OPEN CHALLENGE to plastic fast foods!

This is Paan thongba or the Meitei style of cooking taro but with a twist. I have added bone broth and smoked beef in my recipe to make it more nutrient dense. Usually it is made with either only hawaizaar, fermented soy bean similar to the Japanese nato or with the addition of ngari (fermented fish) and some smoked fish to it. But I don’t see any reason in holding back on the ingredients. So, I have gone all out and made it a celebration of smoked “things”. I have added whatever smoked meats, fishes and shellfish that I could land my hands on. I had done this initially to counter the strong smell of the bone broth that I was using. I am using beef bone broth here and it can be overwhelming if not cooked with the right ingredients. The smell is now hidden with only the glutamate in the broth giving it a deeper flavour and the resulting dish is of a very mature flavourful smoky taste. You will love the riot of flavours dancing around in your mouth!

I have always loved taro but we usually talk of it as a sinful indulgence. We wrongly claim that it worsens a cold and treat it like any other carb laden food. But the truth is that it helps convert a dry cough into a productive one thus speeding up the recovery. And, like many root vegetables, it is a prebiotic. Which means that it provides food for the good bacteria in your guts helping it to thrive. Knowing what I know now, I see no reason not to eat taro more often!

You can throw in other smoked meats and fish that you have at hand since this is a very flexible recipe. You can add other herbs like chives and spring onions too if you like.

For this recipe I have used the following ingredients:

About a kilo of young tender taros.

A handful of garlic chives (maroi napaakpi).

4-5 saw leaves (awa phadigom).

Some smoked freshwater shrimps.

Some smoked freshwater fish.

Some smoked pieces of beef.

Smoked ghost chillies/u-morok (1 or 2 or you can skip it if you are not up to it).

2-3 tablespoon dried hawaizaar (you can use fresh ones too but dried tastes better).

About a teaspoon of hentaak (fermented fish paste) / 4-5 pieces of ngari (fermented fish).

2 cups bone broth (can be of any bone).

salt to taste.

Leaving just a few sprigs of the maroi nakuppi and the awa phadigom leaves for later, throw in all the other ingredients together. You can chop up the chives and the u-morok. I remove the heads of the shrimps since I am allergic to shrimps. I realised recently that I wasn’t allergic to its full body, just the heads were a problem. I shred the smoked beef too. 

So, the ingredients go into my favourite cooking vessel, the pressure cooker. Add more water if required. Cook it to three whistles and make it stand till the steam settles.

Doesn’t it all look beautiful together?

Get it back to a boil and add the remaining ingredients. Leave the chives and the awa phadigom a little raw so that they retain their fresh aroma.

We have this very confused notion that babies should be fed sweet things like kheer, chocolates, Cerelac, Horlics, sweetened milk, cake, etc. We couldn’t be further from the truth. If we should be avoiding something in a baby’s diet, it is refined sugar and refined flour. In fact this is true even for a growing child’s (or for that matter, anyone at all who wants to be healthy and robust) diet! We know that most of the packaged junks that we get in the market these days are either full of sugar or refined flour or both, with the added nasty chemicals in them. Most moms and dads are smart enough to avoid them these days. But what do we feed our babies if not our good old Cerelac and other infant cereals? Do we feed them fish and overcooked rice with a pinch of salt just like the olden days? Or do we follow the government’s recommendation on the radio and start grinding up grains and pulses to make a multi grain gruel?

What I follow for my baby’s diet is based on Weston A Price’s study on primitive peoples and their diets. He discovered that these people were thriving on diets that were rich in animal fats, organ meats, meats, raw milk, seafoods, etc. complimented by local seasonal fruits and vegetables. This diet principle recommends traditional diets prepared with traditional techniques. It consists of good quality animal derived fats like ghee, butter, lard, tallow, duck fat, etc. and also a lot of preparations with broth. It actually makes a lot of sense to me since good quality fats are what a baby’s developing brain needs and broth has all the calcium and minerals needed by the bones and the rest of the body.

