it as mine. I do, however, want to highlight a few things I learned from cooking these sweets multiple times. First, to address the various horror stories of disintegrated dumplings or sweets with uncooked centres: I think these are more the result of our habits – not writing down recipes and estimating ingredients! If you’re a beginner, then yes, these sweets will be a challenge. But if you’re a fairly regular cook, used to forming dough and deep frying, there’s not much to worry about here. The “dough” from the recipe below doesn’t disintegrate easily, even with slight cracks, as long as you add enough milk to hold it together. 

Kalo jaam in syrup
Some of these were overcooked, some were burnt
Hard to tell them apart in my opinion

Also, make sure you have enough oil for the dough balls to properly float in; otherwise they will burn at the bottom where they touch your pan. While making golap jaam, you can quite comfortably cook the sweets on medium-low heat for some time without any burning. And if do you start to burn them, it’ll be obvious from the blackening on the dough – immediately take the pan off the heat and scoop out the sweets.  And if you undercook them, leaving a hard, uncooked lump in the middle, boiling and soaking the sweets in syrup will usually soften your centre. It only gets difficult, in my opinion, with the kalo jaam: it’s hard to tell while frying whether the dark (almost black) sweets are the result of sugar caramelising or actual burning. I’ve found no way around this, apart from making sure I have plenty of light directed towards my stovetop! My second note is on ingredients (the below amounts make approximately 20 sweets). I haven’t specified the fat content of the milk in the recipe, largely because I have obtained similar results whether I opted for whole or semi-skimmed. I like to think this is because the fat content is mostly provided by the double cream. Despite the very non-traditional approach here, the end result feels surprisingly authentic (a dangerous word!). Of course, the sweets will be lacking the earthy flavours of ghee made on a kindling stove, and the rich flavours of raw, unrefined sugar – fortunately the rose and cardamom will go a long way in masking those “deficiencies”. And with that, I feel like my Bangladeshi dessert repertoire has grown a strong backbone. Time to move onto shandesh! 

Review: Sushiya

Wrapping Up Edinburgh Fringe

Tokyo roll: deep-fried breaded chicken fillet
and avocado

Our annual trip to Edinburgh for Fringe was slightly chaotic this year. On the Thursday night, we were still looking for a place to book for dinner on Saturday. We thought everything would be packed, but by some stroke of luck Sushiya were able to give us a table for 5 at 8pm. The place had come highly recommended by word of mouth, and it was just 5 minutes from Haymarket Station, letting us catch the last train home after stuffing our faces. I had been told it was small and casual, and I knew nothing beyond that as I refrained from Googling (I've decided to make this rule for places that people IRL recommend!). At worse, I thought, we'd have some reasonably priced sushi. However, we actually had great sushi, and I came away wishing that my local was as good (sorry Yorokobi!).

 On the left: 20 pieces of beef tataki

On the right: BBQ eel nigiri

We were, I suppose, the perfect group for a sharing menu: at least three of us were sushi-obsessed, accompanied by two other easygoing diners. At the very start of the meal, we rattled off a long list of "wants" to our waitress, and bolstered this with two or three additional dishes during our meal. I will let the (phone) photography do most of the talking but I'd like to say that my favourite dish of the night was BBQ eel nigiri - sweet, oily and luscious. The Tokyo roll deserves an honourable mention - I have a particular weakness for the nori, breaded chicken and mayo combo. The beef tataki was very fresh, and I almost felt like I didn't need the sauce to swallow down the slivers of meat. I was also impressed by the soft shell crab roll, which isn't one of my usual preferences. 

 On the left: chicken and egg donburi 

On the right: grilled miso aubergine

Most of the prices were very reasonable: 5 pieces of sashimi cost £5 and upwards, most sushi costs £4.50 and upwards, rolls start at around £8. The rice and noodle dishes hover around the £10 mark, apart from the fancier beef sirloin and mixed seafood dishes. The only surprise is the tempura, which starts at £8 for a rather small portion. Dessert is limited to sesame or matcha ice cream, and will perhaps feel an unnecessary expense for £4 a scoop, but it is good quality. In fact none of the ingredients - raw ingredients included - made me feel like the restaurant was skimping on quality. We paid £30 per head for food and alcoholic drinks, and I wouldn't claim this is a cheap meal, but it is good value for money considering what you get. 

