Butter Chicken & Mango Chutney (bengali style) & some tit bits on cooking

Food is the most favourite topic for us Bongs. While everyone does not cook, everyone will have opinions. I love cooking and my inspiration has always been my baba who was an amazing cook in its true sense. Not only did he cook at home he cooked for 500+ people during Durga Puja or picnics - in the 70’s & 80’s when I was growing up in Air Force cantonment areas the whole air force station was like one big family. At Least for the bong community he was the self appointed cook.

On a wet saturday in Bangalore one is too lazy to cook but for us oldies ordering is anathema but you have to also balance your choice with younger generations who are home only for a few days in a year. When you cook at home it has to be simple and appealing, it should also evoke a taste which can be compared with what you cook. My butter chicken vs the Punjabi Rasoi.

Thanks to covid  there are so many home chef’s. Many of them discontinued as work caught up with them but many of them soldiered on driven by their passion. I had vacated the kitchen during COVID handling over the ladle to the wife who rose to the occasion and made us drool over Lucknowi Chicken Biryani to Shrimp cocktail, Baked Vegetables and so on. 

Like baba, who used to dig out recipes from bong magazines & keep cuttings or write them down he was very much focused on seleti food under the larger umbrella of bengali cooking. And I want to follow in his footsteps in time to come so that I keep alive the traditions which will get lost if I do not do this some time soon. 

So the principle of what you want to cook is very important, because that is what drives the passion behind it hence someone loves baking whereas someone does only non veg or vegan because they can’t find it etc. For me today, my inspiration was my family .

Improvisation is the name of the game - after seeing 2-3 videos I understand the broad direction & the ingredients I started the process & finished in 5 simple steps 

1. Marinate the chicken with ginger garlic paste, salt, haldi, chilli powder - I love the process of marinating. In many videos I saw the chefs do it with a spoon but just like eating food with your hand has a feeling of oneness, marinating gives me the same feeling. 

2. After 15 minutes fry the chicken to 90% readiness and keep aside.

3. The most critical step I realised is the gravy because that’s what gives the flavour.

4. 2 big onions & 4 tomatoes medium sized chopped, fry the onions first & then put in the tomatoes (many recipes suggest to add butter - don’t, it will just evaporate) add little water, 3 tablespoon sugar, salt, some chicken powder if you don’t have garam masala (we didn’t), i add raw ginger n garlic and kaju - it helps in thickening the paste. Once you achieve some kind of consistency. Cool it down & run it in mixer grinder (the videos will show hand blender which most of us won’t have) *** Do not avoid this step or take a short cut, I did not feel like wasting the pulp (as wastage is a big no for me). Be patient because this is the juice / the core - read the gravy 

5. Once done - heat it & add dollops of butter along with chicken, Serve with sprinkling of kasturi methi.

And bingo the Butter Chicken is ready. Needless to say the daughter & wife licked their fingers & plate to my 

Next day after the run, which was needed to digest the butter chicken, I was sitting under a Mango Tree & like Newton, a kaccha mango fell instead of an apple :) I took it home and made a Bengali style mango chutney . As I tried to find recipe on YouTube I saw the wife glaring at me and then saying I have fed this to you so many times….I got the point & put the phone down.  

3 (very) simple steps 

1. Slice the mango (with skin pls) & in a pressure cooker (modern day life saver) put very little mustard oil & kalo jeera and fry it for a few minutes, add little salt, haldi & red chilli powder. ½ cup of water & fresh green chillies (crucial elemente)

2. Give 1 whistle. When you look inside the mangoes should be soft and pulpy

3. Start heating and add sugar *** This is a very important step. The quantity of sugar is crucial to the taste of the family, if you want to make it a bit spicy & sweet add less sugar. Keep checking the consistency (again to taste) - my kakima makes it very watery, my baba likes it sweet & thick. I kept it medium but kept it on a slightly spicy side. 

When you have it the first taste is sweet and so you start eating but you feel the spice after some time and oohs & aahs start…..Me watching surreptitiously & waiting for the fun to begin.

Postscript: This is my first note/blog on a recipe. My inspiration is Samar Halarnkar. I just love his column - I just glance through the recipe but devour everything before it. I have kept some of his cuttings, Thou shall make them when the budget for OTG is sanctioned.

Day 6: 200 words/day challenge, 900 words