Mutton Kosha!

Any Bengali meal on a Sunday afternoon is incomplete without their staple mutton curry and rice (mangsho-bhat), and I'm sure any Bengali would vouch for this. The mangsho or mutton curry varies in its thickness consistency from one household to other and everyone has their own favourite recipes. Mutton is one of the easiest meat to cook in terms of flavouring, as you can keep it as simple or as complex as you wish but its own flavour and juices add a lot to the dish. So this is always one of the first recipes we bongs try our hands on. Here's a version of this recipe from the Oh! Calcutta cookbook. Over two hours of cooking time, but it was worth all the efforts to make this lip smacking Bengali delicacy and a Sunday afternoon staple Mutton Kosha (semi-dried gravy). The beauty of this dish is that practically no regular spice such as turmeric, coriander, cumin or chilli powder is needed for this.

Sharing the recipe:

Ingredients:

For marination:-

Mutton 500 grams

Ginger paste 5 tbsp

Garlic paste 3 tbsp

Curd 50 grams

Nutmeg-mace (javitri and jaifal) powder a pinch

Garam masala powder* 1 tbsp

(Bengali garam masala consists of Green cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, mace and nutmeg)

Mustard Oil 100 ml

Salt 1/2 tbsp

For gravy:

Onions (sliced) 500 grams

Bay leaves(tej patta) 3-4

Whole garam masala - 2 green cardamoms, 4 cloves, 6 1cm cinnamon sticks, mace 3-4 strands, nutmeg 1/4th of a fruit

Ginger-garlic paste 1 tsp

Garam masala powder a pinch

Turmeric (optional) a pinch

Kashmiri chilli powder (optional) 1/2 tsp

Mustard Oil 100 ml

Recipe:

Wash the mutton and mix all the ingredients listed under marination with it in a bowl, cover it and refrigerate for an hour.

In a flat bottom aluminium vessel or a handi, if you have one, heat the oil for gravy, temper it with the bay leaves and whole garam masala, and add the onions. Fry it well till it turns a lil' brown (not burnt), add the ginger-garlic paste and fry again and add the marinated mutton, add turmeric and chilli powder if you want to. Stir fry it for another 10 minutes and add 500 ml water and mix well. Lower the flame and cover it and cook it till the mutton is tender and gravy is all but dried up. It takes around 2 hours and 10-20 minutes more depending on the mutton's quality. Serve hot with rice or luchis (maida puri) or paratha. Bon appetite! :)

And some pictures...

Rice tales!

I LOVE RICE!
I don't have any other way to express how I feel for the beautiful, pearly white, 6 mm grains of happiness. (I remember almost punching a guy who made fun of 'us' rice-maniacs.) It is my comfort food. I get all cranky and sad on a day I don't eat rice at least once. No wonder I was so close to being a Bridezilla before my wedding as I was off rice for 2-3 months :D
A lot is said about the evil of eating rice, but something which has been mentioned in ancient civilisations and mythologies across cultures, cannot be bad. You can read the views of my favorite nutritionist and the most sensible person in the food business, Rujuta Diwekar, on rice here in this Outlook article: bit.ly/1JvFDVj, and also on her blog: bit.ly/1RbsAL6.

