Sheem Posto with Kasundi -- Snow Peas with Poppy seeds and Mustard

I have this habit of switching veggies, concocting recipes, substituting one ingredient with another. So it is no surprise that I hardly ever buy sheem, which we never find fresh at our Indian grocers anyway. Instead I buy the fresh, tender, translucent green snow peas from the Asian Market and substitute it for sheem!

With those fresh, tender, translucent green snow peas...ahem, I mostly make Dhonepata Bata Sheem. That dish is so freaking good that I cannot even begin telling you.

The one time that I actually cooked with sheem, and made a Tel Sheem, was when a blogger friend Soma, who grows amazing vegetables, sent me a box of tender sheem from her own garden. Those were soft and buttery and one look at them and you would fall in love.

Recently a friend had made Shorshe Sheem and the husband-man loved it. With snow peas in my refrigerator I thought of making a "shorshe sheem" today. Only, I felt extremely lazy and did not want to soak mustard seeds and then make a paste of it. I also don't have the smaller Magic Bullet jar anymore and to make a paste in the bigger jar, I would have to make a larger quantity. Instead, I decided to make a "Posto Sheem with Kasundi". So there would be posto and kasundi from a bottle and it would taste as wonderful.

Tel Sheem -- Hyacinth Beans from Soma

I was seriously waiting for something to get my blogging mojo back.

August had been surreal with a vacation to beautiful Banff and Jasper National parks(more on that later), short trips around the home state, a water park vacation to Great Wolf Lodge specifically for the kids, and lots of tea time with my parents while watching "Mahanayak" -- the Bengali serial people love to hate (yeah, yeah, I know!). I was getting used to vacations and summer.

Since my parents are visiting, the kitchen had also morphed largely into my Ma's domain and I rarely bothered to see how and why things were getting done. I even managed to watch a movie at the theaters with the husband-man, an event worth remembering simply because it is so rare in its occurrence.

You must understand that it is very easy to slip into a life of leisure, if you are already lazy like me. I could totally fit into the society of Roman Nobles in ancient Rome. It is very natural that I drifted.

But there was some magic that happened over the weekend, which triggered me back into the kitchen and back to the blog again. The magic would have never happened, if I did not have a blog in the first place. So the magic had a dependency on the blog and on you. Ok, so without going into the chicken and egg scenario, let me tell you what happened.

A blogger friend Soma, who blogs at Spices and Pisces and does a trillion other things, sent me a box of sheem and ucche, that is Hyacinth beans and bitter gourd for you, grown in her own garden. Soma has a very bright shade of green thumb and grows gorgeous vegetables. Her community garden pictures on Facebook, boasting of curvaceous laus(bottlegourd) and glistening sheem(flat beans) would make you love vegetables to the point of making you a vegetarian. She pours tons of love into her garden and the beautiful person that she is, she shared the love by sending me a box of her home-grown vegetables, by priority mail.

Once we got over the surprise part of seeing fresh vegetables from a box delivered by the USPS lady, the family spent next several minutes ogling at the vegetables. Little Sis was thrilled by the uniqueness of the whole act. "Mommy's friend sent her vegetables from Maryland," she told my Ma.

Then a discussion ensued as to what to cook with the sheem. Here, I must tell you, tender aka kochi sheem is not a given where I live. I don't even get sheem at the Indian grocery store and substitute all sheem dishes with sugar snap peas. My Ma, who is used to an abundance of sheem where she lives, proposed sheem bhaate or shorshe diye sheem or sheem er jhol. I didn't want to add shorshe(mustard) to this tender sheem as I feel the mustard sauce tends to overpower the natural taste of the vegetable.

The husband-man then proposed Tel-Sheem, without the mustard and with almost zero spices. Something that would be just fitting for a vegetable so fresh, tender, and grown with love.

So that is what I did

Tel Sheem

Lope off the tip of each Hyacinth bean(sheem) and then pull off the stringy part from the edges

Heat Mustard oil in a kadhai.

Now temper the oil with 1/4th tsp of Nigella seeds and 3 slit green chili.

Add the sheem to the kadhai and saute for a few minutes until each sheem glistens with oil.

Make a wet paste with
1/4 tsp of turmeric Powder
1 tsp of fresh ginger paste
1/2 tsp of red chili powder
1 tbsp of yogurt

Lower the heat and add add this to the veggies in the kadhai. Saute at low heat for few minutes.

Add a 1/2 cup of water, 3 more green chili slit through, salt to taste and let the gravy simmer to a boil. Cover the kadhai with a lid and check occasionally if sheem is cooked.

Once the vegetable is cooked and the oil has surfaced, the dish is done. Now for you to enjoy it with some steaming white rice.

This tasted so so good that I cannot thank Soma enough

If you like what you are reading, get Bong Mom's Cookbook in your mailbox

Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner

Chandrani and Pia's Dhonepata Bata Sheem

Yesterday around lunch I asked a question on FB. Here is what I asked.

While I was eating my oatmeal at lunch, going through suggestions of excellent recipes with sheem, my tummy growling, my heart aching, I suddenly realized I did not have sheem at home. I had snow peas. There was no way I was going to make a stop at Patel in the evening to get half a pound of sheem. Jalebis might have made me do so, but not sheem. Thank you.

Now a lot of the time when I am making dishes like paanchmishali or labra, I throw in the snow peas and call them sheem. Of course that doesn't make them sheem but they are sheem like -- sweeter, tender and at the risk of being lynched tastes better than sheem to me.

When I put them in any non-Indian dish, I just call them snow peas. That sounds very right for the soy sauce infused stir fry.

But I have never told anyone about my habit of dual naming of the snow peas. I mean what if people think I am tarnishing the Bengali culture by substituting snow peas for sheem.This simple act of mine might might ban me from my BongMom-dom.

But then Sharmila asked --"Can snow peas be replaced for sheem?"

And I heaved a sigh of relief. So there are people out there who think like me. Who sub sheem with snow peas in times of great need and depression.

That issue resolved I went ahead with Pia's Mom's and Chandrani's excellent recipe of Sheem with Dhonepata Bata -- Hyacinth Beans with Coriander paste.Ok, ok in my case snow peas. But we will not tell anyone that. We will stick with sheem.

This recipe was very different from the shorseh-posto bata ones I have always had. The paturi and shorshe sheem are the ones I am more familiar with.

The fresh scent of coriander in the Dhonepata Bata sheem inspired me.That someone's Mother's recipe would be made in my kitchen and the same flavor will bond families who have never known each other and yet share the same food culture, sealed the rest.

Thank you Chandrani and Pia who blogs at Peppercorns in my Pocket. Loving it.

Dhonepata Bata Sheem

I used 3/4th of the amount  of snow peas as shown in the second pic. Around 25 snow peas, estimated.
Chop the ends of the sheem and then chop in half

Make a paste of
fistful of coriander leaves
3 fat cloves of garlic(6 regular sized ones)
4 hot green chillies
with a splash of water
I think a thicker paste was required but mine was more liquidy.

Heat 1/2 tbsp Mustard Oil

Temper the oil with 1/4th tsp of Kalonji/Kalo Jeere and 2 slit green chillies

When the seeds sputter and hiss, add the chopped sheem. With a sprinkle of turmeric and salt saute till raw smell is gone. Around 5 mins

Now add the coriander-garlic paste. Add salt to taste. Mix well. Cover the cooking pan and let the vegetable cook. If needed remove cover, add little water. cook till veggie is done.

Add a pinch of sugar and adjust for salt.

Serve with white rice and a touch of kashundi if available.