I like to think that I'm on top of the latest food trends, even if I'm not that actually interested in many of them (donut burger anyone?). However Indian sweets cooked in a microwave, have somehow passed me by, despite being around for ages apparently. I first came across this method for making kalakand, an Indian milk-based sweet, on the rather excellent Bong Mom's Cookbook blog. I have to say that I was a little sceptical about the whole thing, but this was one of the simplest Indian sweets I have ever made. Admittedly, I am usually an Ambala girl rather than a stirring milk for ages person, but this is a recipe that came nowhere near testing my limited patience.

Kalakand are a little bit like burfi or Bengali sandesh, but with a softer texture and are more obviously milky; sort of like cottage cheese combined with fudge, though that makes them sound horrible (which they aren't). These kalakand were not too heavy or sweet, and were rich with cardamom. I followed the Bong Mom recipe pretty accurately, except that I didn't bother with the chocolate topping and just used chopped pistachios and almonds instead. I also added the crushed seeds from around 4 or 5 cardamom pods to the milk mix. Here are the ingredients with UK measurements.

Recipe (enough for 20 or so pieces)

500g ricotta cheese
1 x 397g tin, sweetened condensed milk
Seeds from 4-5 cardamom pods, crushed
Generous handful of almonds and pistachios, chopped

Firstly you'll need a suitable dish that can go in the microwave, and is relatively shallow, so your kalakand aren't too thick. I have a 1000 watt microwave, and after mixing all the ingredients except the nuts, I cooked the kalakand for five minutes at full power, followed by another five minutes, stirring well in between. If it looks like it's going to boil over at any point, stop microwaving and stir again. Then microwave in one minute bursts, until the mixture thickens, but is still a little moist on top. This is likely to take another five to seven minutes, so it will have been in the microwave for 15 to 17 minutes in total. This is obviously going to vary depending on the type of microwave you have. Once the kalakand is firm (but not totally dried out), sprinkle the nuts on top and press down slightly. Let the dish cool a bit and then chill in the fridge overnight. Take the kalakand out of the fridge 30 minutes before you want to eat them, so they come up to room temperature, slice into bite size pieces, transfer onto a jazzy serving dish, and tuck in. Ideal with a nice cup of tea.

So things continue to go well in vegan world. I've stuck with the Bircher muesli breakfast (toast with margarine just doesn't appeal that much), but have switched up the fruit I have with it. I've been a bit pressed for time, so I thought I'd look into a few ready made options for my work lunches. I was delighted to find that Waitrose do a whole range of packaged, salad-y things which are vegan. I think they are actually all labelled as vegetarian, but they don't have any dairy in them.

I added some extra cashew nuts to the Asian slaw, which was properly zesty and sharp, with loads of lime in the dressing, and ideal for the stupidly hot weather we've had recently. Lemon and coriander humus (or indeed houmous) is pretty much a classic now, and went perfectly with the roasted cauliflower salad. These are definitely two salads I will buy again (or try and replicate at home). Anyway, with the addition of some salad leaves, tomatoes, olives, and Ryvita, these three items dealt with my weekday lunch requirements.

For dinners in the week, I accidentally made way too much Indian food. To be honest, I don't think I've ever managed to make a small amount of 'desi khanna', so this was not that surprising. I made Bengali-style greens (but with no ghee) and a Bengali-style malai curry but with mushrooms, broccoli, and baby corn instead of prawns. I also increased the spicing a bit to compensate for lack of seafood, so added in 2 tsp of ground coriander, another of ground cumin, and 1 tsp of crushed chilli flakes (mostly due to running out of fresh chillis). This was served with quinoa cooked with Indian whole spices and cashew nuts, in the style of a pilau rice, and some poppadoms. As expected this was all delicious, and the quinoa worked really well with everything else as a rice-alike neutral grain.


Weekend eating involved the appearance of a now somewhat ubiquitous Linda McCartney product (sausage rolls this time, which are actually quite nice). I also made some quinoa and mushroom stuffed, roasted peppers, which were unexpectedly tasty too (despite not having any melted cheese on top), with the sweet pepper contrasting nicely with the savoury filling.