In this recipe I am using a chicken foot to get a good gelatinous broth which is both tasty and healthy. My baby loves all kinds of bone broth and will devour any recipe made with it. I am also consciously loading up on broth in his diet for the initial months as it will help his gut develop better and prepare it for a probiotic rich diet. You can use a duck foot too or any animal bone of your preference. But I personally think that the taste of the black yendem goes very well with chicken broth. Yendem is a local vegetable which is similar to taro but with a less raphides in them. This one is the black variety.

For his recipe you will only need:

One thick and long black yendem stem (replace it with a chayote if you want or if yendem isn’t available). One chicken foot (preferably free range organic). Note: Don’t add salt to the recipe meant for a baby under one year of age. It can cause kidney damage. They don’t need salt at that age anyway.

Chop up the yendem into small pieces.

Meanwhile, cook the chicken foot in a pressure cooker for 5-6 whistles. Look how the ligaments are all broken down because of the cooking. The broth will have a little fat in it. All broths have that. It’s all good. Keep it.

Remove the foot and add the yendem to the broth. Pressure cook for another 3 whistles.

The yendem should be soft after being cooked.

Boil it with the lid open to reduce the broth. You don’t want it to be too watery as that can replace breast milk in your baby’s diet. You don’t want that.

Mash it but only lightly. You don’t want an absolute paste. You want baby to exercise the gums too .

There you go! This is a tasty and healthy home cooked baby food which your baby will love. You can dump that half empty Cerelac box. Our son’s friend had visited and they had lunch together. I thought I had made a two portion meal but it was enough for three. The two babies loved it. And I love how the food sticks all around their mouths.

This recipe works for baby’s as young as 6 months. Ours is almost 8 months now and he still enjoys it. 

“What is Kombucha?”, you might ask. Well. it’s a fermented drink made out of sweetened tea... nothing fancy, just plain old sweet tea.... fermented. The complexity, however, is in the strains of microbes used for the fermentation which include both air borne as well as non air borne ones. To make Kombucha you need this special mix of microbes which is present in something called the SCOBY, short for Symbiotic Colony Of Bacteria and Yeast. The SCOBY usually looks like a pancake... well more like the thick sweet tan that you get in a meitei sorat. It is a cellulose bi-product of the microbes which is left after they have consumed and converted the sugar in the tea. The piece of SCOBY that you put in your first batch of sweetened tea is referred to as the mother and they will keep producing layers and layers of “babies”. You will need to eventually clear out some of the layers as they become very thick to handle. 

The fermented drink will taste more or less like a fruit juice. To me, the taste is closest to tamarind water made with salt and sugar (mang-ge mahi). I usually avoid white sugar like the plague but I am using loads of it here just because the culture in it converts the sucrose (which is the white sugar) into fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (which is readily and easily used up by the body). That makes a lot of difference! This drink is not only about the sugars. It is also loaded with probiotics and is a living drink. The probiotics, when colonised in the gut can provide strong immunity while giving a healthy flourishing digestive system. Have we heard that a healthy gut is the base of good health? However, if one suffers from conditions like leaky gut syndrome, one needs to be on a diet rich in bone broth to repair (and seal) that first before consuming any live fermented food. This drink has helped me immensely during my pregnancy to assure that I stay free of yeast infections (which one is very prone to during pregnancy) and also while breastfeeding to help me and my baby keep the flu far far away. It really works very very well for us!

Once you have the SCOBY, it is very easy to make. Anyone who can put the stove on can do it! It is just a matter of making a pot of tea. But you will have to follow the measurements to ensure that your culture stays healthy to keep giving you Kombucha for years and years to come. 

I use 1/3rd cup of white sugar for every litre of water. Make sure you use a proper measuring cup and not your usual tea cup. My jar can contain 3 litres so I use 3 of these 1/3rd cups or just a 1 cup capacity measuring cup. I don’t, however, brew the whole 3 litres. I used to do that earlier but later realised that it was a stupid and lengthy approach since I had to use large pots and wait forever for the tea to cool down. I use a small utensil to brew the tea... this one is approximately 1 litre in capacity. 

Add some water. The measurement doesn’t matter since you will be topping it up to 3 litres later. The sugar won’t dissolve yet as the water is cool.