Dragon roll: avocado, cucumber, king prawn tempura

My only advice would be to skip the noodle and rice dishes unless you need something big to fill you up. The oyakodon (or chicken and egg donburi) we sampled was good, but not great. Similar, or even better versions of those dishes can be had elsewhere, albeit probably for a bit more money. Visiting in a group of three or four is also a good idea - this gives you a group small enough to fit the space there but lets you try a large cross section of the menu. Service is quick and friendly, but at no point did we feel like we were being pushed out,, even on a crowded Saturday night. Beware that the seating isn't the most comfortable: high stools and tables abound, simulating counter-top eating everywhere. Indeed, the restaurant does feel like a bit of a takeaway, though it probably seats almost 30. Given the size, I would definitely recommend booking before you go. And if you're in Edinburgh and like sushi, you should definitely go.

Food: 7.5/10

Service: 7/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Value: 7/10

Final Score: 7.5/10

Contact Information

A: 19 Dalry Road, Edinburgh, EH11 2BQ

T: +44 (0)131 313 3222

W: www.sushiya.co.uk

NB. The final score, while influenced by the sub-scores, is a qualitative reflection of my overall impression of the establishment.

Review: Romulo Cafe London

A Holiday Substitute

Suman latik: fried rice cake with coconut cream,
dark coconut sauce and coconut ice cream

I've wanted to make my way back to southeast Asia over the last few years, but work-life commitments keep getting in the way. So I’ve turned to another solution: finding solace in food from the region. Queue a visit to Romulo Café, a newish Filipino restaurant on Kensington High Street. A smart, medium sized restaurant, the venue is divided into themed rooms like the Library and the Diplomat’s Dining Room, each with their unique touches of funky decor. We visited for lunch on a Sunday, and the fragrance of Filipino food wafted through the air as we sat down to our table.   

Patotim: slow-cooked duck in a steamed bun

On the left, tuna kilawin. A tune ceviche marinated in cane vinegar,

with red onion, cucumber and red pepper.

On the right, pork belly with a fried egg, pickled apples and 

caramelised shallots. 

The menu at Romulo is designed to be shared, and at the recommendation of our hostess, we ordered three starters and three mains between 4. Service was slow, in the sense that both our starters and then our mains took quite a while to arrive. However, we were brought a little something during these lulls – first bread and butter, and later pork scratchings – to pass the time. And the food that did arrive was excellent. Amongst the starters, the winner for me was the patotim: a steamed bun filled with sweet and sticky slow-cooked duck. My friends were full of praise for the pork sisig, while the tuna kilawin - imagine a spicy tuna ceviche - divided opinion at the table between those who liked raw fish and those who didn't. I loved it though, especially for the spicy-onion flavours that reminded me of salads from Bangladesh. 

Lamb kaldereta: stewed lamb with peppers, potatoes, garden peas,
slow cooked in tomato sauce and topped with parmesan

On the left, chicken relleno: roast chicken with pork stuffing

On the right, flying dish: deep-fried tilapia with dips. I ate the eye.

Our mains, while still good, had a little less star power. The deep-fried tilapia kept things simple and classic, arriving at the table butterflied and accompanied by well-chosen sauces. The chicken relleno, a dish of roast chicken with pork stuffing, was fought over by my friends. The lamb kaldereta was the last dish: a meat stew with peppers, potatoes and peas cooked in tomato sauce. It reminded me of my mom's own tomato sauce based dishes, but it wasn’t particularly popular with the rest of the table. We had two sides of garlic rice to round off our meal,  and washed everything down with nostalgia-inducing calamansi cooler. However, we didn't feel done by the end of it. Some portions, like the lamb kaldereta and garlic rice, were small, and in the future I’d much order one main per person.  

