bong
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Posts posted by bong
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So with all this talk about Charulata, I couldn't resist myself and went back for a second time, this time for dinner.
And I am happy to report that this time, my experiences were better than the last time.
We had the following:
* Prawn Cutlet (made with Prawn, spiced mashed potatos, soaked in egg white, dredged in bread crumbs and then fried).
* Vegetable chops -- very similar to the cutlet, except it has cooked veggies (peas, beets, potatoes etc) inside. And the shape is different.
* Loochi and "aloor dom". ( Loochi is the Bengali style poori. Not made with atta but with flour instead.
Aloor dom is spiced potatos)
* Kasha Mangsho (Goat meat, braised in onions, garlic, ginger, yogurt).
* Rice
* Mishti Doi (Sweetened Yogurt)
* Malai Chomchom (hard to describe in english).
Of these, the Prawn cutlet was good. The vegetable chops were better. However they were served without any "Kashundi" (bengali style mustard paste, to be had as a condiment) on the side. For me, good "kashundi" is a must to go with these.
The Aloor Dom was pretty bad. The Loochis were good, but not great. It's difficult to make great loochis in a restaurant environment, so that's understandable.
The Kasha Mangsho was very good, although, again, not great.
The Mishti Doi was better than any mishti doi I have had in the USA.
The Malai Chomchom was not good. It was too dry and too sweet.
Also this time, unlike the last time, the service was adequate.
So there were a few hits and misses, but I did come back with some hope. I will probably go back, simply because it's geographically close to were I live. If it was something I had to drive long distances for, I'd probably skip it.
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bong, it is westernized bengalis, especially ones from calcutta that drink their tea in the brewed english style. people from other classes tend to boil their tea, milk and sugar (with or without cardamom etc.) in a manner that would make your average english tea snob cough up their buttered scones.
I am sorry, mongo, but I have to disagree with you here.
I grew up in Calcutta, yes -- but certainly not in a "westernized" environment. I was brought up in your average bengali middle class household, and all the tea we drank was made this way:
* Boil water, remove from heat
* Add black tea leaves (or mixture of leaves and powder, which is cheaper), about 1 heaped teaspoon per cup of finished tea, to hot water.
* Let tea leaves seep for 2-3 minutes in hot water.
* Strain tea, pour into cup. Add about 1tsp-1tbsp milk, and some sugar.
Sometimes, at home, expecially when we would have a cold or cough, my mom would add some ginger or sometimes cardamom when brewing the tea -- that's the closest we got to a "masala" tea.
I have travelled around Southern West Bengal a bit as well, and most all the tea you find there, including the roadside tea stalls are made this way. Well, not exactly this way, but some variation thereof. For example the cheap roadside stalls use cheap quality tea leaves, they dont "brew" their tea in hot water, but they boil their tea (this makes the tea more "strong" so you can get more cups by using less tea leaves. This also makes the tea taste bitter...) in water, they keep reheating the tea. Sometimes they would add the milk directly to the boiling water instead of adding at the etc. etc.
But in general, there is never any addition of spices. Also, the tea is brewed in water, not in milk.
[ Also in those days, the cheap stalls would serve you the tea in earthen "bhand"s. Bhands are, unfortunately, becoming quite extinct with the advent of cheap disposable plastic cups.]
Are there excceptions? Of course there are. But my point is, in general, the tea you find in Bengal is far from the "Masala" tea that you find in other parts of India, especially in the north-western states.
For instance, in Gujarat, the tea you find is brewed not in hot water, but in boiling milk.
One time (I am talking in the mid-eighties) I lived in Surat for a few months and noticed a very strange thing:
Over there, when you order a "full" cup of tea from a roadside stall, they would serve the tea to you in a cup and a saucer, and the tea would be overflowing out of the cup into the saucer. You are expected to sip from the saucer, pour tea from the cup onto the saucer, and then sip from the saucer...
If you order a "half" cup instead, you would be served the same thing, except this time the tea won't be overflowing into the saucer. And of course the "half" tea costs only half as much. Since I was a poor student at that time, I quickly learnt only to order this "half" tea....
