Making Jhol

Curried Coconut Broth

Curried coconut broth 

I'm saving up to go travelling in 2018, so I didn't fly back to Bangladesh in December this year. Instead I'm spending the holidays with a few friends, and we all pitched in to cook different things for Christmas day. I made the roast, stuffing and gravy - but I did things a little differently from usual with the gravy. I'm a big fan of the traditional version made from pan juices, but I normally underestimate how much we want and make too little. To make sure we didn't run into the same problem again, I just made a broth from scratch. This is partially inspired by the super common curry sauce served over chips in UK fish and chip shops, but made a little richer with the addition of coconut milk. It worked really well with the spiced roast we made, but be warned the below portions makes quite a lot! 

Review: Royal Thai Restaurant London

Amazing Thai food tucked away near King's Cross

King prawn pad kee mao - noodle heaven! 

I've never lived in London long enough to discover its hidden secrets, those amazing little places tucked away in the nooks and crannies of the big city. Instead, I've done the next best thing, which is to rely on my more local friends for their insider information. And that's how I found Royal Thai. A friend suggested we drop by one night, promising that I'd be impressed by the food despite my teenage years in Thailand. And indeed I was, so much so that I insisted that we come here for dinner again the next time we met. The venue has now become a regular fixture for me - I've made several visits with friends and family, and its the first recommendation I make for Thai food in the British capital.  

Review: Darjeeling Express

Home Comforts in Soho

Methi Chicken, polao and a side salad

I’m glad central London finally has an Indian restaurant like Darjeeling Express. I’ve been eating at various Bengali (read: Bangladeshi) restaurants in the British capital for a while, and most of what I’d recommend is in East London. While many of these places do great food, like Amar Gaon or Dhaka Biryani, they’re small and geared towards casual meals. But Darjeeling Express is a fully-fledged restaurant, and somewhere I could go if I needed a smarter dinner venue. Even better is the fact that I wouldn’t be making any compromises on the food - the kitchen here produces amazing Bengali (and other Indian) dishes, despite its trendy Carnaby Street location. 

Sweets From Meherpur

গুড়ের সন্দেশ
Goorer Shondesh

Goorer shondesh - baked and slightly caramelised on top

Shondesh has been such a staple in my life. During my childhood in Dhaka, Nani would provide a steady supply from her favourite sweet shop in Meherpur, couriered over on a semi-regular basis. If it wasn't her, it would be my dad or uncle bringing some back from their trips to the countryside. Unfailingly, each would point out that shondesh made in their hometown was the best. Shondesh keeps well in the fridge, so even after a week we'd be digging some out to have with tea. As a voracious and indiscriminate eater, shondesh was just another sweet I stuffed myself with, but I do remember it being a favourite of my brother's - the picky eater in the family. 

Shondesh comes in a few different forms, but basically it's yet another curd-based Bangladeshi dessert. If you're unfamiliar, imagine something a little like halwa, but softer and creamier. Making it involves sweetening and cooking curd on the hub, an easier process than cooking roshogolla or golap jaam. There are slight variations: you can sweeten the curd using sugar or goor, and you can opt to use spices or not. I prefer a version very lightly spiced with cardamom and sweetened with goor. The bones of this recipe comes from a friend's mom, who recommended that I just mix all the ingredients together before popping them into the oven. She served me a version of this one Eid, and I loved it, so I've now adopted her recipe. 

The egg listed in the ingredients below is very non-traditional - the result of her experimentation with texture and consistency. I've kept it in because I quite like the resulting squidginess. Baking gives the top of the shondesh a slight caramelisation, in case you're into that kind of thing (I am). Make this in the right dish and you can serve it as is, rather than chopping it up into smaller pieces (which is traditional). Shondesh can be eaten as a dessert after a larger meal, but more usually in my family it was reserved for tea time snacking. 

