Showing posts with label Oriya Cuisine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Oriya Cuisine. Show all posts

Wednesday 14 February 2018

Rasabali




It is a sweet dish from the state of Odisha. This sweet dish is originated from Baladevjew temple of kendrapara. It is offered to lord Baladevjew. It is one of the chapan bhog offered to Lord Jaganath. 
The mashed Cheena is mixed with all purpose flour and semolina, then it is shaped into small flattened pattie  and then fried until golden brown. It is then dipped into flavoured thickened sweet milk and served. 

For the Chenna Bara / Pattie
Ingredients
250 grams Mashed Chenna / Cottage Cheese
3 tsp Fine Semolina
2 1/2 tsp All Purpose Flour
1 tbsp Sugar
1/4 tsp Baking soda
Oil / Ghee for frying 






Method
Take a bowl. Add cheena, semolina, APF, sugar and baking soda. Mix all the ingredients well together. Take small lime size portions and make small balls and flatten it. Take oil / ghee in a pan, let it heat. Add the flattened balls into the hot oil. Fry on medium low heat until golden brown from both the sides. Remove them on a paper towel and keep it aside.

For the Rasabali
Ingredients
1 liter Milk
5 tbsp or more Sugar as per the requirement
1/2 tsp Cardamom powder
Few strands of Saffron
Pinch of Salt 
Few Almond / Pistachio flakes and Rose petals for garnishing
Cheena Bara / Patties

Method
Boil the milk in a heavy bottom pot on medium low flame. Let it simmer for 10 minutes. Now add salt, saffron and cardamom powder. Stir for a minute. Now add sugar, stir the milk and let it simmer till the milk has reduced into half its quantity.  Add the cheena patties into the milk. Let it continue to simmer for another 5 minutes. Switch off the flame. Garnish with almond flakes, pistachio flakes and rose petals. Let it cool. You can either serve it in room temperature or chilled. 
                          


Wednesday 13 December 2017

Ram Rochak Tarkari


It’s a delicious Oriya vegetarian dish popular in the Baripada region of Odisha. This dish is made during Ratha Yatra. This a very simple dish. Mung dal dumplings are cooked with vegetables like brinjal and potatoes.  This dish can be served with rice.
This recipe is adapted from Sweta Biswal's blog Oriya Rasoi....


For the Dal Dumplings / Bara
Ingredients
1/2 cup Yellow Split Lentils(Mung Dal) soaked for 1 to 2 hours
1/4 cup Whole Green Gram (Whole Green Mung Dal) soaked for 4 to 5 hours
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
2 Red Dry Chillies
A pinch of Asafetida
Salt to taste
Oil for fry the dumplings


Method
Add the cumin seeds, dry red chillies, asafetida, salt, yellow mung dal and green whole mung dal in a grinder. Add very little water as the batter should be thick. Grind the dal into a batter. Take oil in a wok and let it heat up. Add a tsp of the batter in the oil. Repeat the process for 3 to 4 times. Fry it till golden brown in colour. Remove it from the oil and keep it aside.

For the Masala Paste
Ingredients
2 to 3 small pieces of Ginger
2 Dry Red Chillies
1 small Green Chilli
1/2 tsp Cumin seeds
3/4 tsp Coriander seeds
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder


Method
Add the ginger, red chillies, green chilli, cumin seeds, coriander seeds and turmeric powder in the grinder and grind the ingredients. Add 2 to 3 tbsp water and grind it again into a paste.

For the Curry
Ingredients
Mung Dal Dumplings
1 cup Brinjal cut into medium cubes
2 medium size Potatoes cut into medium size cubes
1 Green Chilli slit
1 Green Cardamom
1 small piece Cinnamon
2 Cloves
Salt to taste
Masala paste
2 tbsp Oil
1/2 tsp Ghee


Method
Reduce the oil in which the dumplings had been fried to 2 tbsp. Add the cumin seeds, clove, cardamom, cinnamon and green chilli. Let it crackle. Add the masala paste. Sauté it till the oil leaves the masala. Add the potatoes. Stir and cook for a minute. Add the brinjal. Stir and cook for another minute. Add 1 1/2 cups of water. Stir, cover and cook for 10 minutes. Open the lid, add salt to taste. Stir, cover and continue to cook until the potatoes are 80 percent done. Open the lid, check if the potatoes are almost done. Add the dumplings and continue to cook for another 4 to 5 minutes. Drizzle ghee and switch of the flame. Serve it with hot steaming rice. 