Put it on a stove and get it boiling. You will see that all the sugar gets dissolved once you reach boiling point. 

Turn off the stove and add one teaspoon of tea leaves immediately. It can be black tea or green tea but it has to be the real tea leaves and not other herbal blends which are also referred to as “tea”. You don’t want strong herbs to kill off the culture. And the tea leaves provide food to the culture as well. Leave it to cool down. The tea leaves will seep in the meantime. 

Now add the SCOBY in a jar. You can get a SCOBY either from me, if you know me or can pick it up from my house, or order it online. The SCOBY will also be available in our soon-to-open restaurant in Thangmeiband as well...so maybe you can wait till it opens if you don’t know me personally but live in Imphal. I got my jar from the Dollar Store in Imphal. It is very important that you use only glass, ceramic or earthen wares for fermentation. Plastic and metal will leach into the ferment and create havoc in your system when consumed. 

Wait for the tea to cool down since a hot tea can kill off the good microbes in your culture. Remember, this is a living drink! Strain the tea leaves as you pour the tea into the SCOBY. It is a good idea to add a little Kombucha along with the SCOBY to ensure that an alien strand does not take over your ferment before it is done enough to regulate a desirable pH (desirable for the kombucha culture to thrive and keep moulds away). Or if you don’t have kombucha already, you can add a little bit of freshly squeezed pineapple juice or lemon juice to ensure the same. You want an acidic environment. Most of the time, it works well without those things for me. And I risk it since I already have a lot of SCOBY with me if, at all, the ferment goes bad and mouldy. 

Since I brewed just about a litre of the tea, it isn’t enough for the jar that I am using. So, I add another two litres (approximately) of filtered non chlorinated water into it to make it full. It is very important to use non chlorinated water as that kind of chemical can also kill the culture. 

Don’t fill up the jar till the neck. Leave some space for the culture to rise up. Though this is all liquid and doesn’t expand like a yogurt ferment, the carbon dioxide bubbling up from the liquid can push the SCOBY up and give the same hassle of trying to manage an expanding yogurt ferment. There will be kombucha dripping everywhere!

Seal it with a finely woven cloth and a rubber band like shown in the picture above. This will keep the fruit flies and other nasties away while providing lot of fresh air for the culture to breath. Kombucha is an aerobic ferment and it needs air to thrive. 

Depending on how hot or cold the weather is, it can take from 3 to 8 days to be ready. Nowadays, when the days are very hot, it takes about 3-4 days for our kombucha to reach the desired taste. But during winters, it takes 8 days or even more depending on which room we leave them to ferment in. You can check if it is done by scooping some up with a sterilised spoon and tasting it. You need to be very very clean while handling it. The taste should be sweet, sour and a bit fruity. How sweet and how sour depends on your preference. The faster the fermentation the more it has alcohol in it (but only about 1% maximum). And when the fermentation is slow more vinegar is produced and your kombucha will taste a bit like that too. Both are okay to consume. 

A gelatinous blob will be produced at the end of every fermentation cycle along with dark brown strands floating around in the liquid. These are the bi-products of the microbes which are produced when they consume the sugar. They are harmless and can even be consumed. You can strain the liquid before consuming, though I just pour my kombucha directly into my glass along with the brown strands that flow with the liquid into the glass. You don’t need to panic when you see all these weird looking things (which resemble sea creatures) floating around in the liquid... they are all part of the fermentation process. However, do look out for moulds. Those blue-green or even black moulds which sometimes, but rarely, contaminate the culture. You can spot them on the surface if contaminated. If you get those, you need to throw everything out and start again. I learned it the hard way that keeping the sweet tea to cool down for way too long before pouring it into the SCOBY can make the kombucha mouldy. The sweet tea, without the protection of the SCOBY culture, can and do attract moulds fast. So make sure you pour the tea in as soon as it cools down and don’t leave it overnight too often. 

You will see a new blob forming at the surface as it gets fermented. You will also notice that the colour of the tea changes too in the process. 