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I have a finicky friend who likes English style tea and not our kadak chai.
We Bengalis also generally don't like our tea spiced up with Masalas...
We like it with a little bit of milk and sugar...which is basically same as "English" style.
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Some of my favorites in San Francisco South bay:
Upscale Indian food, not your standard usual SF Bay area Indian restaurant fare.
Mediterranean/Middle Eastern food.
* I second the recommendation for Chez Sovan in Campbell, although in my most recent visit there a couple of months there, I was not impressed. I hope that was a temporary fluke and the restaurant has not gone downhill in general.
* Several small Vietnamese ultra cheap Banh Mi places in strip malls. One of my favorites is Lee's Sandwiches -- they have branches at several places in San Jose.
* Pasta? in Mountain View and Palo Alto
Decent italian food.
* The 99 Ranch complex (Barber Lane) in Milpitas has several good Chinese restaurants -- Mayflower, ABC Seafood.
* There is a new Indo-pak cheap restaurant in Milpitas, called Shahnawaz -- I liked their Biryanis. Try the goat meat biryani if they have it available.
* I have heard good things about Manresa (upscale Spanish inspired) in Los Gatos, but don't yet have first hand experience.
Hope this helps.
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BTW Lou Chingri ??? Never heard of this ! [ I hate lou anyway
] Yeah, I hate lau too. Except for this particular dish. It's heavenly when it's done right.
For those who don't know what a "Lau" is, it's a "Bottle gourd". Its called "Lauki" in Hindi. And chingri is off course shrimp or prawn.
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To my knowledge, Charulata is the one and only Bengali restaurant here in the Bay Area, possibly one and only one in California as well.
When I learnt Charulata would be opening, I was hugely excited, being a Bengali myself and all.
However, the food left a lot to be desired. That's one of the reasons I have not commented on this restaurant. Believe me, being a bengali myself, I really do want this restaurant to succeed, so I am willing to give them a benefit of the doubt and a second chance.
On our first visit (a couple of months back), we were there for lunch. Service was really, really bad (the owner came by at the very end, when we were paying the bill and apologized, but it was too late then). Usually, I really don't care for service in a restaurant unless it is outstanding or it's horrible -- and at this place on that day, it was horrible. It was painfully slow, the waiter kept bringing us the wrong things, etc. etc.
Unfortunately, the food that I had over there also left a lot to be desired. We had the "Enchorer Dalna" (Stew of green jackfruit), Dal (I think it was "mooger dal" aka moong dal), "Sorshe Illish" (Hilsa fish cooked in a mustard paste gravy). I wanted to try the goat meat, but they were out of goat meat on that day.
Each and every one the items were unmemorable. We had some sweets at the end, but they also were nothing to write home about.
Another time, I bought some snacks ("Kolkata style Chicken rolls") to go -- those were really bad as well. Bland and utterly tasteless. A far cry from "Kolkata style".
Reading about the experiences from homechef makes me a bit optimistic -- perhaps I caught them on an off-day. Like I said, I am still willing to give them a benefit of doubt.
Homechef, when did you eat there last?
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What Monica calls "katol" is what we Bengalis call "Catla" [ pronounced kat (rhymes with the british way of pronouncing "bath") - la ]: Catla fish
This fish is similar to the Rohu fish (called "rui" in Bengali): Rohu fish
I have not been able to find Catla fish in the USA. In the Chinese grocery stores here in the west coast, we find Grass Carp, which is similar to the Rohu in india, but not quite the same. In some Indian/Bangladeshi stores here, they sell frozen Catla/Rohu, imported directly from Bangladesh. Along with other Bengali staple fishes.
Catla is indeed a very popular fish in Bengal, we cook it in many different ways.
One of the ways is to cook a "Machher Jhol" (or fish stew) with it:
- cut fish into 1/2-inch thick steaks and dry-marinate with turmeric powder and salt for 30mins-1hr.
- deep fry or shallow fry the fish in oil, till outside is brown, and the inside is slightly undercooked.
- separately, temper some oil with kalonji (some folks use cumin seeds instead)
- add some tomatoes, chopped. stir until tomatoe becomes paste-like.
