My World of Food and Travel

My father is averse to anything sour in his food. Not surprisingly, that trait passed on to me as well, though not so much my sister. I have taken more after our father and she is more like Ma. Deta’ apathy towards sourness is a quite an oddity since Assamese are known for their tenga (tart and tangy) dishes. He has such sensitive taste buds that you just have to add one tomato or just a squeeze of lime to see his face turn all ‘twisty’ and announce that the food is quite inedible. An upset Ma would then remark that maybe Deta was a descendent of Ghurabaak (or simply Baak ), a very popular ghost/creature of Assamese myths. Apparently, this Baak was a fish-loving personality that would accost unsuspecting fishing people at night. I have grown up listening to innumerable stories about the Baak pestering villagers to part with their catch of the evening. One of the stories goes that once a Baak decided to take the form of a man and gatecrash a wedding to partake of the feast, since...

I have a cheese tooth. I just luuurve cheese! My sis had a hard time tearing me away from the cheese section in departmental stores when we were in Mumbai. I still have the habit of making a quick, furtive run to the cheese section whenever I am out shopping for groceries with the husband. I wish cheese would not be blamed for weight gain. I wish the doctor had prescribed having cheese as way of losing weight. Sigh. In any way, I have been introducing cheese in my recipes. My dad especially loved my chicken in cheese sauce . So much so that he asks Ma to make it whenever there is a special occasion or if a guest is dropping in for a meal. Also, he says my cheese chicken is better than Ma’s!  That boosted my morale quite a bit and I decided to expand my cheese realm. By that, I meant replicating the dish with fish, instead of chicken. I saw a similar recipe in Priyadarshini’s blog and the idea of using breadcrumbs came from her. I first made it for my cousin and sis-in-la...

And so Diwali is over and my parents have left. I did a lot of eating and cooking during the whole time my parents were here. While I made Ma cook for me my favourite dishes, I tried to return the favour by making some new dishes as well. Ma eats sparingly nowadays, blaming it on her age, but Deta is still eager to try new food. He saw a packet of Basa fish fillets one day at the shopping mall and wanted to know how it tasted like. I bought the fish fillets and experimented a little at home. The first attempt turned out to be a big disaster though everyone put up a brave face and said it was fine. I knew better. So, I chucked all my great ideas about creating a new recipe and decided to stick to the tried and tested formula of a fish fry in my second attempt. That, thankfully, went about quite right and I even made Deta try his hand at frying the fish. Nobody had to put up an act of valour at the dining table that day. Here is my recipe for spicy crumb fried fish. Spicy Crum...

It never occurred to me to put up a recipe for this dish. I mean, this is what we have every other day! I had clicked the photographs suddenly on a whim one day long time back and then thought “What? Really?” And then decided not to post them.  Now that I had been sick for so long, I hardly cooked anything new (left that to my Ma) and hence there has been no food updates on the blog. I went through my folders, scouring for any recipe that I may have overlooked and true enough – there lay my neglected, abandoned pictures of Jika Maas or fish and ridge gourd curry. So, that’s it then, we shall be making a very common Assamese fish curry today.  I am sure every household has their own way of making it, but I only know of two ways. You can either add tomatoes to the dish for the requisite sourness or you can add a generous dash of lime juice at the end. My in-laws prefer it the tomato way while I have had it more with lime juice at my maternal home (maybe because we gro...

This fish curry reminds me so much about home and Ma’s cooking. While growing up I never realized that as a daughter I shall have to move out of my parents’ home one day. I took Ma for granted and did not pay much attention to her cooking. I guess we were a heartless lot - neither my sis nor I, or even Deta for that matter, ever complimented her on any dish. And she is such a fabulous cook! Today, I wait for the husband’s appreciation on any little thing that I come up with. So, I can imagine how it would have felt like on not getting any word of encouragement from the family.  Coming back to the fish curry, it is a much-loved Assamese dish. Almost every household has (had?) a kitchen garden where there would be herbs, vegetables and fruit of various kinds. One just had to step out to the kitchen garden, pick out the choice of herbs and vegetables and come up with a delicious lunch/dinner. At our Guwahati home, we have a nice, big noroxingho (curry leaves) plant which would ...

It was my parents’ wedding anniversary on 19 th March and we planned to hold a small party at our home. As usual, I got excited about the menu. But one thing kind of acted as a spoiler – it was a weekday and that meant I would have to come back from office and cook. So, essentially, the menu could not include elaborate dishes that required much preparation and cooking time. I was at work when the idea of making a fish fry struck me. It actually happened during a casual chatter among us during lunch time. K, the only pure vegetarian colleague in our department, had innocently remarked that the Bengali family living in the apartment below hers regularly fried fish and that she could not bear the smell. That sparked off a lively discussion regarding fried fish among us non-vegetarians, much to her dismay. We recalled every fried fish dish that we had come across and most of us agreed that Amritsari Fish Fry beat Tawa Fried Fish quite hollow. K, in the meantime, was hurriedly sh...

I must say tell you that the husband makes a mean crab curry. He gets crabs from the market, cuts and cleans them and then cooks up a storm in the kitchen! I have to step into the kitchen gingerly after he is done with it. The storm has its effects, you know. There would be utensils lying scattered everywhere and cabinet drawers open and the kitchen tap dripping water. The floor would be a ‘debris-field’ of potato and onion peels, spilled water and spice powders. When this happens, you have no other choice but to take a really deep breath and launch into a cleaning mode.  That being said, I can do anything to have that crab curry.  Now, a few days ago, I suddenly had cravings for that curry at dinner time. But there was no crab at home and it was too late to go to the market. Instead, I had some nice big pieces of rohu fish in the freezer. Would the curry taste very bland if I used fish instead of the crab? Only one way to find out. So, I approached th...

Doesn’t the picture look dreadful? So unappetizing! And yet how much we all loved the dish. Just goes on to prove that looks can be so deceptive.  I had to prowl on the net again when the husband brought home this 2.5 kg rohu fish. I hardly know a few fish recipes and I generally keep on carrying out experiments till all of us get tired of them. As a matter fact, I don’t think I made this recipe the correct way. Oops! The secret is out! Maybe that is why the picture did not come out well. Hmm. Then again, I made the recipe with rohu fish steaks, which is an Indian fresh water fish and is very mild in taste. The original recipe (or rather recipes, as I mixed and matched 2-3 of them) called for sole, flounder or haddock fillets. Now, who wants to wait till those fish come home?  Anyhow, the recipe seemed super simple and I thought I could whip it up easily for dinner after a hard day at office. As usual, I am always hit by trepidation when the dish ...