When I was in my first trimester some months back, I had this crazy and strong craving for Maggi noodles. Yes, the MSG laden, instant noodle which came with a sprinkle of lead. Pregnancy cravings can be weird and illogical. I knew that it was the worst kind of food for me and the baby; and so I managed to use my last drop of will power to steer clear of it. Of course, it helped that there was a Maggi ban in India around that time. But I swear I would have controlled anyway! 

In the meantime, I was reading up about bone broth and how MSG cubes try to mimic its taste. I did some mental calculations and figured out that chicken bone broth could definitely replace the Maggi masala and a little aroma from fried onions and garlic could do the trick. I figured that a good old home made egg noodle made from refined flour and eggs would give noodles bouncy and slippery enough to fool anyone to believe it is Maggi. But, here, I have steered clear of refined flour too and used sprouted grain flour instead. Why not go all the way to make Maggi absolutely healthy? It came at a cost though. The noodles broke easily since the sprouted grain flour didn’t have enough stickiness in it to hold. And since it was whole wheat, it tasted more like Maggi Atta noodle rather than the classic Maggi noodle. But it tasted like Maggi alright. And if you make the noodles with maida or any other flour with gluten (maybe rice flour) in it, no one will know there isn’t any Maggi in this Maggi. But ditch the maida and stick with a healthier flour if you want good health! You will get use to it. 

You don’t need many ingredients for this. But I have added the ones that I thought would give more colour and flavour to it. I will just tag them as “optional” in the list. 

So here is the ingredient list:

sprouted grain flour (quantity depends on the eggs - large or small).

3 eggs.

a few garlic cloves.

a medium size onion.

1-2 tbsp schmaltz (chicken fat).

a big scoop of chicken bone broth.

some shreds of chicken. (optional)

a few tomatoes. (optional)

a few sprigs of green onion. (optional)

a few smoked red chillis. (optional) 

salt to taste.

Chop the onion, garlic, tomatoes and green onions. Make sure the onion and garlic are chopped into small pieces as you want the flavour to fuse nicely into the oil.

Add some salt to the eggs in a bowl and mix it well before you put the flour into it. Make a dough with the moisture that the eggs provide and don’t add any water. If you leave it a little wetter with the proportion of eggs more than the flour, the noodles won’t break so much. I had made it that way earlier and the noodles came out more flexible and didn’t break so much.

Divide them into manageable lumps and spread them flat and long with a roller. Sprinkle some flour on them as you do it to avoid getting it stuck to the roller.   

Well, from here on you can cut the noodles from the flattened dough with a knife or a pair of kitchen shears or use this amazing device. Using a knife or a pair of shears for making noodles is a lot of hard work. If you plan to make noodles and pastas regularly in your kitchen, you won’t regret investing in a pasta maker like the one shown above. I got mine from Delhi, Select Citywalk (forgot the name of the store but it’s the one that sells home items on the top floor). This one is pretty sturdy and strong. I have been using it to make my pastas and noodles for a year now and life has been good!

For making pastas or noodles, adjust the roller of the pasta maker which gives a flat dough to maximum. The thickest, that is. 

Run the already flattened dough through it to get an even thickness. Adjust it again to narrow it till the desired thickness and run the dough through it again. 

Make sure you sprinkle some flour on the dough from time to time to avoid it from getting sticky. 

The dough would have become quite long by now so you might want to cut it into half for an easier handling. Now you can run it through the other roller with teeth to get strands of noodles. 

Now gently take the noodle and sprinkle more flour on it to avoid sticking... roll it around to get the flour to get between the strands. 

Place it in a bowl and keep aside.

Heat the schmaltz in a pan and toss in the garlic and onion. Fry them till they start browning. The aroma of these two should have infused properly in the oil by then.

Now add the chicken shreds and smoked chilli. Fry them for a few minutes.

Then add in the tomatoes, the green onion bulbs, and salt. Save the green parts to put later as they taste better when half cooked. Fry them for a few minutes.

Now add in the bone broth. It will melt as soon as it is heated. Toss the ingredients around for a few seconds so that the flavour of the broth goes into them.

Pour in some water and let it sit till it boils.

You want the soup boiling hot before you put in the noodles. This way the noodles will be intact and won’t get soggy and soft. Okay, so put the noodles into the boiling soup.