An Aloo Bhorta Substitute

Cumin & Chive Mashed Potato Bake

Fresh out of the oven, sans cheddar this time though

I've never been able to roast potatoes properly, hence this dish. I needed to serve potatoes in some way alongside roast meats and fish, and so I gravitated towards a potato bake. I know there are many luxurious versions with milk, butter etc. around, but I've avoided these in favour of something that isn't too unhealthy. Chives and potato are a classic combo, and I've incorporated cumin here as it's a favourite flavour of mine. The beaten egg gives the dish a bit of lightness. Truth be told, this is also my substitute to the traditional Bangladeshi aloo bhorta - especially as I can't get the right kind of dried chilli or mustard oil where I live right now. The amount below serves 4 as part of a main meal.

Ingredients:

• 300.00 g potatoes
• 1.00 teaspoon of powdered cumin
• 1.00 tablespoon of dried chives
• 1.00 tomato
• 1.00 egg
• Salt, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• Cheddar to crumble, as desired

Method:

• Bring a saucepan full of water to boil. Cut the potatoes into cubes, and add to the saucepan along with a little salt. Cook until soft, around 20 minutes
• Preheat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius
• While the potatoes are boiling, halve the tomato and slice into thin slivers
• Beat the egg
• Once the potatoes have boiled, run them under cold water so that they cool enough to add the egg without cooking it
• Mash the potatoes, adding the tomato, cumin and chives
• Season as desired with salt and pepper, then mix in the egg
• Transfer the potato to an ovenproof dish, then top generously with crumbled cheddar
• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes and take out of the oven

Bangla-Chinese Experimentation

Chicken & Naga Pickle Stir-Fry

Steamed rice with chicken & naga pickle stir-fry

I've relied on stir-fries for relatively healthy meals ever since university, though I've graduated from readymade sauces by now. This is a very simple stir-fry that I sometimes cook on weekdays, albeit with a slight twist - naga pickle. Usually, I stir-fry my chicken with a little garlic before adding soya and oyster sauce, followed by various veggies. I'm a big fan of naga pickle, and so one day I made the decision to marinade chicken in this before cooking. I knew I'd like it...so I'm not sure I should be calling it experimentation! However, the flavour (and the kick!) here is quite strong, so it won't be for everyone. The recipe below serves two generously.

Ingredients:

• 400.00 g boneless chicken breast or thigh
• 1.00 teaspoon of garlic, crushed
• 1.00 teaspoon of ginger, shredded
• 2.00 tablespoons cornflour
• 1.00 tablespoon sesame oil
• 1.00 tablespoon naga pickle and oil
• 1.00 carrot
• 80.00 g of asparagus tips
• 80.00 g of sprouting broccoli (or just broccoli)
• 7 or 8 mushrooms
• 1.50 tablespoon soya sauce
• 1.50 tablespoon oyster sauce
• Spring onion, to taste
• Sesame seeds, to taste

Method:

• Cut the chicken into cubes. Mix with the sesame oil, naga pickle, cornflour, garlic, ginger and leave to marinate while preparing the vegetables
• Slice the mushrooms into slivers, shave the carrot into thin strips using a peeler and cut the broccoli into bite size pieces. Leave the asparagus alone apart from cutting off any stringy, older parts
• Heat a frying pan on the stove, then add the chicken. On medium heat, fry for 8 minutes, adding a little water if the cornflour starts to stick (this will be unnecessary if your chicken is sold with a high water content)
• While the chicken is cooking, toast the sesame seeds in a small pan without oil, until they begin to brown. Take off the heat and set aside
• Turning back to the chicken, add the soya and oyster sauces along with a little water, then cover and cook for 2 minutes on medium low heat
• Lift the cover, and deglaze with a little water if necessary 
• Add the vegetables, then cover and cook for a further 4 minutes
• While the vegetables are cooking, slice the spring onion into little pieces
• Take the dish off the heat, and serve sprinkled with the toasted sesame seeds and spring onion

Additional Info

Feel free with switch up the sauces (try mirin or fish sauce) and of course, the vegetables. I've only cooked them for 4 minutes because I like them quite crunchy, but leave them on the stove longer if you want. Naga pickle is available to buy at most South Asian stores in the UK. It's sold in small jars, and can be mixed into dips or served as a side during meals.

