So long and Thanks for Rajma Keema

"Give Thanks" said Meeta and I wondered, and wondered...

Should I give Thanks for driving for almost an hour through the drizzle after work only to come home and start dinner when all I want is to be served hot chai while I cuddle up in the couch to watch some "Saas-Bahu" stuff. Should I give Thanks that if I want a hot "chai" I need to make it myself and just forget the pakoris because there's so much left to be done or should I give Thanks because my damned cable does not serve up any "Saas-Bahu" stuff and denies me the pleasure of rotting my mind.

I wondered & muttered and the rain dropped pitter-patter...

And then, my little one jumped all over me, wrapped her arms around me and hugged. I thanked for that, to have her to come home to, to watch her, to love her. And as I mixed the ground chicken, popped open the can of red rajma and chopped up the onions I thanked for being able to do this, to have a family to feed and care for, to have enough food to cook, to take pleasure in what I was doing. And then my husband suggested to adjust the AWB on the camera, set the exposure, and I clicked & he clicked. I thanked for having such a good friend in him who not only ate the rajma I served but was benevolent enough to help me take pictures which looked better than the dish :)

I thanked for being a WOMAN, for having the power to give birth, to work, to feed, to cook, to create & to blog...

Thanks to everyone out there living your life & helping others live theirs. Thanks Meeta for letting me be thankful.

And I went back and cooked my Rajma with Keema. This is not a Bengali dish but I try to make it the way my Ma used to make Keema Mattar which again does not have a Bong stamp to it. But a very hearty meal can be had of this combination, it satisfies with it’s quality & quantity, and there are different ways you can enjoy it.

You can have it with Rice, with Chapati, all by itself with some steamed veggies thrown in, if you make it dry use it as a stuffing for a wrap for lunch next day. I think this is the perfect dish to make if you are rushed and want to make something for dinner, next day lunch and a different dinner out of it on day 2.





What You Need

Rajma or Red Kidney Beans ~ 1 can, it said 1lb 13oz. I used this from Goya. If you are not using canned you might have to go through the process of soaking & pressure cooking the rajma.

Ground Chicken (Keema) ~ 1 lb. I used this from Perdue Ground Chicken. You can use fresh if you get them.

Onions ~ 2 medium grind to paste
Tomato ~ 2 medium blended (chopped does no harm either)
Green Chillies ~ 5/6 chopped
Corriander leaves ~ for garnish

For Marinating the Chicken:

Ginger Paste ~ 2 tsp for marinade
Garlic Paste ~ 2 tsp for marinade
Yogurt ~ 2 -3 tbsp

For Masala:

Garlic Clove ~ 1 clove chopped
Elaichi or Cardamom ~ 5
Laung or Cloves ~ 5
Darchini or Cinnamon stick ~ a small one
Maggi Hot & Sweet Tomato Ketchup ~ my all time fav or any other tangy sauce
Jeera or Cumin Powder ~ 1 tsp
Dhania or Corriander Powder ~ 1tsp
I dry roast Cumin seeds, Dhania Seeds, Dried Red Chillies and then dry grind them and store that for this and many other cooking. You can do that when you have time.

Garam masala Powder ~ I make this and store it too, but whatever you have is fine
Red Chilli Powder ~ your choice
Salt

How I Do It

Marinade the ground chicken with yogurt, 2 tsp of ginger paste, 2 tsp of garlic paste and little salt. Keep it aside for 2-3 hours. I often do it night before so it’s just ready to be cooked by evening.
Make a paste of the onions. Quick Tip: I make a paste or chop onions when I have extra time. They stay in the fridge good for 3/4 days
Heat Oil in a Kadai /Frying Pan
Coarsely pound the Elaichi (Cardamom), Laung (Cloves) & Darchini (Cinnamon Sticks) and add it to the oil
Add the chopped garlic and the green chillies.
As soon as you get the fragrant smell of garlic rising add the onions.
Add a little sugar and fry them till they are light brown in color.
Add the tomato
Continue light frying till oil separetes from the paste.
Add the marinated Keema (ground Chicken)
Continue cooking till the Keema changes color. Stir so that the keema transforms to a granulated mass. Since ground chicken here is machine processed, when raw, they are like a soft paste.
Add the Cumin, Corriander & Red Chilli Powder. Mix well.
Add about 2 tbsp of the Maggi Sauce (or any other). Actually I didn’t measure, I just poured till I got the tangy taste & color.
Add the Rajma .
Cook for some more time till the masala engulfs the Rajma as well as the Keema
Add little water, salt, Garam masala Powder and cover and Cook
Cook till Rajma is done. The Rajma I cook is not gravy based, it’s on the dry side, if you want gravy go ahead.
Add a little Fajita Seasoning Mix or KitchenKing Masala if you feel the taste is lacking something. I do that.
Garnish with Corriander leaves.
If you want add chopped hard boiled eggs.