Roasted and stuffed peppers (I'd suggest half a pepper per person as a side dish)

2 peppers (ideally red or yellow)
1 small red onion, finely sliced
2  medium cloves garlic, crushed
Around 50-75g quinoa
5 or 6 chestnut mushrooms, finely sliced
1 tblsp vegan herb cream cheese (optional)
5-6 basil leaves, torn
1 tsp Marigold vegetable bouillon powder
2-3 tblsp olive oil
Around 100ml water, or enough to cook the quinoa

Firstly the peppers- slice each one in half through it's stalk. Bring a pan of water to the boil, and then drop in the peppers. Reduce the heat a bit, and simmer for around 5-10 minutes, until the peppers are tender. Drain, pat dry, and then drizzle over a bit of olive oil. Make sure the sure the peppers are well coated in oil and then put them under a grill until they just start to char and blister a bit. Turn them at least once during the process. If you have functioning oven, you can just oil up the peppers and roast them in there on gas mark 6, but this will take around 30 minutes. While the peppers are cooking, gently fry the onion, garlic, and mushroom, in the rest of the oil. Once they've softened, add the quinoa, the bouillon powder, and hot water to cover. Simmer over a low heat for around 15 minutes, or until the quinoa is cooked, adding more water if needed. Stir in the basil leaves, and cream cheese, and spoon into the peppers. If you wanted some sort of topping I would suggest breadcrumbs, either fried in a pan first and sprinkled on top, or 'raw' drizzled with oil and then grilled.

I've also increased my snacking range, as lots of of savoury, crunchy stuff appears to be effortlessly vegan. I've never had plantain chips before, but they were excellent. And of course, it's hard to go wrong with rice crackers.

For some slightly more extravagant weekend dinners, I cooked an uber-spicy, vegan version of Ottolenghi's black pepper tofu (which has become a modern classic). Making this vegan, just means leaving out the butter, so pretty simple. I  also made quite a lot of cauliflower fried rice and a side of steamed pak choi with sesame oil. As a side note, I didn't bother blanching the cauliflower first this time (and won't bother again). I just sautéed it in a bit of oil and garlic in a non-stick pan, for a few minutes, tipped it out, cooked the other veg, and tipped it back in. This was all fantastic, and again one of those meals which I'd happily eat again, vegan or not.


So veganism so far is proving to be surprisingly delicious.

This is a really simple salmon recipe that my parents came up with aeons ago for cooking what was at the time a pretty unfamiliar British fish- so a true fusion dish! I'm sure it could be adapted for use with other oily fish, or indeed the more traditional Bengali rui mach. There isn't much jhol, or gravy, as such but what you do have is quite a delicately spiced dish which really compliments the rich flavour of salmon.

Recipe (enough for 2)

Around 300g of salmon, scaled and cut into large-ish chunks
A large thumb-sized piece of ginger, squashed to a paste
2 cloves of garlic, squashed to a paste
1 large dried bay leaf
1 whole green chilli, pricked a few times
Around 2 tsp black onion seeds (a.k.a. nigella, kalonji, or kalo jeera if you're Bengali)
Around 1.5 tsp turmeric
A small squirt of tomato purée
Around 1 tsp salt, or to taste
Around 1 tblsp plain oil
Couple of tbslp chopped fresh coriander leaves (optional)

Firstly marinate the fish in around 1 tsp of turmeric. Give it a good stir so it's all lightly coated, and leave it for around 30mins (or less if that's more convenient). In the meantime squish the the ginger and garlic, and mix into a paste. When you're ready to cook, heat the oil in a suitable pan (non-stick is pretty handy for this) and then put in the fish. Gently fry for a few minutes on each side to 'seal' it but not cook it fully. Take the fish out (leaving the oil in the pan) and put it the bay leaf, ginger and garlic, and chilli. Cook over a medium heat for a few minutes and then add the black onion seeds, and continue to cook. After another couple of minutes, put the fish back in, sprinkle over the rest of the turmeric, and add the tomato purée with a couple of tablespoons of water. Gently mix everything together, season to taste and place over a low heat until the fish is cooked through. This will probably take 5 to 10 minutes depending on the size of your fish pieces.


Once cooked, take off the heat and stir in the coriander if you're using it. Serve with plain boiled rice, and maybe some vegetables, while contemplating the the brilliance of kalo jeera.

The Bengalis have been chomping their way through fish bones and bits of indigestible vegetable for centuries now. Something I've never quite got my fussy head around #BengaliFail

But there are a few things which I have come round to, and this dish of cauliflower with its stalks is one of them. I guess it is the vegetable equivalent of nose-to-tail eating, as it uses the entire cauliflower with very little waste. In fact you can make it totally sans florets (and use those for something else), but I prefer to save about half of them and have it as a more mixed dish. You can also add in other vegetables- as peas or butternut squash which work particularly well.