Sans rival, served with ice cream

Still hungry, we ordered desserts. My friends had the sans rival, which was nice, albeit a bit tougher than it should be. Unfortunately a number of items on the menu were unavailable, and my dreams of having halo halo were crushed. That may have been for the best, as the suman latik I ordered instead was perhaps the best part of my meal. A fried rice cake with coconut cream, dark coconut sauce and coconut ice cream, it was a delicious, moreish dessert. I am generally a fan of coconut, and I also loved the contrast between the crunchy, warm cake versus the soft, cold ice cream. 

Finally satisfied, we asked for the bill. At £101 for 4 people, this seemed like very good value for money, until we remembered we’d under-eaten. Starters at Romulo are priced £7 onward, and mains £13 onward. Add the cost of rice and drinks and you’ll easily spend £30 per head here, which is unsurprising given the Kensington location. And judging by how busy it got, this a venue for planned, perhaps special meals rather than pit stops. Staff were very friendly and enthusiastic throughout, and always on hand to refill our water or drinks. I hope that as the restaurant finds its feet, the speed of the service and the availability of menu items will get better. There’s a lot of potential here, and I would definitely like to return to see how things have evolved. 

Food: 7/10

Service: 8/10

Atmosphere: 7/10

Value: 6/10

Final Score: 7/10

Contact Information

A: 343 Kensington High Street, London W8 6NW, United Kingdom
T: +44 (0)20 3141 6390
W: www.romulocafe.co.uk

NB. The final score, while influenced by the sub-scores, is a qualitative reflection of my overall impression of the establishment.

Job Changes

Sticky Toffee Pudding

Sticky toffee pudding, served with clotted cream ice cream.
Would have drenched it in custard too,
but I was too lazy to make/buy any. 

An odd post for a so-called Bangladeshi blog, I know. But I've developed a strong affection for sticky toffee pudding over the last year, at a work canteen no less. Served as part of Sunday lunch, I looked forward to it every week. In theory, I would have eschewed overeating in the previous six days to reward myself on the Sunday, but reality was a little different. Although I did reward myself with the sticky toffee pudding anyway. Unfortunately, I am in the process of changing jobs, and will no longer have access to this particular canteen soon. But I can't imagine a life without sticky toffee pudding anymore, so I've decided I need learn how to make this particular dessert. 

The results are what you see in the recipe below. It's based on a Guardian Word of Mouth post, which in itself is a discussion of various recipes. I've both drawn from and altered them to make something similar to what was served to us at work. The ginger and spicing is as faithful a reproduction as I could manage, whereas the doubled toffee sauce (it'll become obvious from the recipe!) is a luxury we obviously didn't have at the canteen. Beware of this stick toffee pudding's rich and heavy sweetness. I know it's traditionally served warm with custard or ice cream, but why go for half measures - in my opinion it works best when served with both.

Ingredients (for the toffee sauce):

• 100.00 g unsalted butter
• 50.00 g muscovado sugar
• 70.00 g golden caster sugar
• 150.00 ml double cream
• Pinch of salt

Ingredients (for the pudding): 

• 175.00 g medjool dates
• 1.00 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
• 1.00 teaspoon of shredded ginger 
• 300.00 ml boiling water
• 50.00 g unsalted butter, softened
• 70.00 g golden caster sugar
• 90.00 g dark muscovado sugar
• 2.00 eggs
• 170.00 g flour
• 1.00 tsp baking powder
• Pinch of ground cloves
• Pinch of ground cinnamon 

Method (for the toffee sauce)

• Combine the ingredients for the sauce in a milk pan, and place on a low heat
• Allow the ingredients to melt, stirring to ensure they do so evenly
• Once the ingredients are melted and mixed, turn the heat up to medium
• Bring to a boil, and thicken the sauce for 3 or 4 minutes, or to the consistency desired
• Butter a deep, square baking dish and pour in half the sauce. Place the dish in a freezer while preparing the pudding
• Retain the remaining sauce to pour over the pudding

