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| My bacon and prawn Hakka noodles |
A big part of the Pujos (Durga Pujo/ Puja) for me, while growing up in Kolkata, was the food.
The community lunches at our building pujo. Khichuri, which was included in the chanda (subscription) on Ashtami, fish on Saptami and Nabami and on Dashami, mutton curry, which over the years was replaced with mutton biryani.
Update: My childhood friend, Ananda, and my brother Siddhartha, told me that biryani at home was on Nobomi and Doshomi was a paatla mangshor jhol. If I remember right, Nobomi was also the night for ‘orchestra.’ Bollywood cover songs.
I loved this experience. Serving the food. Feeling very grown up. Eating of course. Chatting with my friends before and after the meals. I relive them when I go to the local Durga Pujos in Mumbai.
My mother told me that the pujo was on this year back home. The community ‘feasts’ too. She has stayed home in interest of safety because of the pandemic and went down just once to offer her prayers to the Goddess.
My mother would have had two petulant boys on her hands if this Covid pandemic had happened when my brother and I were kids. We would have hated it if we had to skip those feasts and stay home.
Then there would be the occasional restaurant treats during the pujo. Mom would take my younger brother and me to see the pujos in south Kolkata’s Deshopriyo Park area when we were in school. These outings would end with us going to one of the neighbourhood south Indian restaurants for dosa and vadas which we loved, we did not know the term ‘medu’ then, and ice cream. My brother and I looked forward to this all year.
Then there would be the occasional ‘Moghlai treats’. Read biryani. Or Moghlai parathas. We lived in suburban south Kolkata. The world of the central Kolkata Moghali joints – Nizam’s, Shiraz, Aminia et al – were alien to us till I moved to high school. Moghlai food during the pujos when we were kids usually meant a visit to a small eatery called called Bindoosri at Garia when we went to see the Poncho Durga nearby. I think the restaurant no longer exists.
The ultimate treat was a Chinese meal of course.
I am sorry but Tangra was not really a known name when I was in school in the 80s and in college in the early 90s. I think it came into its own in the late 90s, which also happened to be when I moved out of Kolkata. Till then, Park Street with its Bar B Q and Waldorf and Peep Inn, Embassy near the Planetarium and Kala Mandir and Jimmy’s Kitchen, were the holy land of Chinese food for the average south Kolkata Bengali. The more ‘traditional’ Chinese run places were in the area around Bow Barracks, Chandni Chowk, Tiretti Bazar. There was Chung Wah (which I frequented when in college and looks rather seedy now), Eau Chew which I went to recently and the breakfast market at Tiretti which frankly we did not know of back then and which I guess had seen better days. There is Tung Nam too, which I went to in my last trip to Kolkata, but I believe it is relatively new.
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| PC: Siddhartha Karmakar |
This year has been that of the socially distanced pujo, but Chinese food has brought some joy into our lives.
I ordered from chef Vikramjit Roy’s lockdown baby, Hello Panda, for my brother, sister in law and little niece in Gurgaon on Shoshthi, the first day of the Durga Pujo. I was happy to learn from the chef that he had introduced a line of ‘Tangra Chinese’ to the menu. “I am using Pou Chong sauces from Kolkata which give that characteristic smoky taste and flavour.”
My order consisted of what we would order when we went to Chinese restaurant as kids in Kolkata. Chilli chicken (dry, as we had not come across gravy in Chinese restaurants back in the day), garlic prawns (dry), prawn fried rice and chicken Hakka noodles.
The kids loved it and that made me very happy. My brother said that my fried rice loving niece (who is 4 now) had her dinner herself without anyone feeding her and he gave full credit to the quality of cooking for that.
I spoke to my brother right now and he said that he had just ordered from Hello Panda again. While I am in awe of what Vikramjit created in his earlier life as a chef in five star hotels, I am keen to try the food that he is dishing out in this lockdown baby of his. This is more my sort of food after all!
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| PC: Rekha Karmakar |
Mom had told me that she wanted to have Chinese on saptami (the second day) and requested me to order in for her. I was in a bit of a quandary here as I was not too excited with the Chinese food that I had tried in the traditionally popular restaurants in Kolkata in recent years. I found a lot of what was on offer to be deep fried, high on salt and food colouring and MSG and the meals hadn’t left me with happy thoughts or feelings.
The answer to my mother’s request was obvious. I got in touch with Doma Wang who runs Blue Poppy Thakali. This Tibetan run restaurant in Kolkata, most famous for its momos, is where I have enjoyed my Chinese food the most in my recent trips to Kolkata when my friends Kaniska and Manishita took me there. It’s the ‘usual.’ Hakka noodles, fried rice, chilli pork, nothing elaborate…but the food of comfort and joy to me with no subsequent acidity or heartburn unlike in the case of the other restaurants.
Mom’s wish list was chilli fish, prawn fried rice and veg Hakka noodles, and, on hearing the food was coming from Blue poppy, steamed chicken momo.
She loved the food from Blue Poppy it seems. She was in awe of the generous portions and the low oil used. Something she is very particular about. She asked me if I had given Doma any special instructions on that.