This dish also uses the typical Bengali spice blend of panch phoron. This is a mixture of whole fenugreek, cumin, mustard, fennel, and black onion seeds, and is used in a range of vegetable dishes. I am reliably informed that this is available in Waitrose, (or any Indian grocery shop).

Recipe (plenty for 2):

2 dried bay leaves
Around 2-3 tsps panch phoron
1 tsp turmeric
Stalks from one medium cauliflower and around half the florets
Around a tblsp of fresh ginger, crushed into a paste
1 whole green chilli
1 tsp salt, or to taste
1-1.5 tblsp plain oil, such as sunflower.

Firstly prep your cauliflower by removing any outer leaves or stalks that look all shrivelled up and inedible, and then start cutting away at the inner stalks to reach the florets. Cut the florets away from the core and set aside any you're saving for later. Slice up the stalks into medium pieces that aren't too thick, and do the same with the core. The cauliflower florets should be cut into smaller pieces too, but nothing too tiny as you don't want them to disintegrate in the pan. Once you've got the ginger crushed and ready, you're ready to cook. Heat up the oil in a large pan, and when it's hot (but not smoking) put in the bay leaves and panch phoron seeds. Reduce the heat if needed so that nothing scorches. When the seeds start to pop a little, put in the ginger and then the cauliflower stalks and florets and chilli, and give everything a good stir. Add the salt and turmeric, turn the heat down, put  a lid on the pan, and allow to cook for around 15 minutes. Check on it during this time, and if it looks like anything is catching, add a little water and stir well. The torkari is done when the stalks and florets are both tender and fully cooked through. If you wanted to add some peas, wait until the cauliflower is cooked before putting them in. But if you were using squash, give this a head start and add it in first, allowing it to cook for around 10 minutes before putting in the cauliflower. Serve with rice, other Bengali things, or chapatis.

Coming back from a trip to India always results in an immediate upsurge in the amount of Indian and Bengali food that I cook, so that's going to be reflected in the next few blog posts.

As I child I pretty much detested all forms of dal, and especially the patla, thin dals my mother made with giant pieces of ginger in them. Luckily for me I discovered cholar dal at some point. Cholar dal is somehow quite 'meaty' in taste, and rich with ghee and coconut. It's often a 'celebration dal' served at wedding meals, but is also great with plain rice and a papar/poppadom. Anyway, here's the sort of loose recipe that I use, but as ever with Indian food do feel to adjust the flavours (within reason) if you want.


Recipe (easily enough for 4-6 depending on what else you're eating):

Around 250g cholar dal lentils (Natco are a good brand for this)
Around 500ml water

1.5 tblsp ghee
1-2 small bay leaves
3-4 cardamom pods, split
2-3 small pieces Indian cinnamon/cassia bark
2 tblsp fresh coconut, chopped into small pieces
1-2 large, whole, dried Indian red chillis
0.5 tsp turmeric
0.5 tsp salt (or to taste)

Firstly, cook the dal with plenty of water until it is completely tender and cooked through. I do this on a very low simmer on the hob, and it takes around 30-40 minutes, starting with around double the volume of water to lentils. This should all be absorbed by the time the dal is cooked through, but keep an eye on it and make sure you top up the water if needed and give it the occasional stir to stop it sticking on the bottom of your pan. If you're proficient with pressure cookers, you'll probably be able to reduce this step to 10-15 minutes. Whichever way you do things, you should end up with quite a thick (but still  liquid) mixture, which you can leave to the side to cool.

To season the boiled lentils, warm the ghee in a small pan and add all the whole spices and pieces of coconut. Cook gently until the coconut is slightly browned. Once everything is lightly toasted, add in the turmeric and cook for another minute to coat everything in the yellow powder, and then tip it all into the pan of lentils. Add the salt, and stir the lentils and the flavourings together. If the dal is getting a bit too thick then add a bit of extra water, and check the seasoning, while you you warm it over a gentle heat. Serve with rice, saag, and something fried, or whatever else you fancy really.

I've been a little quiet on the blogging front recently- I attribute it to being in India last month, general hectic-ness around the Christmas break, and laziness.
Anyway here is a quick photo update on my recent eatings.


Kolkata involved a lot of family meals, a wedding, and copious visits to mishti dokans. This led to me experiencing the chocolate sandesh via Balaram Mullick for the first time- and I declare it to be surprisingly good.

