Just a little something I threw together . . .

So I told you my phupi (dad's sister) and her family were in town and were going to visit us last night. I was really looking forward to it -- it's fun to have my relatives come and visit me at my house, since I always enjoyed visiting them.

Anyway, I think I went a little crazy with dinner last night, but it turned out pretty well in the end. Thankfully I started cooking some of it Monday and Tuesday so that yesterday I just had to do the rice, dal, and salad and reheat the other stuff I'd made. I miss having our cleaners, but I think Mr. Spice and I did a serviceable job of cleaning up. That is definitely something we'll have to start up again once I find a new job.

I took pictures of everything but the rice and salad, since I did those after they got to our house. These were taken just before they got here, so they aren't in their final prettied up version. Here's what we ate last night:



Chicken and Potatoes cooked in Whole Spices -- this is a variation of the White Chicken Curry recipe I posted a while back. No fresh green chilies though. And I added green cardamom, black/brown cardamom, bay leaves, a cinnamon stick, and dried red chilies. I tossed in some garam masala powder and some Kitchen King Masala powder just for kicks.




Salmon in Caramelized Onion Sauce -- this is a recipe from Ajanta: Regional Feasts of India, by Lachu Moorjani. I've already tweaked it a little and hope to do some more before I feel comfortable posting it. I do feel that this is a keeper in my dishes to impress arsenal. It's sweet, hot, and a little tangy and I feel that salmon goes with it perfectly.




Lemon Moong Dal -- I posted a variation of this a while back too, except that version had garlic and spinach and used masoor dal instead. Very simple, very good.




I'm unofficially calling these my "I don't remember what I put into these but they're damn good" kababs. This was one of those instances where I just pulled out a bunch of spices and went to town. I actually do remember most of what went into these, but I'd rather develop a more reliable recipe before I post it. Just trust me, these were good. My two cousins kept saying they liked them and the younger one said they were just like restaurant kababs! The dish looked much better when I served it -- I garnished it with red onion slices, some green onion slices and a few sprigs of parsley. Cilantro would be traditional, but I cannot stand it, especially when it's fresh.

Oh there's more.



I even did breakfast for this morning. I really had to restrain myself from going all out, but I did it. They needed to get going this morning so they could get to Memphis for the wedding this weekend. We're driving up tomorrow. Anyway, I did a lighter version of a traditional Bengali breakfast, which would normally include omelets, parathas (flaky breads), and what I'm calling Bengali-style hash browns (aloo bhaji), among other items. I just did the omelets and aloo bhaji and pan-toasted some tortillas to stand in for the heavier parathas.

The omelets were simple -- sliced onion, sliced green chilies, salt, and pepper. We do our omelets on the well-done side. I think I finally mastered aloo bhaji. This is one of my favorite Bengali breakfast dishes, it goes so well with parathas, or pooris (deep-fried breads), and even tortillas. Instead of laboriously shredding potatoes, I use frozen shredded hash browns, like most people I know. At it's simplest, it's just browned onions, a whole green chili if you want, the potatoes, and salt and pepper. And the teeniest bit of turmeric for color. I upped it a bit and put in some nigella seeds, which I put in hot oil after the onions started browning. Very subtly flavored, but oh so good.

Confession: I totally staged this plate for a photo after they left. Mr. Spice very happily ate this after I was done taking pictures. I think he secretly likes me being home and being a good little Bengali housewife. :P

Anyway, now I have to finish packing for the wedding this weekend. If I don't post again this weekend, have a good one!

Playing with your food can be fun!

Especially when it leads to something yummy to eat!

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I planned to participate in this week's BSI contest, hosted by Nicole at Just Sweet Enough. This week's ingredient was black beans, which I happen to like quite a bit. I just wasn't sure what I wanted to make. I figured there would be a lot of submissions for soups, burgers, dips, etc. which all sound great, but of course I wanted mine to be different. I thought long and hard and finally came up with something! Go me!

