Stew kolkata style

One of the purposes of posting photos and recipes on this blog is also to immortalize my mother in law's recipes. So here is the first one.

When the MIL was in the hospital recovering from her surgery, I offered to get stew for her one day for dinner. She gave me this recipe, it was an instant hit with the family.




ingredients
1/2 lb chicken boneless cut into small bitesize peices
1 lb vegetable mix (you can use anything, I used raw papaya, carrots, beans, potatoes, parvel or potol- I don't know what they call it in any other language, cauliflower or brocolli and cabbage leaves), all these vegetable have to be cut into large peices
2 tb ginger grated or paste
1 1/2 small onion gratde or paste
garam masala : cloves, cardamon, cinnamon, bay leaf
chicken stock
milk and
1 tb refined flour

method
1. heat a little oil in a pot or deep pan, heat till it smokes. Put the garam masala and let it splutter. Then add the onion and the ginger and saute till it brown a little on medium flame.
2. Put all the chicken, vegetables in, in the order they are cooked (potatoes first followed by carrots, raw papaya, parval, brocolli and cabbage). Saute for a couple of minutes once they are all in.
3. Pour in about 1 lt of chicken stock and let the the vegetable cook in the liquid.
4. Once the vegetables are nearly done, add the milk and sprinkle a the ref. flour in it. This is done to make sure the milk does'nt curdle and also thicken the liquid a little.. If the stock looks a little too liquidy, add a little cornflour to thicken it a little. The consistency of the stew should be thinner than thick soups. Put in a couple of bayleaves at this stage and voila! your stew is ready.
If you want ot make a veg stew, just leave out teh chicken and follow the same recipe with veg stock.
Serve hot with bread or pao

and now let's talk about food

my blog has a tag line that says food, kids and the mom. I have spoken a lot about the last two so now I decided to concentrate on the first one.
Food is religion for us. If you ask my 6 yr old, who cooks in your house ? he will say, " Sindhu aunty (our cook cum housekeeper), baba (A), mama (yours truly) and me.
Food is what brought A and me together. Our first conversations were on food, when our marriage showed signs of cracking, we started cooking a lot at home and building up our recipe book collection. When we go on holidays, the times we enjoy the most are those spent exploring and dining in restaurants. the only things we shop for when we travel abroad is food/food ingredients. In the recent years, the most loving looks I got from A were on the dining table or in the kitchen and not in the...
We consider cooking an art. Our core competencies are in south east Asian cuisines. My husband cooks only SEA food. I am a little more adventureous. I have tried my hand at Indian (mostly bengali and south Indian), continental (european food, though this translates into Indianised french/english food in most Indian restaurants and Anglo Indian food in Kolkata), chinese, thai, vietnamese, laotian, north african (provided I get my hands on the ingredients, this cuisine is not very popular with my family though)..
My mother in law is easily the world's greatest cook as far as bengali and kolkata style anglo indian food is concerned. She lays a good table, remmembers the food preferences of each and every individual she has ever cooked for. She has also been my tutor for kolkata food (which is essentially anglo indian, bengali, mughlai). Her enthusiasm for food is infectious and her kids (my sister in law and my husband) have inherited both her love for eating as well as cooking.
My sister and brother are also foodies. They would appreciate and enjoy a well cooked meal from practically any part of the world ! Like A, this is how I bonded with my brother deeply, as an adult !!
So you see food is well ingrained in my being. and now for the real thing..

Will be posting a lot on food once A returns my digital camera..

Internet connectivity is misbehaving. Even with 2 broadband connections and one dial-up connection. Would like to post more often but can't, regrets!

Nostalgia..

I bought Mr. Galliano's circus by Enid Blyton for junior or maybe for myself. Reading the book out to junior brought back some happy memories of my childhood. My sister and I thrived on Enid Blytons..the famous fives, five findouters, the school series of St. Clares, Mallory Towers and dozens of others.We lived in their world. We wished we were in boarding school too. Our pretend play had lot of the Enid Blyton elements. That was globalization for you in those days when we only had Doordarshan and Radio Ceylone.
That's how I got to know what a caravan is before I saw one during a vacation in germany.
That's how I got to know what ginger ale tastes like and warm scones taste the best with clotted cream.