I'm no nutrition expert but even I know that anything eaten in gigantic proportions is going to harm your body and rice is no different. Being a bengali, we are fed rice literally since we start eating. We even have a ceremony for it! Our food habits are closely linked to our geographical locations and I now find it amusing (NO, I don't resort to violence anymore...) when someone from the Hindi speaking belt or Punjab or Haryana asks me with a smirk, "Tum bangali log poore time chawal-machli hi khaate rehte ho kya? Hamare yahan toh mahine mein ek-aadha baar hi banta hai". (Do you bengalis eat rice and fish all the time? It's only made once or twice a month at our place.) Or how s/he did not get any roti while being on that project in Chennai.
Well, if you're from a place which is located on a river-bank and surrounded by water bodies, the obvious choice would be to eat a grain where one can use this water abundance to grow it! And fish... we will talk about it some other day. So, basically you don't have to be related to Einstein to understand the love of rice in the hearts of people across the four sides of the country. Yes, even people from Kashmir love their fish and rice!
Rice is easy to make, more filling and can be eaten in many forms. It can be turned into a whole-some meal, can combine beautifully with veggies to meat (B.I.R.Y.A.N.I). Even left-over rice has so many uses (fried rice tastes best with such rice). However, how do you make a perfect bowl of rice? You can make it either in a pressure cooker or a cooking pot on a gas stove/induction top. You can use a rice cooker or microwave as well, but I like to make it in a cooking pot.
The cooking time of rice depends on the variety of rice. In Bengal or Kerala, parboiled varieties of rice (which is unpolished—known as Sheddo chaal in Bengal and Rosematta, Palakkadan Matta or red parboiled rice in Kerala) is eaten more than the sun-dried (polished) white or what we call aatap or kaccha variety. Brown rice is 'unmilled' or 'hulled' variety. The polished white variety is quickest to cook (10-25 minutes, depending on the quantity of rice being cooked). Rest all the varieties mentioned above take much more time.
During my childhood, we always ate parboiled rice, which was cooked in an aluminium cauldron (handi) despite living far away from Bengal. We bongs can find our food in Timbaktu as well :-p So this variety of rice needs a lot of water for cooking and once it is cooked, the excess water is sieved out, and I can bet a lot of us and our mothers have burnt their hands during this process :)
And due to this long cooking time and the danger of getting burnt, once I started living alone, I decided to switch to the normal white rice. I don't need to have many accompaniments with it. Give me a dollop of ghee (and if it's that special cow's milk ghee Jharna <3 i="">) with a bit of salt and my kancha lonka (a green chilli), and I'm sorted! PLEASE DO NOT HAVE IT ON A DAILY BASIS!!!
We bongs have this thing for rice and ghee and other boiled veggies, which were traditionally put in the same pot of rice for cooking. Many veggies, including potatoes, okra, pumpkin, and even bitter gourd (KARELA). I got into this because of my brother, who discovered the love for this meal from our maternal grandmother, with whom he stayed till the age of 8. Being a young Bengali Brahmin widow, one of the disgusting customs (we have, as other Hindu communities, had, in fact still have, some of the most unfair rituals for our lady widows) she had to follow was to be off non-veg for the rest of her life and on the 11th or Ekadashi of every month, cook herself a meal which she would offer to the Gods to pay for her past lives' sins that took her husband away before her. This meal will be purely satvik, meaning no meat or poultry of course and no onion or garlic or oil, too. So, she would put all these veggies in the rice handi and when everything was cooked, she would peel the potatoes and mash everything with ghee and salt. And as my brother often used to tell me, it was purely divine! So, more often than not it used to be our indulgence. We would add some mustard oil, chopped onions and green chilies or add pickle oil and have it with rice. So during my solitary days, this always came to my rescue. 

So how do you make rice? Well, with time you just know when it's done. My mother-in-law says that when my husband was just 2 and could barely speak, he used to play in the porch overlooking the kitchen in their Barrackpore home. He would somehow look at the water bubbles forming in the rice handi and say, Ma, hoye geche (Mom, it's done) and when she would check the rice, and it would actually be done. So take birth in a Bengali family in your next life to know the perfect formula to make rice, see we just know it :-p Lollzz... No, no just kidding! Bengali moms boasts just a little too much about their babies. Yes, their kids are always babies to them and are the poor victims of this unjust world and are THE BEST!!! I remember one of my friend's (bong again) mom told me that she could make fish curry at the age of 5 (yes, I raised both of my eyebrows too!) 
Jokes apart, 'try and try, until you succeed' formula also works, like in every thing else, when cooking rice. When you are using a pressure cooker, take equal quantity of rice grains (I'm talking about kaccha or basmati rice) and water (or 1:1 formula). For beginners, dip your index finger in the cooker and if the first horizontal line on it is immersed in water, you are good. Let the cooker whistle once, and your rice is done. 
Now for the open pot method:

1. Wash the rice twice. Don't overwash it, else you will break the grains.
2. Boil water, double the volume of rice you are cooking. So for one cup rice, use two to two-and-a-half cups of water (1:2). If you plan to drain the water after cooking, take around 6-7 cups (1:6). For brown rice, too, take 6-7 times more water than the quantity of rice.
3. Let the water come to a full boil, then add the washed rice grains and stir it once lightly to make sure the grains don't stick to the bottom. Then, out down the stove to medium flame and keep stirring from time to time. When the rice completely soaks the water (when you are using the 1:2 method), switch off the gas and cover the pot for 5-7 minutes. Your rice is ready. Else in the 1:6 method, when you see the rice has come on top, check a grain by squeezing it with your fingers. If it's completely smashed, your rice is done. Again keep it covered for sometime and then drain the water using a colander or sieve it by tilting the pot with its cover (hold it with two kitchen towels) and draining the water in the sink.
4. After the rice is done, take off the lid and let it be in open air for some time. It's ready to be devoured.

From cooking for just myself to cooking for an entire family, it took me sometime to understand how to make the perfect bowl of rice every time, but my Mom-in-law told me that with time I will just know that when it's done and now I can also tell by just looking at the bubbles that when it's hoye geche :) 
Hope you enjoyed this experience, tell me about your comfort food and how to make it. Awaiting your comments.  I will share many more wonderful rice recipes that are easy to make as well as taste delicious in the coming days. Until then, keep exploring!

Of resolutions and going back to basics!

So somewhere in 2015, I announced with much fanfare that I will share my self-acquired culinary wisdom with the world. However, whatever little I did share were all baking recipes. So one day it just struck me that although baking can be done by all and it's a therapeutic activity, you can't just survive on cake, I mean it's a dessert for all its worth (I definitely believe otherwise :-p)! You need more to survive, right? So, beginning today, I will share some basic recipes and then move on to meal combos. You can ask, suggest and exchange ideas on these. As I have always maintained, I'm not the last word on cooking, damn I still burn chappatis sometimes... However, that does not mean I will not share the more complex recipes in between, I'll share more :) That's part one!
Starting this year, I also plan to review books, movies and places I like. Basically, express even more than I already do :D Hope I can do this!

My 2016 to-do list!

So as all these websites/pages on facebook have come out with listicles of 'what to do in 2016', thought of sharing my list of what to do in the New Year based on my learnings from the year gone by.

1. Become money wise.
Save, invest and start making a corpus for your future. Don't think that you are single and living with parents, so you don't need to do that. Or because you can fund your needs, so you don't require savings. Even if you are a house wife, don't save the money that your husband gives you under the pillow. Keep it in a bank. I know money is not everything, but hell yeah, it's a means to get everything. Gain knowledge about money (hire a financial planner). If you are working, save up to gift your parents a trip or even a spa date. Trust me, it feels awesome to see them beaming with pride when they tell people that their child has gifted them this. 

2. Get serious about your health for the long-term.
I know I know, me saying it can sound a lil' funny. But yes, I believe it and am seriously working towards it. But remember that being healthy does NOT mean being a particular size! If you have confidence in yourself, you can look gorgeous in size 2 or 20. Don't judge your body based on other people's rules. That weighing scale is just a device, don't let it rule your life. Don't get complacent about your body just coz you can still fit in that college time dress or have a 23 inch bicep. Get a full body check up done every six months. Don't abuse your body. If your body is telling you, you can't have that second glass of wine, politely but firmly refuse. Don't fall for, abey dost ke liye nahi piyega or one for the girls pack! If you want to have a salad have it, if you feel like having a gulab jamun, have it. But then know what you are feeding your body. Coz even if you're alone in Antarctica, it will be the only one you will have! Don't lose weight coz you're getting married in 4 months and then fall for the post-wedding overeating pressure (point in case me!). Hit the gym, yoga mat, bicycle, park, dance class, swimming pool for a long haul. And stop calling each other or yourself too fat or thin. Girls stop asking everyone if you are looking fat!!! Encourage with positive words not taunts. 