Christmas dinner involved a highly indulgent Indian meal, with some Bengali and north Indian standards- saag, cholar dahl, prawn biriyani (which turned into more of a pilao rice really), tandoori-style salmon, and paneer tikka. New year went heavy on the seafood, and light on the crazy partying.

Right back to a bit more Bengali food now. This cabbage dish is a staple of Bengali cooking, and one I remember being forced to eat when I was small. I would assiduously pick out all the prawns (and eat them), have a tiny bit of cabbage and then declare that I'd 'finished'. I didn't get away with this that often. Happily I am now a big fan of cabbage in all its forms, from Savoy to the white stuff.

Traditionally Bengali vegetable dishes aren't often cooked with garlic or onions, and so this cabbage recipe uses a simple combination of ginger and whole cumin seeds. Adding prawns is optional, and if you want to keep things vegetarian, peas are a good substitute. And in fact, having both in there is fine too.

Recipe (enough for 4 as part of a larger meal):

1 white cabbage, washed and shredded
Large thumb-sized piece of ginger, squashed to a paste
1 dried bay leaf
1 piece of cinnamon/cassia bark
1 green chilli
2 cardamon pods, split
1-2 tsp turmeric
2 tsp whole cumin seeds
1-2 tblsp sunflower (or other plain) oil
Around 150g cooked prawns and/or a couple of handfuls of peas
1 tsp salt, or enough to season


Heat up the oil in a large-ish flat bottomed pan (ideally) and when it's hot, but not smoking, throw in the bay leaf, cinnamon, cardamon. After a minute or two, add in the ginger and cumin seeds, and continue to stir over a medium heat for another couple of minutes. When the ginger is just starting to cook through and the seeds are slightly brown, put the cabbage in and stir everything really well. The residual water from washing the cabbage should provide enough liquid and steam to cook it. Once the cabbage has shrunk down a little, add the turmeric, salt, and green chilli (prick a couple of holes in it with a knife, so you get the flavour but not the heat), and stir well. Cook the cabbage for at least 15 minutes over a low heat with a lid on the pan- it should be completely tender and mildly yellow. Finally put in the prawns or the peas (defrosted if frozen), mix everything together and cook for a further 5 minutes until it's all heated through. Serve with rice or anything else Indian.

Several years ago I said in a blog post that I'd write about Bengali fishcakes or macher chop, but never quite got round to it. But as it's now Bengali new year, this seems an opportune moment to make good on that ancient promise.

These fishcakes would traditionally be served with dahl and rice, as a sort of 'first course', but a few are substantial enough to form the centre of a main meal. They are also pretty frugal, as they are made with tinned tuna and some other bits and bobs. You could of course use any firm fish, but for some reason it's always been tinned tuna in my household. Making the mix up in advance, and cooking it the next day, also adds to the convenience factor. This is also one of those recipes that can be adjusted to taste, so do change the amount of spices or chilli to suit.

Recipe (enough for around 12 depending on size):

1 medium potato, chopped up and boiled
2 tins (185g) of  tuna chunks, drained
3 tblsp cooked frozen peas
1 medium onion
A large thumb-sized piece of ginger
4 medium cloves of garlic
2 whole green chillis
1 tblsp sultanas (optional)
2 tblsp salted peanuts, roughly chopped or 1 tblsp crunchy peanut butter
Around 3 tblsp chopped corriander leaves
2 tsp garam masala
2 tsp ground cumin
2 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp salt
1 egg, beaten (plus another if needed)
Fresh or dried breadcrumbs
Plain oil for shallow frying

Start by making a paste with the onion, garlic, ginger, and chilli. My trusty Kenwood mini chopper does this in a few seconds, but you could pound it all by hand if needed. Mash the cooked potatoes until they are relatively smooth, then add the onion paste, tuna, coriander leaves, peanuts, sultanas, spices, and egg. Finally put in the peas, and give everything a good mix so it's well combined. You should by now have a mixture that can be easily formed into small-ish fishcake shapes (either flat or tubular work). If the mixture is relatively wet, this surface moisture should be enough to get the breadcrumbs to stick to the fishcakes. But if that isn't happening, then lightly dip them in a bit of beaten egg before rolling in breadcrumbs. You can then put the fishcakes in the fridge (on a clingfilm-ed plate) until needed. This also helps them firm up, and not fall apart while frying, so I'd recommend you do this if possible.