My first pic, yipee!

English tea at Selfridges. A pot of Darjeeling tea with scones served with conserves and clotted cream.
A suggested I could have the real thing at the Ritz.I passed.. after looking at the price tag : 300 pounds!

P.S. Thanks for the madame butterfly blouse, plumpie!

60 students in a class

Went to junior’s school today. His teacher looked at me a little accusingly and started to tell me how he needed writing practice as he was very slow. Midway, she realized that I was actually listening and asking her intelligent sounding questions like ‘ what do you think is the problem’ , ‘does he seem sleepy or tired’ , ‘do you think he does’nt understand’ or ‘is he distracted with something'..Usually she hears things like , ‘I make him practice at home, he seems fine then’ or I don’t know what to do, he does this at home too. She suddenly asked me if I work . I told her I was a training manager and worked full time which is why she did’nt see me at school more often. She seemed suitably impressed. It was as if a crown had suddenly sprouted up on my head. I promised her that I would get junior to practice regularly this term.
Here is what I really need to do : make myself more visible as a parent, offer to volunteer, you know, make charts to decorate the classroom etc, seem very concerned as a parent and ask her for a feedback every now and then, and oh! then maybe, actually help junior with his writing a little bit. His grades will be much better next term and I don’t know how much the writing practice would have contributed.

Junior was born in the city of his father’s birth – Kolkata. A went to St. Xavier’s, regarded as one of the best schools in the country, by many. That was the school A and I had hoped junior would be in one day.
Then we moved to Pune. We decided to send junior to the school he goes to today. This was a school known for academics and sports. Though junior shows more signs of being a showman than a sportsman right now, he thoroughly enjoys school. We hope the school would give him a grounding he would have never got if we chose to send him to one of the new age international schools where the school fees runs into lacs and they have AC school buses and classrooms.
By Indian standards we lead what I may term a ‘priviledged life’. We have a housekeeper (who likes to call herself a ‘governess’ these days, I not too sure she knows the difference) , a gardener (for our 25 pots) , a couple of maids and a chauffeur , multiple cars..we stay in a up-market building, holiday abroad almost every year, eat in fancy restaurants, stay in fancy hotels have multicuisine dinners at home, put up Christmas trees every year with the same élan as we light our diyas and so on.
My husband and I work hard for the life we lead and by default the kids have become a part of all that too and as Shahrukh Khan had once said in an interview, "If I am driving around in a rolls royce, I can’t ask my son to ride in an auto"
We chose the school we did, for junior, to make sure he met and learnt to appreciate people from diverse cultural, social and economic backgrounds. And I think we are pretty much on the way there. His class has 60 students and the teacher knows very little about each child till a parent decides to show up in school and makes sure the child gets ‘the’attention one way or the other.
My son is an avid reader. At 6 he reads and understand books which most children almost twice his age usually would’nt, without any proding from us. He has the gift of the gab and loves performing. Somehow she has'nt seemed to notice that!
There are two choices I have : like most other parents make sure the teacher gives him an opportunity to use his skills or let him learn to fight for his place. My motherhood instincts push me towards the first but I would feel more at peace with myself if I did the latter..

we are back...

The last two weeks have gone by in a flash. The MIL was in the hospital for almost 2 weeks getting her knee surgery done. Though we were in one of the best rooms at the hospital, the attending nurses and she seemed to be playing dumb charades all the time. Neither spoke hindi too well and surprisingly most of them spoke broken or no English. I presumed it was a dangerous situation for a patient who is or has undergone 2 major surgeries. So FIL would spend the day there and I would stay back most nights and some evenings.
The good thing was that junior was packed off to mom’s place where he underwent a crash course in hindi, got a typical north Indian zamindar (landlord) style massage or malish done 4 times a week and learnt to fly kites.

ramblings..