Gently toss them around so that all the noodles are submerged in the soup. Add the green parts of the green onions too. 

Let it boil till most of the water has evapourated. You can leave it soupy too if that is what you want. Sprinkle some black pepper if you want and you can always garnish it with a boiled egg or too for the extra protein. I did as I have to load my body with protein for the baby. 

I know this takes way longer than 2 minutes to prepare but it is worth changing something so unhealthy to something full of goodness and nutrients in exchange for your time. And more so if you have a child with a severe Maggi addiction. Apart from the noodle strands breaking, your child won’t know it isn’t actually Maggi and everything has been made from scratch at home. I will update this space once I get around that problem without compromising on the choice of the ingredient (health-wise). And do give me your feedback and let me know if I really did hack Maggi. 

Grains and other seeds are always difficult to digest for the human stomach. Since seeds are basically babies of the plant mothers, they are protected with phytic acid so that they are left alone to sprout by those who try to eat them and they can turn into plants. So, too much grain in one’s diet might lead to digestive problems later on. 

However, there are ways to get around this problem. We used to incorporate various methods to process seeds and grains in traditional cooking which we no longer follow these days. Grains were either soaked, fermented or sprouted before consumption to break down the phytic acid. Do you remember a time when your grandmother used to soak rice in the afternoon which was to be cooked for dinner? Or you might be aware that doughs were prepared some hours before they were cooked into chapatis and rotis. You might have heard of sourdough breads which are fermented with wild yeast (another post for why wild yeast fermentation is much better than commercial yeast fermentation). Or maybe you have heard of traditional rice beer made with sprouted rice grains. Or maybe someone recommended soaking your almonds before eating them. You certainly know that the South Indian dosa is made with fermented rice and pulses. Ask your mother or grandmother. They may tell you that pulses were soaked for some hours before cooking in the olden days. You might think that it was because we didn’t use pressure cookers those days. But no, it was traditional knowledge of how to properly prepare grains and seeds, knowingly or unknowingly, passed down from generation to generation. 

Remember these three things about how to prepare grains, pulses, nuts or any other seeds and your gut will be good and healthy; and you will get the maximum nutrients from what you consume. SOAK, SPROUT, FERMENT or do all three before preparing your seeds for consumption. 

So today, I share with you this easy method for making your own sprouted grain flour from wheat germs. You can make your tans and rotis instantly without waiting for it to ferment as the sprouting basically tricks the seeds to change into plants, thus doing away with the phytic acid. The same process can be followed to make sprouted rice flour or any other sprouted flour from your choice of grain. 

Step 1: Buy some wheat germs. If you are in Imphal, you can get these from Jalaal in Thangal Bazaar. Or buy them from 24 mantra... those are organic. 

Step 2: Soak them for some hours till they are tender. Strain away the water.

Step 3: Wash and strain the grains periodically so that they don’t get mouldy and are also constantly moist. After a few washes, you will see that they have sprouted. You don’t have to sprout them too much. Mine got a little too sprouted... shown in the picture. But that’s okay too. 

Step 4: Now you will have to diligently dry them in the sun or use a dryer to dry them fast. Just make sure that they are thoroughly dry. You can bite them and see if they are brittle enough to crack. If they are, then they are ready. 

I recently started making bone broth at home and have been using it in my recipes a lot. It is one of the most nourishing and nutritious things that is out there. It contains gelatin, the thing that makes jelly wiggle without spilling. It also contains proteins, calcium and other minerals from the bones. Bone broth helps heal the guts, gives you good bones, joints, skin, nails, hair... and I am sure other things too. It has been helping me a lot in my pregnancy and I haven’t got a single pregnancy related stretch mark on my belly yet (six months now). It’s also a very nourishing ingredient to add in your baby food... babies will love it and get a good healthy start by consuming it regularly. You can add it in your soups, sauces, kangsois, gravy, or you can just drink it as it is with added flavours of spices and herbs. 