Heat enough oil to generously cover the bottom of a flat plan, and when it's hot (but definitely not smoking) carefully slide in the fishcakes. Cook them in batches until they are golden brown, which should take a few minutes on each side. They are a bit delicate, so do exercise caution when turning them. Drain them on some kitchen roll, and prepare to tuck in. These fishcakes also re-heat really well, either in a non-stick pan, under the grill, or in the oven, so can easily be made in advance. And I'll be seeing the new year in with some shortly.

I guess going to Kolkata recently has made me think about cooking Bengali food a bit more regularly. So here's something that's pretty easy to make, but is rather delicious. Bengali vegetable dishes don't tend to include garlic, but this recipe for spring greens is an exception. The greens are braised with garlic and kalo jeera (black onion seeds) until soft and very tender, and then finished off with a bit of ghee. It's an ideal side dish to go with other Indian food, but I suspect it would be quite nice with a bit of poached fish too.

Recipe (enough for 4-6 as a side dish):

2-3 heads of spring greens, around 500g, washed and shredded
4-5 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
2-3 heaped tsps kalo jeera/black onion seeds
1-2 Indian green chillis (optional)
1 generous tblsp ghee
1-2 tblsp sunflower (or another plain) oil
1 tsp salt (or adjust to taste)

Heat the oil in a large, wide-bottomed pan, and when it's warm put in the black onion seeds. Swirl them around a bit, and as the oil gets hotter they'll start to spit and pop. This should only take a minute or so, and when they start doing this add the garlic. Turn down the heat if necessary, as the garlic shouldn't really brown much. After another minute put the greens in and give everything a really good stir to make sure that the garlic and kalo jeera aren't all stuck on the bottom of the pan. Pierce the whole green chillis a couple of times, so that they release their flavour but hardly any heat, and add them to the greens with the salt. Give everything another good stir, turn the heat down low, put a lid on, and allow the greens to cook for at least 15 minutes. The residual water left on the leaves from washing them should create some steam which will help cook them, but stir occasionally to make sure nothing is sticking to the pan. When the greens are completely cooked, add the ghee and stir it through to coat all the leaves. This is one of those times when you don't want your vegetables to have any bite to them, and the greens should be cooked all the way through with the stalks easily falling apart. The saag won't look that exciting but the generous amounts of garlic and ghee do a very good job of pepping up these otherwise rather boring vegetables. Serve with rice and dahl, (or something else).

I don't cook masses of Bengali food, but with the traditional festival of Durga Puja looming, I thought I'd dig out this classic. Chingri malai curry (or indeed malaikari), is a very simple dish combining prawns, whole spices and the rather un-typical Bengali ingredient of coconut milk. Some reading tells me that the word 'malai' probably derives from Malay, and this explains the use of coconut milk too. Like many Indian recipes, there are lots of versions of this around, so this is my one.

Recipe (enough for two as a main dish):
Around 250g raw prawns (shell off, and de-veined)
1 small red onion
1 fat clove of garlic
A thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 tsp turmeric
4-5 green cardamon pods, split
1 large, dried bay leaf
1-2 pieces of cinnamon or cassia bark
1-2 green, Indian finger chillis, pierced a few times
1 tsp ground coriander
2-3 tblsp sunflower oil
Around 100g coconut cream
Around 100ml hot water
1-2 tsp salt for seasoning


Mix the prawns with the turmeric and a teaspoon of salt, and put in the fridge for an hour or so. If you're not going to cook the prawns until much later, leave out the salt. While the prawns are busy turning yellow, make a paste from the onions, garlic and ginger. It's definitely easiest to do this in a food processor, but a pestle and mortar would do the job too. Take the prawns out of the fridge 10 minutes or so before you want to start cooking, and add the salt (if you haven't earlier).
Heat a couple of tablespoons of oil in a pan, and when it's hot (but not smoking) add the prawns. Cook for a couple of minutes, until they are lightly coloured but not fully cooked through. Take the prawns out of the pan, add another tablespoon of oil (if needed) and add all the whole spices. Turn the heat down, so that they are just gently sizzling. After a couple of minutes put the ground coriander, chillies and onion paste in. As they soften, add the water to the coconut cream to create coconut milk which is the thickness of single cream. You may need to adjust the amount of water or coconut cream to achieve this. When the spices and paste have cooked for a good 10 minutes or so, put the coconut in and simmer for around 5 minutes to create a sauce. Put the prawns back in, add a little salt, and simmer again for 5 minutes until the prawns are fully cooked.