The Best Biriyanis in Aberdeen

All lined up for Biriyani Club!

A dish of fragrant rice cooked with spiced meat, biriyani is an old favourite of mine. In our family, it has always been celebration food. We usually buy biriyani from any one of Dhaka's numerous biriyani houses, or less commonly cook it - and I've posted my mom's recipe on the blog already. It's something I often order while eating out  in the UK, and a friend suggested collating my experiences for Aberdeen in one post. Something short and snappy - useful for folks who don't want to read long, in-depth reviews. 

I've been doing an informal biriyani tour of the town for a while anyway, so this post has an easy, happy challenge! I've stuck to some hard and fast rules throughout the process (see the footnotes at the bottom). This will be a live post, and I will be updating and reposting it as I eat at more restaurants. Hopefully old names will drop off and new names will appear. I don't know how many venues I'll list when I'm done...but I'm aiming for the top 5 right now. I will mostly limit myself to writing about biriyani here, rather than diverging into fuller reviews. Also, a big thank you to my long-suffering friends, who have often waited patiently as I photographed everyone's food :)

Korola Masochism

করলা ভাজি
Stir-Fried Bitter Gourd

Stir-fried bitter gourd garnished with red chilli

I've moved to a neighbourhood with a Bangladeshi store around the corner! Unsurprisingly, I've been re-living all kinds of childhood food memories. I try not to buy perishables with lots of air miles, but I couldn't resist picking up a couple of fresh looking bitter gourds the other day. Bitter gourds, or korola, get their name from the very distinct bitter taste they retain even after cooking. Despite this, they are unreasonably popular back home, probably because the fruit has long been associated with alleged health benefits. I've heard people claim it does everything from curing an upset stomach to preserving healthy eyesight. 

I suspect the fruit I bought (photo in this post) is from India, as commonly available Bangladeshi varieties are quite small. They're eaten green and unripe, usually fried but also on occasion mashed or stuffed. Folks have various methods of dealing with the bitterness. The most common technique I've come across is to cook the gourd in lots of oil with plenty of onion and potato to distract from the bitter taste. On a similar principle, some people garnish the gourd with chopped coriander or squirt lime onto the dish to mask the taste with sour notes. Others soak the fruit in salt-water to counteract the bitterness, though I have never tried this myself. 

My family was quite masochistic when it came to korola though - we'd often have it without any onions or potatoes - fried in a bare minimum of oil, salt and turmeric.  The recipe below is a little more conventional, with onions and potatoes left in. Be as healthy or unhealthy as you want with the amount of oil. This makes a good side as part of a larger meal - it's the kind of everyday dish cooked alongside plain rice and simple chicken. Given my childhood hatred for vegetables, I find it hard to believe now that I liked this dish quite so much!

Breakfast during Mango Season

আম দিয়ে দুধ-ভাত
Rice with mango-milk

Rice and mango-milk, topped with mango
What's not to like? :) 

It's mango season! In Bangladesh this means a glut of mangoes everywhere. Their sheer number has people scrambling to find ways to use them up. On top of cooking, pickling and drying, making mango-milk is another common way we at the fruit growing up. We mixed the pulped flesh of a sweet, ripe mango into hot milk, creating a warm alternative to the mango lassi. Sometimes, we would pour this onto rice - the result of a family habit of pouring any kind of milk onto rice. In fact, whenever we didn't like the food on offer for a particular meal, rice with milk was the go-to substitute dish for the kids in my generation. 

