Khana-Khajana

This is not a recipe book. This is my digital recipe diary, I tend to lose all the handwritten recipes, so I decided to write here. Since this is an open blog, I do not need to worry much even if I forget the key to open the blog. These are some easy recipes written down here that I have mainly learned over the past 6 months from various YouTube channels (specifically from Bong Eats and Tanhir Paakshala, I am thankful to them), from my friends, and needless to mention, from my best flat mates ever. Generally, people learn cooking from their mother, but my mother always gave me the freedom to learn on my own. I love my mother's cooking, so before the cooking starts, I tend to visualize how the taste of the dish would be or how the dish would look like if that was prepared by my mother. Then I start the preparation of the dish, mimicking my mother's cooking style. I won’t say that cooking is my passion or I love cooking, rather cooking revives my hormone level. I always find my solace in good food. If I am in a good mood I cook with enthusiasm, try to be innovative, but if I am to cook after having a rough day, I would prefer boiled rice or quick oats, those are minimal to do with. So, the recipes below are an amalgamate of both easy, quick breakfasts to heavy breakfasts, from light meals to heavy meal recipes.

1. Let's begin with my favorite Bengali fish curry, a simple and yet non-trivial one. This recipe will go with most of the fish, I prepared with Rui (Rohu) fish. You need minimal ingredients and very little time.

Ingredients: Clean pieces of fish, salt, turmeric powder, sugar, Kalo jeera(Nigella seeds/black cumin), green chilis (Kacha Lanka), vegetable oil (or any oil that you prefer to cook with), mustard oil (optional), and most decent-sized potatoes (aloo).

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Simple Method: Coat (or in other words, lightly marinate) both the pieces of fish and the potatoes with salt and turmeric powder and then keep them aside for a while. Fry the fish first and then fry the potatoes in the same oil. Once fried keep both of these aside for the time being. Then in the same hot oil, add Kalo jeera, then green chilis. Fry these for roughly 30 seconds and then add salt, a small amount of turmeric powder, and a pinch of sugar. Fry all these ingredients in oil for some time (roughly 1 minute) and then add a little water (preferably hot) and salt according to taste. After this add the required amount of hot water for preparing the curry. Bring the water to boiling, then add potatoes first, once the potatoes are cooked for about 2 minutes in hot curry, add the fried pieces of the fish. Turn the heat to medium and put the lid on. Check the taste once and see if you need to add more salt or not. If you do not like the light curry, take a teaspoonful of flour in a cup, add a pinch of salt and hot water in that, mix well and then pour it into the curry. One tip, if you find your curry a bit salty, add a small amount of milk in that or a small amount of flour and mix well. Then turn off the heat, add 2 split green chilis to the curry. Finally, add one teaspoon of mustard oil to it, and close the lid. Serve with hot rice after 5 minutes. You can optionally garnish with coriander leaf, also you can add tomatoes to it. 

So far one recipe, I will add more later, so stay tuned.