You should have a rich, thick coconut gravy which is subtly spiced and still tender prawns. Serve with plain, boiled rice, and let out a small sigh of satisfaction once you've finished eating.

So here's some real Indian home-style cooking, which is perfectly suited to the recent chilly weather we've been having. This curry is one of my mother's original speedy dinner dishes that I've been eating for several decades now, and is essentially made with store cupboard ingredients. There are versions of this egg curry from all over India, and I'm not exactly certain that this one is particularly Bengali. But as the person who cooked it is, that's what I've called it.

The dish basically comprises some hard boiled eggs in a tomato-based gravy, and for me is the epitome of hearty and warming. It is also pretty quick to make, especially if you have you eggs boiled and ready beforehand.

Recipe (enough for four as side dish):

4 hard boiled eggs, shelled and cooled
Around 1 tblsp plain flour
1.5 tsp turmeric
2 tblsp oil
1 medium onion, finely sliced
3 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
1 green chilli, pierces several times with the tip of a knife
Small thumb-sized piece of ginger, crushed to a paste
Around 8 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 tsp tomato puree
A dried bay leaf
0.5 tsp garam masala
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
0.5 tsp salt
3-4 tblsp fresh, or frozen and defrosted peas
About half a mug of water

Start by halving the boiled eggs, and lightly dusting them with the plain flour. Heat up a tablespoon or so of the oil (ideally in a non-stick pan) until its hot but not smoking, and carefully place in the egg halves in. Sprinkle over half a teaspoon on the turmeric, and when the eggs are lightly browned on one side turn them over until the other side matches. The turmeric means that the eggs should be golden by this point, and when they are take them out of the oil, and put to one side.
I should say that this 'frying the eggs' stage is optional, but I do find that it adds a slight crispy texture that I really like. But if you can't be bothered then just start with the below.
Put the rest of the oil in the pan and heat, before adding the bay leaf and the onions. Once the onions have started to soften, add all the ground spices including the rest of the turmeric. Stir well and then add the chilli, ginger and garlic. Cook this over a medium heat for a few minutes. Next throw in the tomatoes, and continue to cook until they've softened. Then add the tomato puree and enough water to create a thick gravy. Once it's gently bubbling put the eggs back in, tip in the peas and season with salt. Let this cook for few more minutes until the eggs and peas have heated through.

You can add some cubed, cooked potatoes to this too which makes it more of a main dish, or perhaps increase the number of eggs per person. Otherwise serve with rice and something else (I made a cabbage dish with ginger and cumin which you can just see peaking through in the picture above). Also feel free to adjust the spicing according to taste. I remember this egg curry as quite a mild dish, but if you fancy more of a kick chop up the chilli and fry it with the onions rather than keeping it whole. If you prefer things mild, don't accidentally bite into the whole chilli (I speak from experience).

In many ways I'm not very good at being a Bengali. I don't merrily chomp through fish heads, and there is no Rabindra Sangeet on my ipod. However there is one way in which I am very Bengali, and that is my love of mishti, Indian sweets or mithai.

As a child I baulked at my mum's thin, yellow macher jhol fish curry and fried bitter gourd uchay bhaja, but was happy to scoff down homemade syrupy sweet gulab jam or roshogolla. It's actually quite unusual for Bengalis to make many sweets at home, as back in Calcutta pretty much every neighbourhood has its own local sweet shop for all your mishti needs. Unfortunately an equivalent was very much lacking in the Cambridge of the 70's and 80's, so I was dependent on my mum's skills in this area and the occasional trip to the Ambala Sweet Centre in London for my fix. There are many branches of Ambala across London now, but the original shop is on Drummond Street. This is dangerously close to King's Cross Station, and I have to restrain myself from visiting on every single trip to London. Amabala is not a Bengali shop, but I'm not parochial in my mishti enjoyment, so anywhere selling jelebis, burfis and ladoos is fine by me.

Here's what I picked up on my most recent trip:

Ladoos! Probably my favourite Indian sweet, ladoos are made from fried gram flour soaked in syrup. The chickpea at its finest in my opinion.

Burfi! In this case chocolate and pistachio. The chocolate ones are a bit of a Western innovation, which involves pouring a thin layer of chocolate over a plain burfi. My sort of fusion cooking.

Indian sweets do have a reputation for being almost painfully sweet, and indeed some are. But there also some beautiful flavours of cardamom, cashew and pistachio, the richness of milk and cream, and textures that range from crumbly or softly spongy, to crispy. So as a change from the mince pies and chocolate yule logs that I might be consuming in the forthcoming festive season, I may well have a ladoo too. And with Christmas in mind, a selection of Indian sweets would make a top gift (nb they freeze very well, so you don't actually have to eat them all immediately).