- Optional -- add some coriander powder to the oil and stir it around.
- Add some ginger paste or grated ginger.
- Optional -- Add some potato wedges (but fry the potatoes in hot oil first to brown them)
- Optional -- add some veggies. Popular veggies are cauliflower florettes (fry these in hot oil first to brown them), green peas. brinjal aka aubergine aka eggplant.
- Stir for a while, and then add some water. Add salt to taste.
- Once the water comes to boil, cook until veggies are almost done.
- Add the pre-fried fish to this stew.
- Boil some more until fish is done.
This above recipe is one variation that I use. Like any other home-made food, there is not an authentic recipe -- everybody has their own variation.
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bong, this recipe sounds good--however, i am likelier to use goat than lamb. what do you think the cooking time variation should be with goat?
Sorry, I'd forgotten to mention. I also always use goat meat. Have never used lamb. And I actually use bone-in goat meat. I find bone-in to be tastier and also get to suck on the marrow...
And I then steam the rice (using basmati rice -- soak rice for 30mins, drain the water and hand wash the rice a few times to get rid of rice powder or starch, add back 1.5 times hot water to rice; bring to boil, cover and lower heat and let steam for 5-10 minutes) for about 5-10 minutes. I then add this half-cooked rice to the meat and put it in the oven for 45mins-1 hour.
Believe it or not 45mins-1hr is quite sufficient for the meat. Its because of the papaya paste (or meat tenderizer) that's added to the meat while its marinating.
Green Papaya is difficult to find over here in the USA, so I just use store bought meat-tenderisers (which typically have papain, which is an extract from papaya) instead.
Usual disclaimer: Of course the time will vary depending on the size and cut of the meat, the type of cooking vessel you're using, the accuracy of your oven etc.
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BBhasin's recipe sounds wonderful.
As he mentions, Biryani is made many different ways by different folks... I don't think there is any "authentic" version. I think the common feature of all recipes with traditional roots is the fact that you have to bake/steam the meat and the rice together, and you'll also have to create the "layers".
Here is a recipe for Hyderabadi style Biryani that I use with great success:
http://www.pilot.co.uk/Planet_Food/India_Biryani.html
Hyderabadi Biryani is traditionally made by the use of a sealed baking vessel, called "dum".
I have simplified it somewhat, of course, for my own use.
-- I do not use a "copper dish" . Any large bowl seems to work just fine.
-- I don't bother to "seal" the baking vessel like the recipe says with flour. I just use a heavy tight-fitting lid.
I find that of all the Biryani recipes that I have tried, this is one of the simplest and also one of the tastiest.
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I must say I wholeheartedly agree with Suvir on his serving "street food" in his upscale Indian restaurant. I am all for anything that can be done to popularize Indian food -- both in the sense of "upscaling" it as well as in the sense of making it more ubiquitious.
Although I have been known to frequently complain about the lack of "value-for-money" in the Indian restaurants in the San Francisco bay area, I completely see Suvir's point. As long as his restaurant provides a good "value-for-money", this is absolutely the right move. And I hope he does.
To give a local example -- Shalimar in San Francisco has no ambience, has plastic tables, fluorescent lights etc. And the place is cheap. Yet they have the very best Tandoori Chicken in the area. On the other side of the scale is Turmerik in Sunnyvale. Decidedly upscale (although not to NYC or London Indian restaurant standards), but the food is good and so is the ambience, service etc. To me, both have good value-for-money, and I keep visiting both of them.
My point is, you can't use just the price alone to justify whether something is good or not. There are other factors at play here.
And, BTW, congratulations to Suvir on his new restaurant and wish him all the best.
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You may also want to try the Bengali recipe with Mustard paste (freshly made) and baked inside a banana leaf wrapper.
I posted a sort of recipe here in this thread:
Cooking with mustard oil thread
This dish is classically made with Hilsa fish, but pomfret (or pompano as its sometimes called in the USA) works well too.
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It'd be really hard to beat homemade yogurt. Here's my recipe:
Ingredients
- 1 quart (4 cups) non-fat milk.