3. Give yourself a break...everyday.
Try and go easy on yourself for sometime everyday. So you messed up big time in office or your exam didn't go well or you unnecessarily fought with the partner. Kids broke the flower vase just before the guests arrived. Feel bad/guilty/sorry. Butttt.... give yourself some time to relax. Just me time! You can do anything. Read, write (I'm enjoying my me time right now :D), listen to music or something else. Use this time to get back to your normal self. Plan a solo trip!!! From someone who is a happy loner, trust me you can be good to spend time with :) 

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4. Don't be afraid to fail.
The problem with our generations, those which grew up till the 90s, is that noone told us that it is OK to fail. Parents said what will you do if you don't get 80% and don't get Science. How will you get a decent job?? Teachers always told the kid who didn't score well in exams your future is dark. But we all know that these advices didn't hold true forever. When your boss told you that your power point presentation sucked, or your article was non-sense, all those science project trophies and essay competition prizes and debating competitions you won in school or college looked so futile. So just believe that it is OK to fail or fall. It can be a bad increment or job loss or anything else. Coz these are the times that will show you the strength of your character and make you see your real friends. Stick with them. Take risks and don't be scared to hit the rock bottom. You will only go up from there :)smile emoticon Get out of a relationship if it doesn't make you happy. Walk out on that job if you don't feel satisfied. Don't give a damn about log kya kahenge... 

5. Note to self: Doosron ke phate mein zyada taang mat adaao!!! Don't get too involved in other people's business. 
Being the agony aunt type, I have been many a times at the receiving end of flak from people who sorted their issues with my advice for being the reason of their problems (especially those bickering couples). See these people never learn to own up to their mistakes and feel solace in blaming others for their mess. So stay away. Save your advice for people who you actually care for. Also stay away from those who always talk about themselves and their issues and never check on you. These are not friends but parasites (strong word but if you think of it, the behaviour remains the same). 

6. Become independent! 
I mean it. Start earning!!! If you are good at something, teach it to others and take money for it. Take stock of your situation. Being independent does NOT mean earning and spending your money on yourself while living at your parents' place. Then asking Dad for money when you want to make tax investments or taking a trip and bugging Mom for cooking a better sabzi for tiffin. Parents can't be expected to spend their entire lives looking after us just because they made the mistake of giving birth to us :-ptongue emoticon They took care of us in school, then sorted our finances in college and work life, took care of our kids and household when we go out to work. When will they get a break? Give them that break. We like everything English. Then why don't we learn this from the West? They are on their own so early in life. So, why do we become so Indian in this? Pamper them now. From someone who lost her folks early in life, you can't begin to imagine what you have in lives. Those two (Mom and Dad) are the only ones, in most cases, who will protect you from everything they find evil (can be your spouse as well ;)wink emoticon ). So push them to take that break, from you! 

7. Do good for someone without any expectations.
Don't donate to a charity just for getting a nice facebook post or exemption under section 80G of the Income-tax Act, 1961 (if you don't know this, please refer to point no. 1 again). Do it for actually wanting to make a change. Don't share posts about saving the nature but go out there and do something about it. Stop that moron from throwing garbage in Yamuna river or that guy/girl in a bus/metro who gropes someone and teach them a lesson (use words in the former case and whatever else you can grab in the latter). Don't do good for appreciation but for feeling good about it. Karke dekho, it feels nice :) 

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So make this year a better one! Happy New Year all :)smile emoticon Make sure to have new beginnings in life!

Disclaimer: Follow these at your own risk! Don't come chasing after me if they don't work :-p 

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Lemon vanilla marble cake... A non-chocolate eater's new-found delight

Rains in any metropolitan city in India eventually brings traffic to a stand still, which leads to long journeys back home. Although I love monsoons, however such days usually leave me too drained as it takes ages to reach home from work... This year the rain gods have been especially kind to us. The National Capital seems to have finally got it's pending spell of continuous rains bringing with it the much-needed respite from the summer heat. But it also meant having to wait for what felt like ages to get an autorickshaw, a breakdown in the city's lifeline Metro, a snarl in traffic movement. So this other day, after taking over 90 minutes to reach home after office which usually takes less than half of that time, I needed to do something to de-stress and what better way to do that than some good old baking :) :) :)  However, I wanted to experiment. I know the basic recipe for a chocolate marble  cake in theory but as I don't eat chocolate, had never made it. So keeping all this in mind,  I thought of replacing chocolate with some flavour I like.  And add some colour to it, so that the cake has two shades. So decided on my all-time favourite flavour of all time -- lemon! And add a pinch of yellow food colour, and voila... I had my awesome (I liked it) lemon vanilla marble cake!!!