Ambala also sell a range of savoury food, (I've written about their samosas before). And if you can't get to one of their many shops you can also order online (though not the samosas sadly).

This is one of my mum's recipes which uses a very typical Bengali ingredient- mustard, and in this case ground whole black mustard seeds. It makes a perfect side dish to go with Indian food, and is pungent with mustard and garlic with a little carrot-y sweetness. For me it's an ideal way to use up a carrot glut, so just scale this recipe up (or down) as required.
You should be able to find whole black mustard seeds in any Indian grocery shop, and then grind them yourself. I use an electric coffee grinder for this, just don't expect to be able to use it for coffee beans too.

Recipe (enough for loads)
1kg carrots (grated)
Around 3-4 tsp ground black mustard seeds
3 medium cloves garlic (crushed)
Small bunch corriander (roughly chopped)
1 medium green chilli
Around 1-2 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt (or enough to season to taste)

Put the oil in large pan, and heat until hot but not smoking and add in the carrots. Cook for a couple of minutes, and then add in the ground mustard. You basically want enough mustard so you can see the little grains against the carrot, as in the picture. Give everything a good stir, add in the garlic, pierce the chilli a few times and then add this in too. Piercing the chilli means you should get the flavour from it but not too much heat. Cover the pan and leave to cook for around ten to fifteen minutes or until the carrots are almost tender. Then add in the corriander and salt, stir and cook for another five minutes or so, by which time the carrots should be fully cooked through. Serve with dhal and rice or some Indian breads, or indeed anything that is likely to go with carrots and mustard.

Addendum: Following on-going conversations, my mother says that she also uses a couple of teaspoons of kalo jeera/black onion seeds in this dish- frying them in the oil at the start before the carrot goes in. However, I cook it without and it's still lovely. She also adds that if you are a serious mustard fan, you could also add some shorshe tel or mustard oil. It's pretty potent stuff though, so exercise caution!

There is something about the onset of autumn and winter that makes me crave Indian food. Which is strange really as it comes from completely the opposite climate to the UK's grey and dull weather. On the menu last weekend were Bengali-style cauliflower with ginger and cumin, North Indian/Punjabi spinach with paneer and fenugreek seeds, and tandoori-style prawns. More on the prawns later, but this post focusses on the vegetables. Oh and before I forget kudos to my mother for the recipes.

So traditional Bengali Hindu cooking generally doesn't use onions or garlic when cooking vegetables, instead mostly favouring ginger and a variety of different spices. This ful kofi (cauliflower) recipe is incredibly simple and can be eaten with either rice or an Indian bread like naan or chapattis.

Recipe (enough for 2-4 depending on what else you're eating)
1 tbsp oil
1 medium cauliflower
1 dried bay leaf
1.5 tsp whole cumin seeds
1 green chilli
0.5 inch piece of ginger
About 0.5 tsp salt or enough to season

Peel and crush the ginger into a paste and fry gently in the oil for a minute or two. Add the bay leaf. Pierce the chilli a couple of times with the tip of a knife, and add to the other ingredients to achieve flavour without heat. If you do want more heat, slice the chilli up, and leave the seeds in for extra hotness. Chop the cauliflower into medium florets and add to the pan with the cumin seeds and salt. Stir everything well and cover with a lid. I like my cauliflower au naturel, but if you'd prefer some colour add a little tumeric too. This should take around 10-15minutes to cook through on a low heat, but give it a stir every now and again. If it looks like things are sticking to the pan, pour in a spoon or two of water.

The Punjab region of India is known for its fondness for all things dairy, including paneer, but the combination of green leaves with this plain 'cheese' is something that is popular across North India. If you find them you could use fresh methi leaves instead of spinach in this dish, but I much prefer cooking with the uniquely fragranced methi or fenugreek seeds. I remember my mother making paneer from scratch back in the day, a process involving cheese cloths and various stages of boiling and straining milk. Luckily (as I don't own any cheese cloths) ready made paneer is pretty widely available in supermarkets these days.

I also use frozen spinach for this recipe. It comes blanched in little blocks so it's much easier to see how much you're getting, compared to bags of the fresh stuff which always seem to shrink down to about a teaspoon's worth no matter how much you start with.