I had not. I knew I did not have to. Doma herself had told her daughter Sachiko, who was at the restaurant, to ensure this. That is the beauty of a family run place. Doma had to stay home for safety reasons but her baby was in good hands.
Mom said that the food reminded her of the meals that she would have at Jimmy’s Kitchen 5 decades back ( I think she meant 4) when my dad would take her and me for lunch everyday after my school got over. Especially the large prawns!
A meal could not have got more beautiful.
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| Posing in the #FinelyChoppedKitchen in my notun jama |
If you read my previous post on the ‘socially distanced pujos,’ you would know that the pujo pujo bhaab (pujo spirit) had eluded me this year and I felt a bit like uncle Scrooge in Dickens’ ‘A Christmas story.’
That changed on Ashtami night when I lifted the wok in the kitchen and made bacon and prawn Hakka noodles using a fresh pack of bacon that we had called in from Jude’s and some river prawns, 3 button mushrooms, a slice chilli and 4/5th of a red bell pepper that I found in the fridge. Michael Jackson’s Thriller album playing on Alexa as I wielded my bottles of sauce with joy. This was the soundtrack that, along with Faith by Wham!, True Blue by Madonna, the best of Grammy (84, 85 & 86) and Star by Nazia and Zoheb Hassan, we would play at our building pujo in the 80s along with the occasional Vijay Benedict and Anuradha Paudwal number from the Mithun Chakraborty starrer, Dance Dance.
Our friend Shaswati had come over for dinner. The two of us and her have formed a sort of social bubble during the lockdown and meet occasionally. I decided to make the noodles as chef Seefah had sent a lovely pork ribs and potato dry pot from their Sichuan festival at Seefah and and an incredibly well flavoured fish with in house pickled cabbage and chillies and firm textured glass noodles which looked bland, but was anything but that.
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| Dry pork hot pot. Seefah |
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| Sichuan fish. Seefah |
For starters I made chicken wings in the air fryer and which I marinated with Sriracha tabasco, fish sauce and red chillies and honey. They were a bit charred on top but juicy all through.
I kid you not, but it did feel like the pujos for a short while when I worked the wok in the kitchen and then wore the notun jama, new tee shirt, that my brother had sent me.
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| ITC Dum Pukht biryani and salan |
And biryani? There was a lot of it actually during the pujos this time and each very distinct from the other.
On shoshthi there was what is arguably my favourite biryani now. The Dum Pukht mutton Awadhi biryani, most kindly sent by the folks at ITC Maratha on our 19th anniversary which fell on that day, along with a silken mutton nihari, dreamy shikhampuri kebabs, dal Bukhara, warqi paratha and shirmal and a chocolate cake.
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| Odia mutton biryani by Sneha Senapati |
Last night, Nobomi, was when I got to taste a beautiful home styled Odia mutton biryani with tultule mangsho (tender mutton) most kindly cooked and sent by Mummbai based Odia home chef Sneha Senapati along with joyous chubby mutton kheema and potato baraa (like the tikia of Kolkata but home made) and dahi ilish with an electrifying mustard oil and dahi curry.
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| Mutton biryani, payesh, tomato chutney, raita, alu fulkopi and chholar dal from a Pratap Cateres sent by Jayanta Basu |
Today is doshomi. Biryani day back home in our building pujo in Kolkata.
Well, it was biryani day for me in Mumbai too with our dear friends the Basus (Jayantada, Anita boudi and their daughter Priyanka) sending us a lavish feast of mutton biryani with very tender mutton and raita, a soulful chholar dal, a wedding feast-like alu fulkopir torkari, a very well balanced chutney and payesh and Baby Loaf soft rajbhog from a local caterer (Pratap as I learnt later: update).
And dosa? That will have to wait. You cannot have a socially distanced dosa can you? That has to be had fresh off the tawa and one day that will happen again.
Shubho Bijoya folks. Stay well and safe. Notun jama is cool but don’t forget to wear a mask!
Appendix:
The #KittyKarmakars
The #FinelyChoppedRecipeCorner
- Heat vegetable oil in a wok
- Add finely chopped ginger and garlic
- Add the protein. Chicken (boiled which is what my mother prefers or raw as I often do), bacon/ ham/ chopped sausages, prawns or just egg
- Add soya sauce
- Add chopped vegetables (you can skip protein if you want to make a veg one)
- Add boiled noodles with the water strained out. You can boil some onion bulbs with the noodles too and add it. Add salt, pepper (white is nicer). Sauces: whatever is at home. I use chilli sauce, Thai chilli paste, black bean chilli oil in varying proportions. You can add a dash of honey too. Stir.
- Add a pre-scrambled egg
- Add a squeeze of lime at the end. You can add some toasted sesame seeds too. Do not forget to keep some finely chopped green chillies in soya sauce to add to it just as my mom does.
Also read:
It indeed was a dampening feel towards the Pujo spirits until it was about finding solace in good food and reinstating faith in goddess Durga. A beautiful description taking the reader down the memory lane n the puja celebrations.
Wow nostalgic K! I missed the bhog the most this year. Shubho Bijoya to you both and the Kitty Karmakars.
hey kalyan, i had used your chilli chicken recipe few months back but unable to find it now. searching throws up something else. will you be kind enough to point me to it.