Enjoy hot spicy Rajma Keema any way you like.

Let me reiterate, I kind of cook by smell & taste & instinct so my measures stated might not be exact, feel free to innovate & deviate. I am trying to measure while cooking these days but on a busy day, nah-nah !!

This is my entry for Monthly Mingle at photographer cook Meeta's of What's For Lunch Honey. Her very interesting theme was Give Thanks. And as I eat my dinner I do just that.
Happy ThanksGiving.

Note: For Vegans out there, instead of using keema you can substitute keema with ground soy granules as in Egg paratha with twist

Trivia:Red beans and rice is an emblematic dish of Louisiana Creole cuisine (not originally of Cajun cuisine), traditionally made on Mondays with red beans, vegetables (onion and celery), spices (thyme, cayenne pepper, and bay leaf), and pork bones left over from Sunday dinner, cooked together slowly in a pot and served over rice. From Wiki.

Shukto on weekend

Shukto

There is some error with the pics in this post. For better step-by-step rendition of Shukto check this post.

A traditional Bengali meal usually consists of five to six courses, starting off with something bitter and ending with a sweet dessert. Dal–bhaja (lentil soup & fritters), a vegetable, fish and chutney find their way in between and are served as well as eaten in that order. I think the six courses were to give importance to the six basic tastes or rasas. The first course which is bitter can be a dry preparation of Uchche (bitter gourd), fried neem leaves, neem-begun(neem leaves and brinjal lightly sauted) or the culinary epitome of bangla cuisine the Shukto.

Shukto is a mix of vegetables with an emphasis to the bitterness, a preparation where instead of hiding the bitterness , it is the taste around which the dish evolves. The bitter taste is said to be good for cleansing the palate and also for letting the digestive juices flow and so no doubt it is a good start off to the meal to follow.

Get this recipe in my Book coming out soon. Check this blog for further updates. 

Shukto is also a culinary experience for whoever eats it and a culinary achievement for whoever cooks it. In fact a Bengali cook is judged by his or her shukto preparation. Though I don't understand what's so diificult about cooking it, but that might be because I haven't reached the desired culinary height of tasting and neither has my Shukto been dissected and analysed by the Shukto patrol. My shukto doesn't turn out as good as my Ma's or my Ma-in-law's but then that's natural, that's what Mothers are for.

All said and done I am not a big shukto fan though my husband is and thinking of all the goodness that comes out of eating it, we do have occasional Shukto weekends.

Before going into the recipe I would briefly describe the medley of veggies that go into this dish. Lots of veggies to be chopped so be sure to get your bitter (uh-oh better) half to chop them up.

Uchche or Bitter Gourd -- Bitter gourd contains vitamin A, B1, B2, and C. It also contains minerals like calcium, phosphorous, iron, copper and potassium. From the ayurvedic perspective, bitter gourd is excellent for balancing Kapha. It helps purify blood tissue, enhances digestion, and stimulates the liver. http://www.ayurbalance.com/explore_foodbittergourd.htm
Bitter gourd is also known to cure or at least control diabetes.

Jhinge or Ridge Gourd -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luffa
Begun or Brinjal
KanchaKola or Raw Cooking Banana – This vegetable is more popular in the south of India. In Bengal it is popular as a vegetable which is often prescribed to treat a weak stomach or diarrhea.
String Beans
Potatoes
Mulo or Raddish – I diddn’t have these at home

What you Need

Uchche or Bitter Gourd – 1 chopped
Jhinge or Ridge Gourd – 1 chopped
Begun or Brinjal – 1 chopped
KanchaKola or Raw Cooking Banana – 1 chopped
String Benas – 10 chopped
Potato – 1 chopped
Drumsticks or Shojne Danta -- a couple chopped in 8-10 peiecs, each 2" long

Vadi (nuggets made of ground lentil and later dried )~ 10/15 small ones (Optional)

For Phoron or Tempering

Ideally in Bengali Shukto a seed called Radhuni is used for tempering. In absence of that, I use either methi seeds or paanchphoron
Methi or Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
Tejpata or Bay Leaves -- 4
Hing or Asafoetida Powder – a pinch

For Paste
Mustard seeds ~ 2tbsp soaked in water.
Poppy Seeds ~ 1 tbsp soaked in water
I always make the above paste and keep it in the fridge for later use during the week so I use more. Often the grinder is such that it is difficult to make a fine paste with little amount.