So here's my humble recipe...

The basic recipe remains that of a sponge cake and we basically divide it into two parts and add flavour to one. So first the recipe for a basic sponge cake:-

1. Fine flour - 2 cups
2. Eggs - 4 nos
3. Castor (grinded) sugar - 1 1/2 cups
* Tip: Always measure castor sugar according to sugar in raw form, so here I mean one-and-a-half cup of raw sugar, which we need to dry grind to make a powder of it.
4. Butter - 90 gms (I used one pack of 90 gms of Amul Butter)
5.  Vanilla essence - 2 teaspoons (tsp)
6. Baking powder - 1 tsp
7. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
8. Refined oil - 1 tsp
9. Milk - 2 tablespoons (tbsp)
* Tip: Measurement is the key to baking. So ensure you have the set of measurement spoons and cup in your pantry. It is easily available at utensil stores or shops which sell kitchen storage stuff (dabba dibbi wali dukaan :D)

Procedure:
Semi melt the butter in the microwave for 30 seconds or let it come to a bit gooey texture at room temperature. Then prepare your baking tin. I used a 25 cm diameter tin. Put 1 tsp of refined oil in the tin and coat it entirely with turning it sideways and front and back wards. Sprinkle a lil' bit of fine flour (maida) and coat the tin by beating the edges on your kitchen counter or a table top.
Beat the eggs in a bowl to a fluffy white foamy consistency, and sugar and butter in a separate one. Then add the beaten eggs to the sugar and butter mixture. Use an electric blender (I use a Morphy Richards hand blender).
Whisk in the flour into the mixture. (I find it easier to use a normal egg beater for this as electric hand beaters tend to make a mess by flying here and there with an electric beater.) Keep mixing the batter in cut-and-fold pattern—3 times clockwise and then make a straight line in the batter and then 3 times anti-clockwise and then make a straight line. Then add baking soda, baking powder and vanilla essence and mix again. Add the milk to give the batter a smooth finish.
I don't have an OTG and bake in convection mode of my microwave (LG intellocook), which basically means at 180 degrees Celsius.
So pre-heat the oven at convection for 5 minutes with a stand in it. Put the cake batter into the tin and again gently beat the edges on a table top to remove any air gaps. Put the tin on the rack and put it on convection mode for 40 mins. After 35 mins, take out the tin from the oven using oven mittens and put inside a skewer or knitting needle and if nothing from the cake sticks, it's almost done and put it again for 7 mins (it usually takes 42 mins baking and 1 min standby). Switch off the oven and let the cake be inside it for a couple of more mins, I can never wait over a minute, thus 1 min standby time :-p Let it cool. Put a plate on top of the tin and invert it and the cake shall come out, turn it over and enjoy!

Now for the lemon vanilla marble cake.

So till the batter, everything will be same. Post that, we will need 3 more things.

10. Lemon juice - 2 tbsp
11. Lemon rind - 1 tsp
12. Yellow food colour - A pinch

So after making the batter, divide it equally into two bowls. Into one, add the colour, juice and rind and give it mix till the batter takes a beautiful yellow colour. Now in the prepared tin, put one small ladle of plain batter and one ladle of flavoured batter and complete a circle. (In my tin, I could put five small ladles in the outer circle.) Then make an inner circle similarly (I could put three) and if space left another ladleful in the centre. Now use the skewer to slightly mix the batter by forming an 'S' shape across the circles. Make it twice or thrice cross sectionally. It will look like a modern art painting, don't worry. Now put it in the pre-heated oven for 35 mins and then check and put it again for 7-8 mins. Take it out, let it cool, cut slices and tadaaa! Eat and enjoy :)

And now some pictures...