Recipe (also enough for 2-4 depending on what else you're eating)
1 block of paneer (c.225g)
1 tsp tumeric
1 tsp ground cumin
0.5 tbsp oil for frying

500g frozen chopped spinach (defrost overnight or in the microwave)
3-4 fat cloves of garlic, crushed
1.5 tsp whole methi (fenugreek) seeds
1 green chilli
0.5 tbsp oil
About 0.5 tsp salt or enough to season

Cut the paneer into smallish pieces (as in the above picture), and combine the tumeric and ground cumin. Lightly dust the paneer pieces with this coating and fry until they're slightly browned. Once this is done set the paneer to one side.
Heat the remaining oil and put the fenugreek seeds in. Stir and cook gently until they just begin to colour and then add the spinach. Also add the whole green chilli, following the same procedure as with the cauliflower dish above to adjust the amount of heat. Stir everything well and then add the crushed garlic. Cook on a low heat for around 10minutes, add the paneer back in, mix well and return to the heat for another 10minutes or so. Scoff with rice or an Indian bread, ideally with some Bengali cauliflower on the side too.

Clawson Dairy paneer
I rate it 8/10
Cost: Around £2.00 per block

Chopped frozen spinach
I rate it 8/10
Cost: Around £1.00 for 1kg

So, when is a chop not a chop? When it's a cutlet of course! I am referring to a (rather delicious) anomaly in Indian cooking, that I assume stems from the time of Empire. The Indian chop is not a cut of meat and can often be vegetarian. It is in fact a combo of mashed potatoes mixed with either fish or vegetables and various spices, shaped into patties or chunky sausage shapes, coated in breadcrumbs and fried. Oddly enough the alternative name for a chop in India (or at least West Bengal) is a cutlet. I have yet to definitively establish if there is any difference between the two, and in my experience they both seem to be used inter-changeably, though the term chop is always used in my family. The meat version uses mince (keema), but whatever it's made of the Indian chop bares little relation to its British counterpart. I am intrigued about the origins of the use of this term though- were 'British chops' usually cooked coated in breadcrumbs during Empire times? Were the 'Indian chops' once shaped more like a cut of meat? Maybe the term chop meant something else altogether a few hundred years ago? Is this what India got in exchange for introducing Britain to kedgeree? I plan to continue my linguistic food investigations!

Anyway whatever it's origins, macher (fish) chop with dahl and some rice is one of my favourite Bengali meals. I will blog about this at a later date (when I have some more time to make them properly), but in the meantime here's something I came up with the other day. I had some raw prawns in the fridge that really needed to be cooked, and I felt like doing something a bit different than a stir-fry or pasta dish. So instead I prepared a slightly simplied version of a chingri (prawn) chop a.k.a. prawn fishcakes. This included most of the ingredients used in a classic macher chop, but instead of coating them in breadcrumbs I lightly dusted them in plain flour before shallowing frying. To make enough for around four chops (sufficient for one person as a main course or two as a side dish) I used the following:

Around 140g raw prawns, de-veined (do feel free to increase the amount of prawns as I was just using what I had left in the fridge)
1 medium potato, chopped, boiled and then mashed
Couple of large spring onions, or half a regular, medium, white onion
2 medium cloves of garlic
1/2 inch piece of ginger, peeled
1 green chilli (more if you prefer more heat or include ground chilli)
1 tsp ground corriander
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp-ish salt
plain flour for dusting
oil for frying

I prepared this using a Kenwood mini-chopper, which is one of my most used kitchen gadgets, but pounding and mixing everything by hand is possible (and of course more authentic!). I first made a paste from the onion, chilli, ginger and garlic, before adding in the prawns. The prawns should maintain a bit of texture rather than being blended to a mush. Take this mixture and add it to the (cooled) mashed potato, add the dry spices, and combine. The prawn mix should be wet enough to hold everything together which is why this recipe doesn't include a binding agent like egg (but you can add some beaten egg if it's too dry). Form the chops into patties, put them onto a plate lightly dusted in plain flour, (to stop them sticking) and refrigerate for about 30mins (the longer the better really, but you can get away with 10-15mins in some circumstances i.e. when hungry). When you're ready to cook them, heat enough oil to shallow fry, dust the chops in plain flour, pat off any excess and put them into the hot oil. They'll probably need about 6-8mins on each side, and should be a rich golden brown when they're done. I ate mine with a large salad, but these chops would also be perfect with rice and dahl.

Coming soon- Bengali macher chop and beetroot chop!