Bone broth is a traditional food in many cultures and people used to add them in soups... particularly noodle soups. Since it has natural glutamate, it gives the dish a richer flavour... a flavour which is known to the Japanese as umami. Unfortunately, traditional bone broth has been replaced my MSG cubes which are so much convenient to use... but all the more harmful to the body. You get Maggi cubes which has replaced bone broth in flavour but not in the health benefits. It is ironic how something so harmful to the body has eventually come to replace something so beneficial to the body. 

Making your own bone broth isn’t that hard. You just have to adapt to the habit of saving up leftover bones and make some time for boiling them. From there on you can store the broth and use it scoop by scoop for your recipes and say goodbye to those notorious MSG cubes. 

I referred to this awesome book called Beautiful Babies for the broth recipe. Here is the link if you want to buy it too... it is a very useful book on healthful eating. 

In this post I will be showing you how to make bone broth from chicken bones, render schmaltz (chicken fat) and get some ready to eat chicken shreds in the process. 

For this you will need:

whole chicken with skin.

a tablespoon of lemon or pineapple juice.

I used one whole chicken and got it cut into 4 pieces. Cutting isn’t necessary... I just got it cut because a whole chicken wouldn’t fit in the steel container that we usually take with us while going meat or fish shopping. It is something we do to reduce our plastic usage. 

Grill the chicken in the oven at 200 degree celsius for one and half hours. One hour on one side and half an hour on the other. You can adjust the temperature and duration according to your liking as well. I didn’t season or flavour the chicken since I wanted to render pure unflavoured schmaltz from this process. But if you are just going for the bones, you can season and flavour it in any way you like... it can be any kind of roast. Place a tray underneath the chicken so that the fat gets collected in it as it drips from the meat. 

Once it is done, you can see that quite a lot of fat has oozed out. You will also see other kind of stuff... probably blood and moisture dripping out of the meat getting collected too. 

Now strain the schmaltz so that the other solids are left behind. Store it and use it like your regular cooking oils. 

Scrap what is left behind and you can store it away too. They can be added to soups. They melt into the soup and give it a very rich flavour. Yes, utilise everything!

Now separate the meat from the bones. You can store the shredded meat for later use. They can be used in stir fries, soups, pizza toppings, etc. 

Bone broth can be made straight from raw bones... but the roasted ones give it a better flavour. Now add some water and pineapple juice to the bones. You can use lemon juice or a good quality vinegar too. I didn’t have either of them so I used what was at hand. Anything acidic will do. It helps the minerals in the bones to be extracted more effectively. 

I used a pressure cooker for this since it saves a lot of time. I went for 20 whistles. You can boil it in an open vessel if you like. In that case, boil it till the bones start getting soft. You will get a rich broth with some fat floating on the top when it is done. You can further boil it to reduce it and make it more concentrated. That way, it will save space while storing too. 

Now, strain it and store it in a wide mouthed jar. You want a container from which you can scoop it out easily... it sets into a jelly-like consistency once you refrigerate it. Something like what you get in ngaa-ren (also fish broth). You can also pour it into ice cube trays and freeze it. That way you can use one cube at a time just like those MSG cubes. 

Use the same process to make fish broth from fish head, skin and bones or other bones from your favourite meats. 

UPDATE

When you are pregnant, everyone treats you like a Goddess. They make offerings of exotic fish, meats, vegetables and fruits that they believe are good for the baby growing inside your tummy. You then take full advantage of this and accept the offerings with a smile... because you know that it won’t last forever! One such offering came my way from my own mother... the very tasty and exotic Hilsa fish. I got two of them from her. 

I usually like eating them cooked with mustard seeds and oil... the typical Bengali recipe. But I thought I should go for the recipe that calls for taro roots. Mama usually cooks it this way, while Papa cooks it in the Bengali style. It is taro season and I love eating seasonal fruits and vegetables! I have used paan-nou for this dish... it literally means young taro roots. 

This dish doesn’t need many ingredients, yet it has a cocktail of flavours.... from the umami of the Hilsa fish to the sourness of the tomatoes... to the starchy texture of the taro roots... which adds another layer to the taste. 

