Shubho Bijoya Special - Part 1

Shubho Bijoya everyone!!!

Yet another Durga Pujo came and passed by. 

Another year where I didn't go to a Pujo Pandal or wear new clothes or get excited about doing Pandal hopping or having Khichuri bhog. Another year of not rushing to make it in time for Pushpanjali, for waiting eagerly for the Pushapanjali while your stomach rumbles and your brain imagines all that your are going to stuff yourself with while you outwardly pray to the Goddess. Another year of not pigging out on all the roll, biryani, cutlets at the food stalls, which for greedy me are main reason for landing up to see the Goddess in the first place ..... 

For the last few years, ever since we have been living abroad, I haven't seen or been to a single Durga Pujo. I am too laid back (lazy would be a more apt word) and so have never bothered to find out the nearest Pandal and take myself there. So even though each year I complain about how much I miss the Pujo, how much I miss being in India, the pandal hopping, the standing in a queue for the bhog during the day and the concerts in the night, I actually do nothing about it.

But my inertia doesn't stop me from getting all nostalgic when I remember the Pujo "planning and scheduling" I would do with my Maa and my sister each year - Bandra on Saptami, the Lokhandwala Durga Pujo on Ashtami and Powai on Navami and everything else in between wherever we could fit it in. 

Every Pujo brings with it a myriad of memories;  memories of waiting for my dad to finish Pujo on Ashtami while we sisters sat near him, constantly asking him "How much longer?" so we could attack the sweets that he was offering the Goddess; memories of my Maa holding my hand and making way for me in the crowded Pujo pandals (I have a horror of crowds and still hold my Maa's hand and let her make way for me); memories of my sister and I landing up in Kalibari in Delhi and standing in queue for the free meals, giggling away till we met a client of mine, a very posh and snooty Bengali man at that, who was genuinely horrified that we were standing in a queue for free meals and we pretending we didn't know what the queue was for and then coming right back to stand in it, the minute he disappeared. 

So like a true Bengali, I try to battle the onset of nostalgia with the best remedy possible - by cooking and eating loads of good food. This year, we were lucky and had a friend invite us for the most amazing Sindhi feast at her place on Saptami and then I cooked a few of my favourite things on Ashtami. On Navami we had a party for some friends so there was another feast I cooked up (recipe coming up in Part II of this Shubho Bijoya Special)! And Dashami was spent on trying to finish the leftovers from the party. 

Today I shall share one of my favourite dishes - one that always reminds me of Durga Pujo - because this was cooked on Durga Pujo by my Maa and my grandma. This used to be cooked with (at the risk of sounding really pagan) "boli'r pantha" or meat from goats that were sacrificed to the Goddess on Ashtami. 

This dish is called Niramish Mangsho Bhaja or Vegetarian Mutton Fry. Yes, I know what you are thinking. Trust a meat and fish eating Bengali carnivore like me to come up with this concept which would be an oxymoron for regular people. After all haven't I tried to convince my poor vegetarian friends plenty of times that a fish, especially one that is grown in the pond/ pukur in your backyard is no different from a tomato or eggplant grown in your kitchen garden? And now here I am with a concept of vegetarian meat that is not soya nuggets but goat meat!

But this name I didn't cook up (pun intended). This concept of vegetarian meat or Niramish mansho has been around for years and is cooked in different ways by different Bengali households. The reason it is called Vegetarian is because it is cooked sans onion and garlic. Now onion and garlic are considered even more impure than meat and so this meat is cooked simply without either. 

This version is how my Maa, my grandmother and apparently even my great grandmother cooked it.  -

Here is the recipe 

You will need -
1 kg meat, tender meat from the shoulder, chopped into smallish pieces
1 and 1/2 tabsp whole cumin seeds
1 and 1/2 inch fresh ginger
8-10 red chillies dry (I like it hot so I put about 12-15 chillis)
1 bowl of grated coconut
2 large tomatoes chopped
Mustard oil
Turmeric
Salt

Some cardamoms, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, black pepper, cloves roughly powdered.

Some ghee if you are willing to compromise on the calories and cholesterol, just this once!

The jeera and adrak and red chillies give it a spicy twist. If you are not fond of the “jhaanz” (I am not sure what the equivalent of that word would be in English), you could reduce the cumin seed and ginger slightly. 

For the marinade -
First wash and drain mutton and pat dry.
Soak red chillies in water
Make a paste of the cumin seeds, ginger and soaked red chillies
Add this to the mutton
Add 1 tsp of turmeric powder
Add salt
Add all the chopped tomatoes
Add 1 tab spoon of mustard oil
Marinate overnight.

Preparation

Heat mustard oil in a pan.

If you want potatoes in your meat (optional), now is the time to fry them and set them aside. I prefer using the baby potatoes with their skin intact. Then (After the potatoes are done and taken out), add some bay leaves and the roughly powdered dry cardamom, cinnamon et al. 

Then add mutton and fry on high for a little while before covering and cooking on slow flame.

When half done, add the potatoes.

When its almost done and the water has almost dried out, add the grated coconut and fry some more. This is a dry dish so you would need to make sure the water dries up.

Just before you remove it from the fire, add a little ghee and sprinkle a little more of the powdered cinnamon- cardamom etc etc powder you had made earlier, on top.

Finally serve with chopped coriander leaves and slit green chillies as garnish.

Eat with hot plain rice. 

One teeny tiny thing to remember – Do NOT  make this with chicken. I tried once and it just does not taste the same as the masalas completely overpower the chicken while they complement red meat beautifully.

Finally, two things made this year's Pujo very special 

1. My sons suddenly start finding "Mama Dowgga" more interesting than Spiderman, Batman and Ben 10 and wanted to hear, read more about her. I even got them toy lions so they could pretend ride on one  like the Goddess.

2. I also received a stunningly beautiful picture of Maa Durga as a gift from one of the sweetest, one of the most generous and immensely talented person I met online - Dithi. You could visit her blog here and her FaceBook page here to see some of her stunning creations.

The picture above is my stunning and uber-gorgeous Maa Durga - a print of a painting by the immensely talented Dithi.