History of the Bengali lockdown chorchori

I studied in the Calcutta International School for a year after we moved into India. A school meant largely for foreign nationals or Indian expat kids coming back to India. A practise of writing weekend diaries was followed every Monday there. Perhaps that is when the seeds of my writing this blog was sown. I was 8 years old then.

If you follow me on Instagram, then you would know that this weekend has been that of some pretty high octane eating and associated nostalgia tripping in my life.

Right from the Saturday morning’s breakfast attempt to recreate the tikia rolls of Kolkata by using the parathas and kebabs Banu had made the day before, to stirring up Jimmy’s Restaurant, New Market, ham fried rice memories in a wok for lunch.

Sunday morning was not so much about nostalgia, but it did feature some some ‘heavy, heavy fuel’ as the Dire Straits song goes. I had the amazing mutton khichda and khamiri roti kindly sent the previous evening by home chef Shabnam Mukadam of Cooking Fiesta who lives down the road. Roti with khichda is a combination that I was unaware of as I thought khichda was a one dish meal. Shabnam told me that this combinations is a practise followed by the Khoja Muslim community that she belongs to. I have had khichda before on the streets of Bohri Mohalla and Mahim Dargah but this was a lot richer and more robust and full flavoured. 

Banu, our cook, called a bit later during the day saying she would not be coming to work and I took the opportunity to make K a creamy cheesy bacon pasta in an empty kitchen. The bacon that I used, like the ham previous day, was by Incendiary Kitchen in Bandra and was of superlative quality. The recipe started with butter and ended with cheese and starred the bacon of course. Sounds reckless from a health point of view you say? Well, K had introduced me to this pasta recipe when we were 19 years younger. I make it occasionally for us now and K did want to have a bacon pasta.

At night there was the Odia street food set that home chef Sneha Senapati had sent in the evening.  There was egg chicken roll, ghoogni and gupchup (the Odia version of phuchka) and the menu was rather apt given we were celebrating one month of little Nimki’s being with us. Egg rolls from the corner shop and ghoogni made at home would be the menu for the birthday parties that my mother would throw for my brother and me while we were kids. And cake from Jalojog.

K pointed that we had not called for cake when suddenly the bell rang just before midnight and our neighbour Erika, Godmother to Baby Loaf and little Nimki, popped in with some Goan baath cake that she had baked and then left. Today her daughter, Gia, came and gave some lovely cheesecake that she had baked for the occasion. It made for a nice way of bringing the 7 month anniversary of Baby  Loaf moving in with us.

While the weekend seemed rather debauched from a culinary point of view, we had brought it in with a note of sobriety on Friday night. With chorchori, the Bengali slow cooked mixed vegetables dish.

An article on chorchori has come out recently in Conde Nast International. I saw that there was a fair bit of debate around it on a Facebook group. That is bound to happen as we Bengalis value both our food and our opinions rather dearly. Moreover, the article spoke about the historical antecedents of the dish which is always a slippery slope as so much of our food history is speculative and anecdotal. The article showed pictures of dishes with a bit of sauce while chorchori is not associated with that.  

Let me tell you about my ‘history of chorchori.’ It might not be of much significance but is at least something that I can speak of with a certain sense of certainty. 

As a kid, I was not particularly fond of the chorchoris made at home and would make a face when it made an appearance at the dining table. 

The chorchori that I first fell in love with was the panhcmeshali chorchori (mix of five seasonal vegetables) that I once had at Bhojohori Manna, Mumbai, and which since then became our regular order there. Then there was the chorchori with fish head in it that Indrajit Lahiri of the YouTube series, Foodka, recommended that I have at Swadhin Bharat Hindu Hotel at Calcutta’s College Street, which won my heart too.

Chorchori was not a dish that we made at home in Mumbai though our kitchen repertoire includes a fair amount of Bengali dishes as K loves them too. The lockdown changed things. 

We had to depend entirely on home cooked food at the start with everything being shut outside. Produce was at a premium as only chicken and vegetables were easily available. The latter was thanks to the vegetable cart guy who would come down our lane before he left for his ‘native place’ as we call it in Indian English. Time, effort and even vessels were all at a premium in the kitchen then as we had no house help and we had to do everything ourselves.

I tentatively decided to make a chorchori one day as there was a motley mix of vegetables such as aubergines, okra and pumpkin at home. ‘Tentatively’ as Kainaz was not fond of dishes made with a mix of vegetables. 

She loved the chorchori that I made. As did I.

It was tasty, wholesome, easy to make and best of all, needed only a single wok to cook in. It was frugal too as the ingredients were easy to access and later on we tried other combinations that included even capsicum. With time, I improved on my technique. Figured out that it was better to add the vegetables in at different points of the cooking process as they take differing times to cook. Potatoes are used commonly in chorchori but we try to avoid that from a health point of view and have not missed its presence. 

We would drizzle in a bit of mustard oil at the end and that would make our kitchen in Mumbai smell like Kolkata.

Things are a bit different six months down the line. The covid virus is still around with no vaccine in sight but things have opened, things are available more easily, we have domestic help now. Life is not as much of a maelstrom as it was earlier. 

Monday brought back a semblance of balance after the weekend with bajra roti, torka dal, kalo jeere beans and garab nu achar

The chorchori on Friday night was made by Banu after I gave her my recipe. Turned out pretty well. It starred potol and kumro. Pointed gourd and pumpkin. This is the recipe that I use and it is completely self taught:

• Heat a tablespoon of mustard oil in a wok
• Once hot, add a teaspoon of panch phoron (the Bengali five spice mix which I am told is used across eastern India so might not be just ‘Bengali), a dried red chilli, green chilli
• Once this sputters, add the vegetable that takes more time to cook. In this case the potol. Partially peel the skin of the potol first.
• Then add spices. A bit of turmeric and red chilli powder, I put cumin and coriander powder too. If for two people, then half a teaspoon of each. Add salt.
• Stir till the potol is partly cooked and then add cubed pumpkin. There is an art and science to how each is cut. My grandmother would know that. I need to call her. Tomorrow hopefully. To check on her. Stir and then cover the wok with a lid and let it slow cook till ready.
• Drizzle some mustard oil at the end. Garnish with fresh coriander and green chilli if you can. Eat with rice or roti. Ideally with your fingers. Tastes well the next day too when taken out of the fridge.