I am down with a bad throat infection..gets especially painful in the nights. As usual I am avoiding seeing the doc. Only if every doc was like Dr. T. Sigh!
I don't think I will be able to last out an entire hour with Dr.T outside his clinic. But there is something about him- an oozing confidence and contentment which comes easy with success. Ok if you are a patient. otherwise it feels more like arrogance..

the week..II

So I am not very good at writing travelogues..
The best part of our trip was the day we spend in Birmingham at the Aston university - my husband's alma mater.
It was a trip down memory lane for A. We managed to locate his first apartment - Vauxhall court now known as Vauxhall house, the pub he downed several beers on Saturday afternoons - sack of potatoes, the Aston business school and the computer science center - now much larger, modernised and richer .
A insisted we buy something from BHS at the market square , for old memories sake..he shopped there often as a student 24 years back. So we picked up a dress for me and a tee for Cinderella in similar prints.
We watched one of the football world cup matches at a pub called 'Shakespeare' while waiting for our ride back to London. The atmosphere was infectious..For once I felt inclined to follow the world cup. maybe I would have if I stayed in London longer.
The train ride from London to Birmingham offers fabulous views of the lush green english countryside. I wish we could have spend some more time driving around the countryside, maybe next time.

A week in London - I

We got back from London last weekend. London was wonderful. I was looking forward to spending time with the husband.. I did that and much more.
We went for a musical ' we will rock you' which had almost all of the Queen's famous songs. It was playing at the historic Dominion theater.. I have been to broadway musicals too.. did I find the west end ones any different..not really, no.
We ate in lots of exotic restaurants, mostly chinese restaurants in chinatown and Soho. I also had an awesome spanish meal and lots of pub fare. English food.. well, the least I can say is that I'm not surprized that chicken tikka masala is becoming the national dish of England.
Missed sighting Keira Knightly and Johnny Depp by a few seconds. And this is how that happened : The husband and I decided to stroll around Leichster square one night after dinner with friends. While we were there, hand in hand soaking up the atmosphere, we saw a policeman clearing the path from the Odoen theatre to the car park, for guess who, ' the invitees for the premier of "Pirates of the Carribean II" '! In moments, we saw the who's who of the british cinema walking down the path in all their designer regalia.To say the least we were stunned. I saw Salman Rushdie with his son (presumably) who glanced at the two desis gawking at the parade.We also saw Orlando Bloom.. I almost could'nt believe my eyes!

cinderella and the prince..

So Cinderella is finally going out with nice boy. I was ecstatic.. to the point of being embarrassing. I had been bumping into NB off and on for a couple of years now. Looking at him was like looking into the crystal ball and seeing junior.
Well he came over for lunch, I met him in his official capacity of the boyfriend of the princess of the manor...

Feeling much better now. Looks like our much awaited UK trip will finally be happening. Called the TA and was told my visa should be done in 2-3 days.
This whole process of applying for a visa has put me off travelling abroad, especially a visa for the United states.
We have to start working on that once we get back from London.
This year has been a good year travel wise. In the last one year these are the places I have been to :
1. Amritsar, Delhi : same trip
2. Mumbai : countless times
3.Goa
4.Hyderabad (this was work so really does'nt count)
5. Kolkata
6. Kashid, Murud and Janjira- all on the Konkan coast.

Trips planned for the remaining part of the year :
1. UK : London, Birmingham, Lake district (maybe)
2. US : New york, Boston
3. Lucknow (I don't think I will have enough leave left for that, it might get pushed to next year)

I love travelling.. and this looks good.

free, free falling...

I feel as if I have hit the rock bottom. I don't know what is going to help me lift my spirits. My passport is going for visa processing tommorow. Even this has failed to lift my spirits.
My state of being somehow seems like a huge compromise. I know I have made choices.. but one does have the right to feel upset with those choices. I was happy with all this till a few weeks ago. And then in the last week I realized what would have happened if I had'nt made the choices that I did.
A as usual is hardly empathetic. You can be empathetic if you try and understand the other person. I don't think he has ever made the effort to do that for me or anyone else.
I also need some mind, body and soul therapy.
I have this feeling of emptiness , I feel as if I am in a free fall in this emptiness, the light seems to have gone out and it is pitch dark. I feel no pain. I have hurt so much that I feel numb. I don't feel like crying wailing or talking. I feel weightless.