The semi-melted butter

Eggs

Eggs ready to be beaten

 Beating eggs

 Butter and castor sugar

 Keep mixing

Adding the flour

Adding vanilla essence

Adding baking powder

                                     

                                                                   Whisking in

                                                                         Adding baking soda

                                                               Equal division into two bowls

                                                                     Adding lemon rind

                                                                          And lemon juice

 Adding the food colour

                                                             Mix till the batter turns yellow

 The prepared tin

 The modern art like batter

Cutting the cake

 The marbled effect

Kuch Mitha ho Jaaye! Peanut Butter Honey Oatmeal cookies

Don't we all just want to bake like Nigella Lawson someday? Well I would definitely love to do so... Was speaking about the food... Not the other things :-p I have always held people who can bake well in the highest regard, as baking is pure art. 
I have learnt the basics of baking very recently after my marriage from my mother-in-law Mrs. Rita Das. I would like to share a bit about this amazing lady. Eldest of six siblings, she got married right after completing her Bachelor's in Arts degree in Bengali Honours from Nistarini Women's College in Purulia, a small district near the then Bihar-Bengal (now Jharkhand-Bengal) border.  She went on to complete her Bachelor's in Education degree after her marriage. She got a few government job offers, but she chose to remain a housewife to look after her family and her children. I might not say it to her often but she has changed my views about feminism a lot. From being patient to perfecting the art of dealing with the toughest of situations with a sense of humor without hurting anyone, she has helped me transcend from being a girl to a women in this first year of my marriage. 
Her hobbies are reading, chatting, watching cookery shows and she loves cooking. I have an eye on her hand-written collection of recipes :-p But she is too generous as a teacher to tell you everything. She makes the world's best chutneys (sweet/tangy sauces) and pickles. She learnt baking from a neighbour in Dhanbad but went on to develop her own expertise in it, with the encouragement from my Father-in-Law. Her enthusiasm for cooking even at this age (she'll turn 60 this year) never ceases to inspire me.
She taught me how to bake a cake in the most simplest way possible. We gel a lot on our experimental nature towards cooking and the following recipe is a result of that.

                             Ma in her elements in her favourite place, the kitchen

I don't eat chocolate (I know, I know... I can see the look of disgust on your face), infact I can't eat chocolate since I was a kid as I found it bitter. So, I am usually left with options in desserts that are way too sugary and sweet.  So I always look for choices that are good on the pallet and are kind on the sugar content as well. Thankfully, my husband Arindam is a foody, so he doesn't crib about anything. 
I don't know about others, but I don't like the packed bakery biscuits or cookies, especially the sweet ones, as they have a weird smell. But Arindam loves bakery goods so I needed to make something which will satisfy both of our demands. So who came to our rescue but our very own... Sanjeev Kapoor :) He is my first guru of cooking like a lot of other Indians. I've learnt how to chop vegetables from his show Khana Khazana.  So, we found a recipe online, we (me, Ma and my husband always assists me in such endeavours on our week offs )  made some variations as per our choice and voila... We made the first perfect batch of cookies :) :) And you know what was the best thing, a friend of mine saw the pic  of the cookies I shared on Instagram and asked for the recipe, and made it herself and told me it was awesome. 

So here it is, my first recipe :) Peanut Butter, Honey and Oatmeal cookies:-

Ingredients:-

1. Fine flour  - 1 cup 

2. Peanut butter   - 1/2 cup

3. Oatmeal  - 1/2 cup

4. Peanuts (roasted and then grrinded) -2 tbsp

5. Castor sugar (grinded sugar) -  3/4 cup

6. Honey - 1 tbsp

7.  Desiccated coconut - 1/2 cup

8. Milk - 3-4 tsp

9. Baking soda - 1/4 tsp

10. Cinnamon powder - 2 tbsp

11. Lemon rind - 1 tbsp

Procedure:-

Take the peanut butter and castor sugar in a bowl and mix them together with a spatula, I prefer using my own two hands :) Sieve in the flour, cinnamon powder and baking soda into the mixture. Add the oatmeal, grinded peanuts, desiccated coconut, honey, lemon rind and milk and knead it all together into a hard dough.
Cover it with a cellophane or transparent polythene and keep it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
After that, take the dough and make small balls (like laddoos) and press them. You can make designs 