Of course, unconventional meal replacements aside, this dish makes a great breakfast. I also have it for seheri (the pre-fasting meal during Ramadan), as it makes a nice change from cereal. Folks who've had Thai mango with sticky rice will be familiar with the flavour and textures. To make this, you want mangoes that almost melt when crushed, rather than those with firm, springy flesh. In the UK, safe bets are South Asian mangoes sold as Alphonso or Kesar. When fresh mangoes aren't in season, tinned mangoes are another option. The recipe below makes a full "meal" for one, or serves two to three as a snack.

Ingredients:

• 1.00 small South Asian mango (around 175.00g whole, unpeeled)
• 150.00 g cooked rice
• 100.00 ml whole milk
• Sugar, to taste

Method:

• Heat the milk in the microwave for a minute
• While the milk is heating, peel and slice the mango
• Crush the flesh to form a pulp, and remove any overly large pieces of fibre 
• Mix the mango into the milk, and taste for sweetness. Add sugar if desired
• Place the cooked rice in a bowl. Pour in the mango-milk and mix
• Serve while warm

Additional Info

If you want something a bit richer, heat and thicken the milk on the hob before adding the mango. For a different flavour, swap the mango for banana, something we would also do quite commonly in our family. 

Review: Nopi

Impressive cooking with a big price tag

Grilled trout with labneh, yuzu kosho and a colourful radish.
A simple but delicious small plate at Nopi

I discovered Nopi the cookbook before Nopi the restaurant. The book, a birthday present, was my first of complex restaurant recipes. I've spent multiple weekends putting it to use, embarking on culinary adventures of exciting flavours. I learned how to retrofit familiar ingredients in service of the venue's cooking style, which combines the Middle Eastern and Southeast Asian, to create new-to-me flavours. Having enjoyed the recipes so much, I’ve now made multiple trips to eat at the actual establishment. I'm surprised to say that the hype (in my own mind of course!), was indeed worth it. 

Meaty Comfort Food

গোরুর কিমা 

Lime & Coriander Beef Keema

Beef keema 

Growing up, keema - or minced meat - was only meant for kebabs. I use it in my own recipe for beef kebab, as do the other Bangladeshis I know. But over the years, especially since moving to the UK, I've realised many Asian families, Bangladeshi or otherwise, cook their mince directly.The flavours from the various iterations I've eaten have been simple and recognisable. As such, I've always known that I could re-create the recipe myself from scratch - and indeed I have, if you've seen my Instagram feed. But I wanted the actual recipe I posted on the blog to be traditional, and so I turned to one of my friends for help. He has a go-to keema dish that he uses for dinner parties, and it always goes down a storm. The original recipe comes from his mom, traveling from Pakistan via a few other countries, and I've mostly kept it intact below. 

My friend's mom cooks her keema with peas and potatoes, but my friend usually skips these (too much effort, according to him!). I've added the peas back, because vegetables, but not the potatoes, because carbs. I've made one ingredient swap, from tomato paste to fresh tomatoes, as I never have the former in my kitchen. I've added a cinnamon stick, a personal bias: I never caramelise onions for a curry without one these days! Finally, I've also added lime and fresh coriander - something I've also seen others do - because I like the flavour. I prefer to use lean mince for this dish, but work with whatever you prefer or have at hand. This recipe produces a dish that is very similar to my/my mother's recipe for beef curry. This doesn't come as a surprise - most of the spices used in both recipes are the same. What's worth a mention though is that mince is much quicker to cook, so you're looking at a much shorter period in the kitchen with the below. 

Cholar Daal and Eggs for Breakfast

ছোলার ডাল

Cholar daal

Cholar daal
Topped wit a fried egg, coriander and black pepper

It's taken me a while, but I finally have most of my family's recipes for daal written down. We usually serve them simply - but this cholar daal is a little unusual. Spiced and cooked like meat, I've been told it's something of a special occasion daal in Bangladesh. However, in my extended family it's always been breakfast food. We eat it with eggs cooked various ways and flatbreads, or sometimes with vegetables and beef curry. As a child, I used the spicing to mask the taste of egg, which I hated. To be fair, even now the eggs in my life come drenched with Hollandaise, filled with cheese or pimped with smoked salmon, so I guess some things never change. 