[ You can also use whole milk. If using whole milk, just use half the amount of powdered milk mentioned below. ] - 1 cup "instant" nonfat powdered milk
[ If using "regular" non-fat powedered milk, use only 1/2 cup.
This is an Optional ingredient -- simply makes for a thicker yogurt.] - 4 tbsp. Yogurt to use as a starter.
[ Make sure that you use a yogurt with "Live Culture" for the starter. In the US, the container will usually say this. Or, you can also use "Russian Yogurt".]
Procedure
Mix the liquid milk and the dry milk. Bring the mixture to a slow boil in a saucepan over low-medium heat (approximately 40-45 minutes). Cool immediately to 120 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees celcius) or until lukewarm to the touch.
Thoroughly but gently mix the 4 tbsp. of yogurt to the warm milk.
Place the milk in a covered container in a oven heated to 120 degrees Fahrenheit for about 4 hours or until yogurt has set.
Once set, the yogurt will keep for 2-3 weeks in the refrigerator.
Note: 120 degrees is too low a temperature for most home ovens to achieve. I normally turn the oven on for about 5 minutes, then shut it off and just leave the pilot lamp on. This is usually sufficient to maintain 120 degrees in the oven.
If you live in a warmer climate, you may be able to just leave it in a warm area of your kitchen. Back in India, this is what folks used to do.
Yield
This procedure will yield about 1 quart (4 cups) of plain yogurt.
Use Yogurt to make ...
... Raita
Chopped up cucumber, pinch of salt, pinch of cumin powder mixed thoroughly with yogurt. This is just one variant. There are literally hundreds of variants.
... Lassi
Beat yogurt in a blender till its liquidy. Add a pinch of salt and a pinch of cumin powder. This will make a salty lassi. Alternatively you can add a tiny bit of salt and some sugar to make a sweet lassi. Top it with some crushed ice.
Reference
- 1 quart (4 cups) non-fat milk.
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For meat dishes (especially goat meat aka mutton), I use Yougurt most of the time. Sometimes I use tomatoes. For veggies, I almost always use tomatoes.
Also use tamarind (concentrate is what I use) for some dishes, especially as the main ingredient in the "sauce" to be used on chaats.
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alu sheddho with steamed rice and a watery bengali style mushoor dal (with a squeeze of lime) is a meal fit for a king.
BYW, this alu-sheddho with rice and watery daal for Bengalis is probably the equivalent of what they call a classic "comfort food" in the US.
Hard to find a dish that is simpler to prepare. Key is to use good quality mustard oil. Which is, sadly, difficult to find here in the US.
In our house, sometimes we would also add a mashed-up hard-boiled egg to the alu-sheddho and eat it that way.
Magoor maacher (or sometimes Shinghi maach; both are a type of catfish) jhhol was the staple at our house too -- I especially remember the watery "jhhol" (a.k.a. stew) my mom would prepare for us anytime we were down ill with a fever.
Here is a picture of some Magoor maach. Enjoy :>
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There should be a separate thread for this, but what's your favorite place to buy Indian desserts in the Bay Area? I like the Ras Malai at Rajjot, (El Camino and Wolfe) but I'd love to hear recommendations...
Lovely Sweets, in Fremont as well as in Sunnyvale.
The Sunnyvale branch is on El Camino, near Wolfe. Haven't tried the Fremont branch myself.
All the dry sweets (Barfis, Sandesh etc) are especially good. The ones with liquid are good, but not great. (I am comparing here with Kolkata standards!)
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i personally have my doubts that it is parwal/potol since i've never heard of it being available fresh in the u.s (assuming that's where the questioner is from). the only time i've ever seen it in the u.s is frozen in bangladeshi grocery stores (and it comes out pretty horrible when you thaw it and cook it).
Here in the San Francisco Bay Area, fresh "Parwal" a.k.a "Potol" is indeed available in many Indian grocery stores...
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Anyway, coming back to the original question of "Indian" drinks - a favorite of mine is the fresh juice of a green cocunut. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and am lucky enough to find green coconuts in Chinese/Vietnamese grocery stores around here.
- buy green coconut.
- cut open the top with a cleaver.
- pour juice. strain if necessary. Voila! ready to drink.