Method (for the pudding):

• Preheat the oven to 180C
• Stone the dates and chop into small pieces
• Add to the boiling water, along with the bicarbonate of soda and shredded ginger
• Leave to soak while preparing the pudding
• Chop the butter into small pieces and place in a large mixing bowl
• Add the sugar, and cream the ingredients together. It may help to add the sugar a little at a time, and bear in mind that the end mixture will be grainy
• Beat the eggs gently, and mix them into the butter and sugar mixture a little at a time 
• Follow up by adding the spices and baking powder into the mixture, and fold in the flour in two batches
• Return to the soaking dates. Mash up their flesh slightly if the pieces of fruit seem overly large after soaking
• Pour the dates and ginger, along with their soaking water, into the batter 

The finished batter

• Pour the finished batter into the baking dish over pre-frozen toffee sauce
• Place in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes, until the pudding is just cooked. When placing a knife through the pudding, the blade should come out moist

The finished pudding before toffee sauce,
scored with a knife

• Take out of the oven, score the surface with a knife, and pour over the remaining toffee sauce
• Serve warm with custard and ice cream

A Gluten-Free Accident

ছিটা রুটি
Splattered Flatbread 

An approximation of Bangladeshi "chita-ruti",
roughly translating to splattered flatbread

This one isn't too much of a recipe. My partner was planning to make gluten-free crumble for a potluck picnic last week, but turns out gluten-free flour doesn't behave in the same way as traditional flour. As his flour and butter crumble turned into more of a slab, we realised we'd have to do something other than dessert. Hence this "chita-ruti", translating roughly to splattered flatbread, the quickest thing that came to mind. It was a gamble, but gluten-free flour seems to have the right stickiness vs springiness ratio needed to imitate the original chita-ruti. Traditionally served with beef curry, the amounts below make enough for 10 flatbreads. Given how quickly they went at the picnic, we should have made more!  

Ingredients:

• 100.00 g of gluten free flour
• Salt, to taste
• Lukewarm water

Method:

• Place the flour and salt in a large mixing bowl, and add enough lukewarm water to make a thin, pourable batter
• Put a large frying pan on low heat, and use a kitchen towel to smear with vegetable oil. Leave for 30 seconds to allow the pan to heat
• Using a spoon (or hands if preferred), mix the batter again before adding it the pan
• Again, using a spoon or your hand, take a small amount of batter and scatter it over the pan to make a flatbread as in the image at the top of this post
• Make sure the layer of batter is as thin as possible for quick cooking
• Ensure all the different parts of the bread connect, as this makes it easier to manage
• Cook until the edges of the bread start to just lift off the pan, which can take around a minute
• Flip, taking caring not to damage the splattered pattern, and cook on the reverse side for another minute
• Serve immediately, or stack on a dry towel so the bread doesn't steam up and serve when it is cooler

Additional Info:

Funnily enough, the traditional chita-ruti is also gluten-free, being rice flour based. But processed rice flour from UK supermarkets doesn't seem to be glutinous enough to make a proper batter. Any flatbreads I've made with it have gone crunchy-crumbly as opposed to crunchy-elastic, so a word of warning if you're going to give it a go.

A Bangladeshi Breakfast, Part 2

মোঘলাই পরোটা
Mughlai Porota 

Mughlai porota with an egg, red chilli & spring onion
filling, with a Sriracha dip on the side

I've been contemplating pancakes, mango milk and stick toffee pudding recently. However, my last two recipe posts were sweets too, and hence this savoury interlude. The Bangladeshi iteration of mughlai porota, for those who don't know, is a fried flatbread filled with egg or mincemeat. These porotas are commonly sold from road side shops in Dhaka. In my grandma's family, they feature heavily in our rotating menu of tea-time street food snacks. My mom also served them for breakfast when I was younger, in a bid to get me to eat eggs. I personally prefer these porotas for breakfast rather than tea, especially when I want something heavier as part of a brunch menu. Eggs are always a morning thing for me. 