This dish makes a great accompaniment at a heavier breakfast or brunch, whether it be with eggs, veg or meat. It takes a while to cook, so I'd recommend tackling it the night before you intend to serve it. In the morning, all that's left to do is heat it up (this works well, like reheating curry), make the eggs and bake your flatbreads (which can also be pre-formed). In my book, this is something to attempt for a leisurely weekend brunch rather than during a weekday cooking session. I promise the other daals (coming soon, i.e. whenever I get a craving for them) are simpler and cook quicker. 

Cholar daal soaking

Finally, a quick note on language and ingredients. "Chola" in Bengali means chickpea, and "daal" - translating vaguely - means lentil. Cholar daal together means chickpea lentil, although I realise chickpeas aren't really lentils. The chickpeas you will need for this dish are dried, skinned, and split. They're commonly stocked in Asian food stores. In the UK, they're usually sold under Indian brands and labelled "chana dal". If you're familiar with dried chickpeas you should have no trouble identifying them, but use the photo above to help as well. 

Delhi Food Memories

সবজি দিয়ে পনির 

Paneer with Carrots and Peas

Paneer with carrots and peas for a nice weekend lunch

I've spent quite a while attempting to recreate a fantastic paneer and mixed vegetable dish our housekeeper in Delhi used to cook. I've gone through various iterations - I added paneer to my standard Bangladeshi vegetable recipe (fail); and then I curried my vegetables like my meat, adding paneer at the end (another fail). What's finally been successful is this tweak of Kaushy Patel's recipe for mattar panner in the Guardian. I trust her cooking from my meals at Prasad, which is why I decided to look up her recipes after my failures. 

To her recipe I've added carrot and toned down the spices, almost halving the ginger and powdered coriander. I've also done away with the deep frying - because who does that at home? Our housekeeper's dish was a lightly-spiced everyday affair, so I've altered Patel's recipe to aline it to that philosophy. Patel does have a paneer and mixed vegetable recipe herself, but that is so heavily spiced that I'm ignoring it completely. The results below aren't exactly the real thing - our housekeeper didn't use tomato as a base - but the dish is satisfying enough that I wanted the recipe written down for future attempts. 

Ingredients:

• 4.00 cm of ginger
• 350.00g paneer
• 400.00g of tinned tomatoes 
• 2.00 teaspoons powdered chilli
• 2.00 teaspoons powdered turmeric
• 2.00 teaspoons powdered coriander
• 1.00 teaspoon powdered cumin
• 200.00 g frozen peas
• 1.00 carrot
• Salt, to taste
• Fresh coriander, one handful

Method: 

• Prep the ingredients first - chop and crush the ginger, finely chop the coriander and cut the paneer and into bite size cubes. Set each ingredient aside separately.
• Heat some oil in a wok - pouring in enough so that when the panner is added to the pot it is at least partially submerged. Test the oil temperature by adding a cube of paneer - if it begins to sizzle the oil is ready. Make sure to turn the heat down to medium-low before beginning to cook
• Add the cubes of paneer to the wok, gently turning each cube (I use tongs) as they fry to ensure they are cooked evenly. Remove the paneer cubes from the oil once they've begun to go golden on each side, which should take 3 to 4 minutes. Be careful - the oil will sizzle and jump
• Open the tinned tomatoes, and stab repeatedly with a knife to break up the flesh. Pour the fruit into the oil and mix, and allow to cook for a minute
• Follow up by adding the ginger, dry spices, fresh coriander and salt. Mix these ingredients thoroughly into the tomato, and cook on medium low heat for 5 to 8 minutes. The base is unlikely to burn in a non-stick wok, but do stir it a little every minute or so just in case 
• While the spice base is cooking, take out the peas and leave to soak in water 
• Boil some water in a kettle
• Chop up the carrot into bite size pieces
• Add the carrots to the wok, followed by the paneer. Mix and let cook for a minute, then drain and add the peas
• Pour in some boiling water to the wok - varying the amount based on how much sauce you want your dish to have. Turn the heat to high, and stir to mix everything together
• Bring the dish to boil, then turn the heat back down to medium. Partially cover the wok with a lid and leave to cook for 8 minutes
• Once done, turn off the stove and leave the dish to settle. I usually let the oil come to the surface at this point, and drain or scoop it away 
• Serve hot with plain boiled rice or flatbreads