I just made lacto-fermented garlic pickle yesterday. I love eating raw garlic but hate the smelly hot aftertaste that remains in my mouth. Luckily, I stumbled upon this lovely recipe which solves that problem, enhances the taste of the garlic cloves and is rich in good probiotic bacteria. It is very easy to make and effective in rehabilitating your guts with the good microbes. I got this recipe from this blog here. It features many other recipes for fermented foods too. 

As this recipe is quite simple, I will skip with the ritualistic step-by-step pictures as they will make little sense. So, here are the ingredients that you will need:

Lots of garlic.

Good quality water (non-chlorinated).

Sea salt / locally sourced natural salt (you can use regular salt but natural salt is much better).

Steps:

Peel the garlic and wash them properly. 

Take a clean glass jar and fill it up with the garlic cloves leaving some space on the top. 

Mix the salt and water in the ratio of 2 tablespoons of salt per 1 litre of water. 

Pour the saline water into the jar and make sure all the garlic cloves are submerged inside the liquid. 

Close the lid. The lid doesn’t have to be air tight if the cloves are under the liquid. 

Leave it to ferment on your kitchen counter away from direct sunlight for 3-4 weeks. 

The liquid will start forming small bubbles on the very next day and the smell of the garlic will be infused in it. The fermentation has already begun!

Keep it stored in your refrigerator after it has fermented for 3-4 weeks. 

A friend of mine from Nagaland once taught me how to cook fish in her native style and I have been hooked on this recipe. I have cooked a variety of fishes using this recipe and it has become my favourite way of preparing fish.

The meitei cuisine, with all the tasty variety of dishes that it has to offer, fails to do justice to meats and fishes. We tend to make all of these into curries as we have come to refer to a narrow spectrum of Indian culinary palette for inspiration for our meat recipes. And often we cannot make out whether a gravy is from chicken curry, fish curry or pork curry. In short we tend to kill the essence of the meat or the fish with repetitive loads of masala and oil!

With this recipe the gravy is mostly fish stock that oozes out of the fish. And since there is no oil added, the oil that comes out of the fish does not need to compete with other oils and so one can taste the richness of it. 

Summer is coming to an end and the nights are getting cooler. Sougri (or kenaf), the one Summer's loyal vegetable, will soon start flowering and dry up.

Before the season ends, I wanted to do another post with sougri and this recipe came to mind when I was just about to fall asleep. I had then slightly raised my head and squinted my eyes to speak to Korou, "Let's have pork for lunch tomorrow." And it was set! I went back to sleep. 

You might be thinking that the name of this recipe is made up, since you never heard it before. That's because it is. My father made up the name when I was about 12 years old! Actually there is a story behind it to justify the name. It goes like this.

It's been sometime since Bipasha Basu has been pestering me with one question, "Morning Evening, kya khaa rahe ho?... kya khaa rahe ho?...." (What have you been eating in the mornings and evenings?). To which she assumes and replies on my behalf, "biscuit ke naamm pe, maida khaa rahe ho... sirf maida khaa rahe ho" (in the name of biscuits, you are having maida or refined white flour, nothing more than refined white flour!). 

Sougri kangsoi is a simple dish.... simple to make with only a few ingredients. But I have to confess that I was never satisfied with, what I thought was, my preparation of sougri kangsoi. It never managed to match the balance of flavours that my mom's sougri kangsoi had achieved... or for that matter, those made by other seasoned and experienced ladies... (men rarely indulge in preparing kangsoi... RARELY, though not never).

After getting married I was cooking more of the traditional dishes and I was determined to get them right. That's when I started observing my mother-in-law's cooking. I was using the same ingredients as she was but her kangsoi had the balance while mine was always a little off. The lack of balance was subtle, and it bothered me more because it was so. It is fairly easy to catch a mistake in the recipe if the thing that is off, is significant... but it takes an amount of concentration and observation to pin a mistake if it is so subtle. Almost like trying to cut a very thin slice of cake... bad analogy, is it? 

It is only today, when I have finally got myself to blog after a long span of procrastination, that I realised that it has been over a year since I last posted. A lot has happened since then, the grandest among them being Korou and I getting married. With all the wedding work over, we started focusing on joint projects such as a short film we are currently working on. And so, the blog got ignored for a while. But not anymore! I plan to make up for all those days... yes!