Ginger Paste ~ fresh grated ginger about 1 tbsp

Milk – 1/3 cup
Salt
Sugar
Ghee

How I Do It

Chop the vegetables as shown in the picture. Try to cut them in the shape as in the pic.
Wet grind the mustard seeds and poppy seeds to a fine paste. While grinding put a little salt. If you are using a dry grinder make a paste of the dry ground mustard powder in a little vinegar and salt, this is because dry grinding sometimes makes the mustard taste bitter.
Saute the vegetables, bitter gourd being the last, lightly and keep aside
Fry the vadi till they are brown and crispy
Heat 2 tbsp of ghee in a Kadai/Frying Pan
Add the methi (fenugreek) seed, tejpata (bay leaves) and the hing (asafoetida powder)
When they start sputtering and you get the smell of hing rising add the veggies.
Add about 1 1/2 to 2 tbsp of the mustard & poppy seeds paste.
Add the Ginger paste
Mix well, add salt add water and 1/3 cup of milk. Enough water to cook the vegetables, this dish is not gravy based so don't add too much water.
Cover and cook till the veggies are cooked and there is very little water.
Once the vegetables are almost done add a little suagr.
Add the fried vadis at the end.

Note: One of my readers pointed out that his Mom's shukto has a slight gravy in it. In fact my Mom too makes shukto sometimes which is more moist. So you can have your shukto with a little gravy in it (ver little though) if you want.

Have this with white rice and remember to start off your lunch with this.

Mandira of Ahaar also has her own recipe of Shukto. Hers is a little different from mine because every Mom puts their distinctive touch to their Shukto.
This is also my entry for WHB hosted by Meeta of What's for Lunch Honey. I didn't know about this event and got to know from Mandira's blog, so thanks to Mandira.

Trivia: Shukta should be had only during the day so don't have it for dinner. Don't know reason yet.

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If you have ever thought about trying your hand in some foreign cuisine, some online universities offer courses on culinary arts, Asian cuisine included

Chingri Macher Malaikari

Chingri Malaikari | Prawn Malaikari

Chingri Malaikari or Prawn Malaikari , is a very famous and popular Bengali dish, made with prawns simmered in a spicy coconut gravy, served with white Rice or Pulao for lunch or dinner on special occasions. It used to be one of those dishes reserved only for grand affairs like birthdays or weddings. Prawns, specially the big Golda Chingri(ideal for this dish) was an expensive affair. Now however we make Malaikari with even the jumbo prawns, much smaller in size than the Golda.

Jump To Recipe

Note: This post is updated in 2022, almost 16 years after I first posted in 2006. Can you imagine what a dinosaur this blog is ? I probably learned to make this Malaikari sometime around that time(early 2000) and hence posted. In those days,  blogging was in its nascent and peak stage; iPhone was still in Jobs' brain and no one was thinking of Android; YouTube had just been founded and cooking videos were a far off dream; there were food shows on the telly but the ones from India weren't keen on measures or regional cuisine; and malalikaari was still a dish reserved for grand occasions in Bengal !! This post is one of the most popular ones in my blog and has views > 500K. Now Chingri Malaikari has become more of a common item, cooked often, dressed up better and with hundreds of videos on YouTube. This post though still remains close to my heart  and has the best results <3
I am updating this post with better photos. The recipe still remains the same. I just added a trick to make the prawns look straighter instead of curled as that seems to be the new fad.

Chingri Malaikari or Prawn Malaikari (no relation to our dear Malaika at all), is a very famous and popular Bengali entrée served with white Rice or Pulao for lunch or dinner on special occasions. I saw it described somewhere as an “Elegant Bengali Classic” – that definitely sums up this dish. It is so delicious that I want to run down and have my dinner right now instead of writing this up.

I made it this Sunday as a pre-B’day treat for my husband and this write up is for Chandrika of Akshyapatra who said she would like to have the recipe of a certain prawn recipe she had at her Bong friend’s place and which I guessed to be the infamous Chingri Malaikari.

So most people think that coconut or coconut milk is not a popular ingredient in Bengali cooking, but it is in many of the special Bengali cuisines. This particular dish is cooked in a spiced up gravy of coconut milk and involved a lot of hard work for my Ma back in India. Since life & it’s commodities in India was not universally canned or processed back then, she had to press the grated coconut to extract the sweet white coconut milk.

Here in the US, life is much easy and you just pick a can of coconut milk off the shelf of your grocery store. I guess this and the abundance of prawns, is also a reason why you would find Prawn Malaikari a part of the menu in most Bong parties in the US.

To get the best tasting Malaikari, get a mix of  large prawns with heads on and rest heads removed. The reason for this being the prawns head being very very tasty adds a fourth dimension to this already delicious preparation. However if you are not very familiar around prawns, I would suggest you get only the ones with no head , as the prawn head has to be delicately cleaned.

If you want to though, go through the following steps to clean fresh prawn :-
Remove the hard shell, do not remove the tail, leave it on
De-vein the prawn, slit the back a little and take out the black thread thingy
For shrimps with heads, carefully remove only the front portion of the head the eyes etc., do not remove the entire head, you want to keep the liquidy thing inside the head.