I know I yak a lot before I get around to the recipe, but I like to explain the background and thought process. So keep reading if you want or skip ahead to the recipe.

What I decided on was like an homage to and a slight twist on a childhood favorite of mine (it's still one of my favorites). I have always loved what we called Aloo Chops, which are breaded cutlets made of out of spiced-up mashed potato and usually encase a filling of ground meat. Sometimes they were made without the filling. This seems to be a popular Bengali snack food and has also made appearances at dinner parties. It's really good, trust me.

I've made straight up aloo chops before, so I knew the procedure. I first thought about using black beans for the filling, but decided that since the ingredient for BSI was black beans they should have more of a starring rather than support role. Then I came up with the idea of using mashed black beans and potatoes to make the chops and forgo the filling. Now I was on to something!

So last night after work I stopped at the store for some ingredients and set to work. The playing with my food part was as I was gleefully mixing everything up with my hands and forming the chops. It was so much fun, it reminded me of when I used to play with Play Doh. Don't worry, I refrained from making little animals or whatever it was I used to make.

I have a hard time coming up with titles for stuff, so I wasn't sure what to call this recipe. If I just wanted to be simple I would call it a black bean aloo chop, but that doesn't sound very glamorous, does it? How about this?

Spiced Black Bean and Potato Cakes

1/4 cup chopped onion
1 green chili, thinly sliced (do not use jalapeno or bell pepper, only the thin or serrano peppers)
1/2 tsp ginger paste or minced ginger
1 tsp. minced garlic

1 can black beans, drained, rinsed, and coarsely mashed (you want some identifiable chunks)
1 large potato, boiled or microwaved, peeled, broken into large chunks

2 tsp. ground cumin
1/2 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. paprika or chili powder (use cayenne if you really want it spicy, but use less)
1 tsp. garam masala
1/2 tsp. amchur (dried mango powder, substitute lemon juice or omit)
salt to taste
bread crumbs

canola oil

Heat about 2 tsp. of canola oil in a large frying pan over medium high heat. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the green chili slices if using, then the ginger, and garlic. Cook for a couple minutes, adding water if needed.

Add the coarsely mashed beans and potato, and combine thoroughly. You'll end up mashing the beans and potatoes a little as you combine, and this is fine. Add water as necessary to keep the mixture from drying up.

Take a large bowl, and add the bean and potato mixture. Add the spices and use your hands to mix everything up. Taste and adjust spices as necessary to your liking. Add water as necessary to keep the mixture from drying up and to incorporate the spices. You are going to end up with a wet dough at this point. Add bread crumbs as necessary to stabilze the dough so that it doesn't fall apart.

Now for the fun part. With your hands, form the dough into a large ball. Divide this into eighths. Take each eighth and form into a large ball, working to make it smooth. Then take the ball in one hand and use the other to flatten it from the top. Don't make it too flat, you want these to be thick and substantial. Use your hands to smooth the edges. These will look like hockey pucks when you're done -- see picture below.



Once you've made the cakes, let them sit on a plate for about 20 minutes to set up.

You can cook these a few ways:

If you want to make them like traditional chops, you can dip in egg and bread crumb and then fry. I didn't want to mess around with all that.

You can also bake these.

If you fry them, you have 2 options. You can take about 2 tbsp. oil and heat and then fry, but be careful since the cakes soften considerably when they fry in the oil, so be careful when turning them over. The second option is the one I ended up liking the best -- just "dry" frying in a hot pan so that they got a nice brown crust.

The verdict? I liked these a lot! They tasted like the aloo chops of my childhood, but the beans added a new dimension to them and made them more substantial. Mr. Spice ended up liking them too but suggested I make them more spicy next time. I have to confess to eating 2 almost as soon as they were out of the pan. Since I liked the way the dry fried ones looked, I used those for the final photos. :)

Enjoy!