Tomato and date chutney

Ingredients:

Tomatoes- 4 medium

Dates chopped- ¼ cup

Mustard seed- ½  tspn

Oil- 1 tbspn

Grated ginger- ½ tspn

Sugar- 4-5 tbspn depending on your taste (I use brown sugar, tastes like jaggery)

Whole Red chilly- 1

Method:

Heat oil in a pan, temper it with mustard seed and red chilly. Add the tomatoes in it, add a pinch of salt (Salt helps the tomato to cook easily). Cook till the tomatoes are pulpy, add dates to it. Cook till all the water disappears. Then add the sugar and ginger. Cook for another minute till everything is blended together, and you get a thick paste. Cool and serve.

Prawns with coconut and mustard paste

Prawns- 8 jumbo

1 ½  tbspn mustard

1 ½  tbspn poppy seeds

1 green chilly

Grated Coconut- 1 tbspn

Mustard oil- 1 tbspn

Turmeric powder

Make the mustard- poppy paste with green chilly n salt. Mix it with prawn , marinade. Mix grated coconut and mustard oil.  Cover it and put it in microwave for 10-15 minutes. Serve hot with steamed rice

Be careful not to overcook it, otherwise the prawns will get hard, and we don’t want that.

Making the Mustard paste:  Make a paste of mustard seeds, poppy seeds, green chillies, salt and water. Adding the salt and chillies will avoid the mustard paste to get bitter.

Chicken kasha (Chicken curry) - bengali style

Chicken- 600gms

Onions- 2 big onions chopped

Ginger paste- 1 tbspn

Garlic paste- 1 tbspn

Whole garam masala- cardamom(4), cloves(4), cinnamon stick(1)

Tomato- 1 (paste)

Curd- 1 tbspn

Coriander leaves

Cumn powder- 1 tspn

Coriander powder- 1 tspn

Mustard oil- 4 tbspn

Green chillies- 3-4 depending on your taste

Water

Method

Wash and clean the chicken. Add 1 tspn salt, 1 tspn turmeric powder, 1 tbpsn curd to the chicken and keep it aside for at least 30 minutes (Can be kept overnight). Heat 2 tbspn mustard oil in a pan, add the chopped onion, and fry till it gets golden brown. Let it cool. Grind it in a blender, with green chillies. In the same pan, heat the other 2 tbspn mustard oil. Mince the garam masala, and add to it. After a few seconds add the onion paste , add ginger and garlic paste. After sometime add the tomato paste to it and fry till the oil separates. (Keep sprinkling some water to it, if it sticks to the pan- the more you fry the masala, the tastier it gets) Add cumin and coriander powder to it. Once the masala is fried very well, add the marinated chicken to it, mix well , put the stove on high, and cover the pan with a lid, till the chicken pieces start changing colour (they start getting opaque). Keep stirring it once in a while, so it doesn’t burn. This will take 2-3 minutes. Now put the stove on medium, fry the chicken for 2-3 minutes more, keep stirring. Add ½ cup water to it, and cook till the chicken is done. Adjust the salt. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Serve hot with steamed rice, mishti polao, veg pulao or roti.

(You can add more water depending on the consistency you want. But chicken emits its own juice/water while cooking, so don’t put too much water initially)

Some people add potato to it. Cut the potatoes in 4 pieces and fry till they are golden brown, and add them with the the chicken.

If you don’t want to add tomato paste to it, you can double the curd. But adding tomato paste gives it a better colour and taste.