We had an awesome dinner tonight. It was called ' grilled prawns with wasabi mayonnaise'. And of course A had to make me painstakingly make fresh mayonnaise flavoured with english mustard powder, dashi granules, rice vinegar, sugar and salt. I kept thinking the mayo will become too heavy at a point and curdle. But it turned out nice smooth and fluffy.
There was a side dish of sauteed veggies as well . I have an obsession with our intake of roughage.I make sure there is enough in every meal.
A has discovered the magic of getting virtually any chinese cook book he wants. He just orders on Amazon.com.Usually the discount is equal to the shipping cost to India. We get the books at practically it's original rate.

this, that and there

The painters are finally moving out tommorow. We had almost started getting used to them being around.

The brother has finally got his well deserved raise. His affluence is beginning to show. He actually called from his cell and had a 8 min conversation.It would be " hey! call me back" after the first 2 mins till about a month ago.

I have a trip to Goa scheduled at the end of next week and one to London the following week..

The sister and parents are going to be in Europe sometime in the next couple of weeks - seperately. Talk about a globetrottong family!

Junior told me he was digging for diamonds in the sand pit for me. He came back with a few white pebbles and told me they were 'jewellery stones' and I could use them as I wished.I hope he remembers this for a while.He has promised me a merc as well. I hope he remembers that too.

getting back to this and that.

we have finally moved back.. finally started cleaning up. No, the painting is not over yet.The electricals have got done, most of the new furniture and furnishings have been ordered, fuses have blown, patch ups have been done and junior's vacations have come to an end.
The only thing which really bothered me was not being able to watch movies as and when I liked. I could have done it if I really wanted to. But on most days I was too drained out to even think about it.
I really think I can spend a lifetime only watching movies.
I don't think I missed blogging that much though.

Home improvement

We are getting our home done up I mean really done up. We are going to be dislodged, our things are going to be dislodged too.
The painters say it will take them at least 25 days to do the entire house, Phew! My admiration to a couple of my friends who have been to this ordeal recently has suddenly gone up.
I may not be able to blog for a few weeks and yes, I am one of those bloggers who do'nt blog at work.

Battle with the weight

These are a few things I did to try and lose wait.
1. Eat boiled vegetables before lunch to avoid eating too much rice and the oily greasy cafetaria fare.
2.Go on a nimbu pani diet- i.e. only having nimbu pani during lunch time.
3. Swimming
4. Giving up sweets
5. Contemplating joining weight watchers.com
6. Contemplating joining VLCC. I even spoke to the customer service lady.
7. Contemplating giving up sweets.
8. Contemplated going on a water melon diet , inspired by S's success a few years back.
None of the above lasted for more than 2 days.

I have a couple of theories as to why I can't lose weight:
1. I'm getting increasingly comfortable with my weight.
2. Just because sweets/ desserts are not supposed to be eaten, they are desirable.
3. All repeat ALL my friends are overweight.therefore, no peer pressure.
4. The dorment rebel in me gets activated every time A nags me resulting in me munching oreo biscuits/chocolates/desserts etc for midnight snacks.
5.I'm a serious foodie.I mean really serious.

..and so the battle continues. I am very close to getting back to my gyming routine as swimming does'nt seem to be working out for more than a couple of times week.(yeah! yeah! one more on the list)

the weekend that was

Had a wonderful weekend.
chilled out at home with A and the kids
cooked a good bengali meal one day (aloo poshto, pabda bori diye, rui macher patla jhol) and a good awadhi mutton curry, on the other, for lunch
climbed the hill behind out house with A, junior and members of our extended family followed by a dip in the pool while A cooked us all a sumptious chinese meal.
watched two good movies - donnie brasco and that thing you do..loved both of them.
got sonny boy to paint smilies on a couple of t- shirts- one for himself and one for cinderella

I connected the cable TV wire to our plasma TV in our bedroom. (wonder why I never thought of it earlier) So now we have Cable and Dish on the TV. Could life get any better?