As a bonus, some coconuts also have a thick flesh inside. Which you can scrape off with a spoon and eat. Yum!
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You can find the dried powdered aamloki in aryuvedic stores for just that purpose - don't care for the stuff myself
I was actually referring to not the powdered stuff, but actual dried wedges. But they (both the dry as well as the fresh ones) are not that bad with a bit of salt -- although you are right they require an acquired taste and are not for everyone.
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nope.....we called them nellikai - looked like little yellow pumpkins....amla i guess is another word for it?
here's an artisitic representation....
Phyllantus Acidus is what we call "aamloki" in Bengali. Extremely tart. Bengalis usually have them in a dried form (cut into wedges and then dried). The dried form looks black or very dark brown. Helps in digestion, I am told.
I didn't realize they were called "gooseberries"...
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I am looking for regional vegetarian ideas from India that go beyond the stereotyped punjabi restaurant-style dishes that you usually find in Indian restaurants.
Does anyone have any good cookbook suggestions on this topic?
I have had very good results using recipes from this book:
Dakshin: Vegetarian Cuisine from South India, by Chandra Padmanabhan
In this book, in addition to the good recipes, she also suggests sets of dishes which would make for a full course dinner or lunch.
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Especially for Mishti Doi (yum!), the earthenware (called "bhand" in Bengali) serves two purposes I can think of:
(a) Slowly leeches moisture out of the doi. And since the cup is not sealed on top (its usually covered with a piece of tissue-like paper tied around the top), there is evaporation from the top surface as well. As a result, a thick creamy crust forms on the top, around the edges. Some people don't like this thicker part, but when I was a kid, licking off this thick creamy top part from Mishti Doi was one of the best parts of eating Mishti Doi.
(b) It also works as a poor man's refrigerator. The slow evaporation helps keep the doi cool. Same principle works when they store drinking water in earthenware jugs (called "kunjo" or "kolshi" in Bengali).
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living in the Northern US made it quite difficult to ferment the flours for dosas and idlis - in my house we had a micro right above a self-cleaning oven, so one trick we developed was to put the oven in cleaning mode and leave the pot with the batter in the micro so the ambient heat would help ferment it.
I use a similar trick myself. I turn on the oven at my lowest setting, leave it on for 5 minutes and then turn it off. I then leave the pilot light inside the oven turned on -- that seems to provide enough warmth for the Dosa batter to ferment perfectly.
I use the same technique when making Yougurt...
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Thank you BBhasin, skchai and the others. Especially BBhasin for such an informative post.
I learnt a lot.
I know exactly what you said about the California Pizza Kitchen episode -- I also have experienced the same, and that was my first and last time.
I will indeed sleep better now...
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[ My background: I am an Indian Bengali, born and bred in Kolkata and now living in California for the last few years. ]
Now, here in the USA, and I suspect its the same in the UK, tandoori chicken as served in Indian restaurants is always colored red. There are a few exceptions (i.e. Shalimar in San Francisco, which IMO serves one heck of a tandoori chicken), but they are extremely rare.
Question #1: Does anybody know who started this trend of using red color in Tandoori Chicken?
I personally don't have anything against food coloring, I am just curious. Especially because the color doesn't add to the taste.
Question #2: Anybody knows who started this trend of putting "Tandoori Chicken" on the menu of restaurants in the USA/UK?
In India, other than the five-star hotel restaurants (even in those its kinda rare), I have never really seen "Tandoori Chicken" on the menus of Punjabi restaurants. Chicken is indeed served in those restaurants, its just called something else on the menu.
These days, no one in the USA will believe you have an Indian restaurant unless you have Tandoori chicken on your menu.
These burning questions are keeping me awake at night.
I figured if anyone could answer these questions it would have to be the folks here at eGullet...
So there.
Chai (tea)
in India: Cooking & Baking
Posted
All I am saying is that in Bengal, most of the tea that you will find is brewed (or boiled, depending on the "cheapness" of the place :> ) in water. Not in milk. Well maybe sometimes with a little bit of milk. But the bulk of it is water.
And I am also saying is that you won't usually find spices of any kind in the tea as well.