Additional Info

If paneer isn't available near you, try this with another squeaky cheese - halloumi - using the same ingredient amounts as above. Halloumi is a lot crumblier than paneer though, so be gentle with it. I've had trouble keeping it together during pre-frying, and I would consider brushing it with some oil and toasting it in an oven next time. 

Cooking Fish

স্যামোন দোপিঁয়াজা 

Salmon Dopiyaza

Salmon dopiaza servd with veggie biriyani.
I obviously went a little overboard with the onion placement,
I'm sorry you can't really see the fish!

A lot of fish that featured in my childhood was cooked delicately, as lightly spiced stews. I wasn't a big fan of these then, but I do want to know how to cook them now. Unfortunately, my experiments to retrace these recipes haven't yielded any postable results yet. Until they do, the below is an easy recipe for salmon that I often refer back to. It's cooked a little bit like meat, because salmon is both rich and tough enough to survive the process. There are a few other fish we normally cook like this at home - eel being the first that comes to mind, though that would be more cumin-heavy. The onion base works great as sauce with texture, and I could eat it by itself, something I rarely say about fish based sauces! 

Ingredients:

• 400.00g filleted salmon
• 3.00 medium onions
• 1.50 teaspoons of garlic paste
• 1.50 teaspoons of ginger paste
• 1.00 teaspoon of powdered turmeric
• 1.00 teaspoon of powdered coriander
• A pinch of cumin
• Powdered chilli, to taste
• Salt, to taste
• Half a red pepper
• Fresh chilli, to taste
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Method:

• Finely chop the onions
• Put a pan onto the stove on medium heat, and add a generous amount of vegetable oil
• Once the oil has heated, add the onions and fry till they soften - around 6 to 7 minutes
• Add the turmeric and mix in, and let onions cook for a further minute
• Add the garlic and ginger pastes, along with a dash of water if the onions have begun to go dry
• As the mixture is cooking, add the coriander, cumin, chilli and salt. Stir thoroughly to mix, and cook for 5 minutes
• As the spice base is cooking, prep the salmon. Hold the fillets under warm running water, and rub the skin to descale the fish. This is important, as you don't want to end up with loose scales mixed into your curry

Salmon laid out on the onion base

• Cut the fish up into smaller pieces if desired, and add to the pot. Lay the fish carefully on top of the spice base, making sure none of the fish is in direct contact with the pot 
• Cook uncovered for 10 minutes, adding a dash of water near the 6 minute mark if the liquid in the pot has dried up, especially if you're aiming for a lot of curry sauce
• Make sure to never put a lid on the dish - this will cook the fish too quickly and may cause it to break up. Instead of stirring the onions, give the entire pot a gentle shake now and again to avoid breaking up the salmon
• Once the 10 minutes are up, flip the fillets over (I find it easier to do this using silicone tongs). Continue cooking for a further 10 minutes
• Slice the red pepper and fresh chilli, then add to the pot along with freshly ground pepper
• Mix in gently, taking care not to break up the fish. Cook for another 4 minutes, then take the dish off the hob
• Serve hot with plain rice or polao

Additional Information

This dish tastes a little bit like a British curry house dish - probably because curry house dishes depend on similar spices and onions as a base. The red pepper here is definitely optional, I only add it when I want a little more veg in my diet.