The mincemeat version of the mughlai porota has been much less common in my life. My family rarely made it, and it's not often sold in our Dhaka neighbourhood due to the prohibitive price of meat. I've never personally made it either, and the recipe below is purely for the egg version of mughlai porota. I've also recommended shallow as opposed to deep-frying the porota. This is mostly because I can't imagine deep-frying foods I regularly eat. Do note it makes a difference - deep-fried mughlai porota comes out flakier and fluffier, and so deep-fry if you wish. Reading back over the instructions, I realise how complicated the rolling and folding may seem to a first-timer, so I'll be updating this post with more photos as soon as possible. 

Review: Cilantro

A Rather International Menu

Inside Cilantro Dhanmondi

Cilantro has been on my Wishlist for the longest time. When they first opened, friends started posting photos of a uniquely decorated restaurant serving beautifully plated "Western" food. I was intrigued - mostly by how nice the dishes looked to be perfectly honest, while remaining hopeful that they also tasted good. Foreign food is still quite hit-and-miss in Dhaka, whether we're talking about a casual eatery or a high-end hotel restaurant. My friend's nudged my expectations downwards though, as apparently the venue was more about the look rather than the food. And while they were right, what I ate at Cilantro was nothing to scoff at, and I am glad I visited.

The Spaniard: marinated fish, battered prawn, cucumber salad
and seafood paella

The interior is an eclectic affair of exposed brick, glass bottles and a central skylight in an otherwise dimly lit space. Seating is varied between normal tables and a few lower tables, where you can take off your shoes and sit cross-legged. The restaurant's Facebook page claims it is a Latin American and Mediterranean affair, but the menu when we visited was far more international. It was also long and confusingly divided up, but I assumed that tapas were snacks or starters, and anything else was a main. They also had a specials board, and we skimmed over that before ordering two mains and two drinks. As with any restaurant attempting to cover too many bases, their dishes turned out to be inspired by their regions of origin rather than authentic offerings. This was fine with me, as everything we were served still tasted good. 

Open beef enchilada

My friend ordered the Spaniard from their specials, which was a plate of battered prawns, marinated fish, cucumber salad and paella. I'v never had anything of the sort in Spain, and there was definitely no paella on the plate. However, there was a rather nice seafood and rice concoction, and both the prawns and fish were deliciously spiced. The portion was a bit small, and their slice of fish especially should have been bigger. My order of beef enchilada, served open in layers on my plate, was more reasonably portioned. It came with generous amounts of meat and cheese. The inclusion of so much cheese was the biggest surprise - restaurants in Bangladesh are usually very stingy with this ingredient! 

Raw tamarind on the left, pink lemonade on the right

We washed our food down with a couple of mocktails - a raw tamarind drink for me and a pink lemonade for my friend. Both were nice, though I'd say my tamarind drink won out, probably due to the fresh, local ingredients. Both were very expensive though, and with drinks priced up to TK 200, this where Cilantro overcharges the most. Elsewhere prices are a bit better, with tapas from TK 200 to TK 600, and mains from TK 400 to over TK 1000 for steaks. We paid around TK 1500 for two mains and two drinks, and this felt like quite a lot for the amount of food we had. Had I not had plans to meet others for coffee later, I would have ordered more. I can easily see myself paying TK 1000 per head here for a full meal, even without opting for the expensive items on the menu. Service was a bit too chilled-out (read: slow) at the start, though staff were friendly and food did arrive quite quickly once ordered. This is definitely a place I'd go back to if in Dhaka, but it won't stop from looking for greener pastures elsewhere. 

Food: 7/10

Service: 6.5/10

Atmosphere: 8/10

Value: 7/10

Final Score: 7/10

Contact Information

A: 49 Satmasjid Road, Dhaka 1209, Bangladesh
T: +880 1766 449912
W: www.facebook.com/cilantrobd

NB. The final score, while influenced by the sub-scores, is a qualitative reflection of my overall impression of the establishment.