over it with pressing a fork. Don't make the cookies too thin, keep them a bit thick. One can use cookie cutters as well.
Now grease a baking tray with butter. Preheat the microwave oven on convection (180 degrees Celsius or 356 degrees Fahrenheit). Place the cookies on the tray and bake it on the same convection mode for 15 mins. Let it stay in the oven for a few more minutes after switching it off. Take it out on a tray and cool it and put it in an air tight jar. It will harden in some time. Voila! Eat, share and enjoy :)

Before baking

                       The wait! Can't explain in words the high it gives to see your cookies rising upp!

                                                             Wallah :) :)

        No meal is more sumptuous than the one you share with your near and dear ones :)

From a kitchen hater to falling in love with cooking, here's my story!

I read a lot of food blogs and see that people have childhood memories of watching their mothers and grandmothers cook and helping them around, which imbibed the seed of culinary arts in them. As I lost my mother at a very young age, I do not have any such memories. My earliest memories of food or kitchen was my father teaching each of our new maid how to make the one staple we used to have on a daily basis--egg curry.

I have never had any interest in cooking, apart from my occasional experiments in the kitchen, that too because  I wasn't allowed in the kitchen. However, these experiments seldom resulted in something remotely palatable.
My father tried to imbibe in me some cooking skills after I hit teenage but was highly disappointed at my lack of interest in the entire process.
At the age of 14-15, this was hardly a serious matter for me. In fact in hindsight, I guess I believed like others that I will somehow deal with this  problem when I will face it but life doesn't always give us that time.
I'm someone who started cooking as a last ditched effort to keep herself alive... like literally, believe it or not I'm not exaggerating.
I have lived alone for... quite a while and after trying every permutation and combination to keep myself well fed, I finally decided to learn how to cook one day when I just couldn't take it more, in fact my body couldn't. It was after, and I still squirm at the idea of it, I fainted one day  as I had eaten just Maggi and Pepsi Blue for a month...

What happened in between is a long story, to be told some other day...
Well, so I decided to learn cooking that day. It was a couple of months before I moved to Delhi in July, 2005.  My cooking  journey started with me making a conscious effort to first learn to cook all the things that I like to eat. So it started with calling aunts in Calcutta to know the difference between two vegetables or asking friends' mothers for a recipe if and when I ate something at their places and liked it .

It has been nearly 10 years since then and it has been an absolutely wonderful journey to develop my culinary skills. My biggest high as a cook is to feed people. And I have been extremely lucky to have friends and families who have only encouraged me .

It was on Saraswati Pujo (Basant Panchmi) this year when I cooked for 20 people alone, that I felt it's time to share my experiences with all.

I'm an Indian non-vegetarian who doesn't eat chicken, so I will post both veg and non-veg recipes, with a fewer chicken dishes. 
I'm a Bengali by birth and got married in a Bengali family, with both my paternal and in-laws having roots in erstwhile East Bengal. 

I have been brought up in Jabalpur in Central India and have been living in Delhi for a decade now. My husband spent his childhood in Dhanbad, Bihar. 

I have found my new love in baking. So my recipes will have an influence of all these cuisines and more :) 

I don't claim that whatever I cook or recipes I follow are the best or the most authentic one. I might share recipes that you hate or can improvise and make it better. I'm all ears for feedback -- good or bad. I just want to reach out to that girl/boy who might be missing their home-cooked food while eating a bad bowl of noodles and say that you are not alone and cooking can be fun. I'm gonna share my experiences, of which some you might find useful and some of you might say, hey I told her that. Yes, my recipes are a dedication to all who have taught me and all who ate my food, good or bad with a smile...

So let the journey begin! 

NOTE: If any of the pictures used in the blog have copyright issues, please inform and it will be taken off within 24-48 hours.