Thursday 22 September 2016

Rasgulla... From the village of Pahala


A sweet controversy....
Uptill now I grew up knowing that Rasgulla's were invented in Bengal by Nobin Chandra Das in 19 th century. The other day when I had posted Rasgullar payesh, a friend pointed out that this is not the truth... According to historians of Odisha, the rasgullas were originated in Puri, as Khira Mohana which later was know as Pahala Rasgulla. It has been traditionally offered as offering  to goddess Laxmi at JagannathTemple in Puri. The Jagannath Temple scholars Laxmidhar Pujapanda and researchers like Jagabandhu Padhi state that the tradition has existed since 12th century.  According to people of Pahala, a village which is on the outskirts of Bhubaneswar, had large number of cows and the milk was produced in excess.  The villagers would throw away the milk when it got spoilt. When a priest from the Jagannath Temple saw this, he taught them the art of curdling the milk and including the recipe of rasagulla. Hence Pahala become the biggest market for chhena-based sweets.
This claim is contested by Bengali historians. According to food historians K.T Acharya and Chitra Banerji, that there are no references to cheese (including chhena) in India before the 17th century. The milk-based sweets were mainly made up of khoa before the Portuguese ruled our country. Their influences led to the introduction of cheese-based sweets. Therefore, the possibility of a cheese-based dish being offered at Jagannath Temple in 12th century is highly unlikely. According to Nobin Chandra Das' descendant Animikh Roy and historian Haripada Bhowmik, rasgulla is not even mentioned as one of the chhappan bhog ("56 offerings") in the early records of the Temple. They also state that it would have been a blasphemy to offer something made from spoiled milk to a deity. However,  Michael Krondl argues that Hindu dietary rules vary from region to region, and it is possible that this restriction did not exist in Odisha.
Recently it is declared by an Odia researcher Asit Mohanty (research scholar on Jagannath culture and traditions) that there is mention of Rasagola in the Jagamohana Ramayana of Balaram Das a text of 15th Century.The text mentions that Rasagola, along with other sweets were found in Odisha. There is also mention of many other cheese made sweets like Chhenapuri, Chhenaladuand Rasabali.
However Bengal claims that the spongy white rasgulla is believed to have been introduced in 1868 by a Kolkata based confectioner Shri Nobin Chandra Das. His descendants claim that his recipe was an original, but according to another theory, he modified the traditional Odisha rasgulla recipe to produce this less perishable variant. Yet another theory is that rasgulla was first prepared by someone else in Bengal, and Das only popularized it. In Banglar Khabar (1987), food historian Pranab Ray states that a man named Braja Moira had introduced rasgulla in his shop near Calcutta High Court in 1866, two years before Das started selling the dish.  In 1906, Panchana Bandopadhyay wrote that rasgullla was invented in 19th century by Haradhan Moira, a Phulia-based sweetmaker who worked for the Pal Chowdhurys of Ranaghat. According to Mistikatha, a newspaper published by West Bengal Sweetmeat Traders Association, many other people prepared similar sweets under different names such as gopalgolla (prepared by Gopal Moira of Burdwandistrict), jatingolla, bhabanigolaand rasugolla.Food historian Michael Krondl states that irrespective of its origin, the rasgulla likely predates Nobin Chandra Das.Bhagwandas Bagla, a Marwari businessman and a customer of Nobin Chandra Das, popularized the Bengali rasgulla beyond the shop's locality by ordering huge amounts.
In 2015, the Odisha government initiated a move to get Geographical indication (GI) status for the rasagulla made in Pahala. On 30 July, the people of Odisha celebrated "Rasagola Dibasa" ("Rasgulla Day") to reaffirm Odisha as the place of the dish's origin.In August, West Bengal decided to legally contest Odisha's move to obtain GI Status.
In 2015 The odisha state government constituted three committees to claim over the Rasgulla .The committees submitted their interim report to the government. Noted journalist and food researcher Bhakta Tripathy and a member of the committee had submitted dossier containing historical evidence of Rasgulla origin in Odisha.The Science and Technology department of the West Bengal government also started the process to get its own GI status for the dessert.
In 2016 an official of the West Bengal government stated that they only wished for a Geographical Indications (GI) tag only for the local varity of Rasgulla known as'Rasogolla', stating that "There is no conflict with Odisha. What we want is to protect the identity of our Rasogolla. Their product is different from ours both in colour, texture, taste, juice content and method of preparation."
Based on Net Sources.....
For me a sweet is to indulge, irrespective of the state it belongs.
Here is my adaptation of the dish....

Pahala Rasgulla

Ingredients
Home made Chenna / Cottage Cheese made from 11/2 liters Cow Milk
1 tsp Sugar
1 tsp Semolina
2 pinches of Cardamom powder
1/2 liter Hot Water

For the Sugar Syrup
21/2 cups Sugar
5 1/2  cups Water
Method
Take the a plate, add the chenna, semolina and sugar. Mix and knead it into a smooth dough for 5 to 7 minutes. Take sugar and water in a pot for making the sugar syrup. First let it boil and and let it simmer on low flame. Meanwhile make equal size balls ftom the dough. Roll it into a balls and drop it in the sugar syrup. Let it cook on medium flame covered for 15 minutes. Remove the cover and let it boil for 5 minutes on high flame. Remove the rasgulla from the sugar syrup and put it in the hot water for 10 minutes. Remove the rasgullas from the hot water. Put it in a bowl and pour the sugar syrup on top of the rasgullas. Cover and let it sit for 30 minutes before serving.

Sunday 3 January 2016

Baked Doi Begun (Brinjal)

Baked Doi Begun (Brinjal)
I wanted to give Doi Begun a twist...
Ingredients
3 Medium size Bharta Brinjals cut into cubes
2 cups Fresh cream
1 cup Hung Curd
1/2 tsp Red Chilli powder
1/2 tsp Bhaja Masala (Roasted Cumin Seeds and  1 Red Chilli made into powder)
Salt to taste
2 tbsp Mustard Oil

Method
Take a baking dish, add the brinjals, rub in salt, beat the hung curd and cream. Pour the beaten cream and hung curd and 1 tbsp of mustard oil and mix it with the brinjals. Sprinkle the Bhaja masala and chilli powder.. Bake at 200 degrees Celcius for 45 minutes  or more till the brinjals are  cooked, in between drizzle remaining mustard oil on the brinjals...  Serve hot.... Garnish with coriander leaves....