Here is an incredible news. The quintessential Assamese dish ‘Machor Tenga’, , a sweet-and-sour curry which has come to be known as the leitmotif of the Assamese kitchen, has gone global.
The recipe for the Assamese dish is being beamed to millions of kitchens across the globe through British celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, who has included fish tenga among one hundred of his favorite recipes in his TV show, Gordon’s Great Escape, aired by BBC’s Channel 4 of the UK.
Read More….
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1100406/jsp/frontpage/story_12307589.jsp
And finally the link to the post in Gordon Ramsay's site on Channel 4 is:
http://www.channel4.com/food/recipes/chefs/gordon-ramsay/fish-tenga-recipe_p_1.html
Check it out guys
Atul Lahkar's website on Assamese Food
Well, many of you must be knowing Atul Lahkar, a master chef from Assam, at least by his growing reputation. Some of you might have already got a chance to watch him cooking many authentic Assamese cusines in his famous crockery show called "Byanjan" telecasted in News Live TV channel. And I am sure there would many of you who have had at least a complete Assamese thali in his famous restaurant in Guwahati, called "Kharika" situated near Ganeshguri Chariali, Guwahati.
We have come across his wonderful site recently and again he has done a very good job showcasing so many traditional Assamese recipes with his own innovative touch. The site is:
http://chefatullahkar.com/index.html
If you go through his site, you would realize, Assamese food has been made popular by effort of many individuals and Atul Lahkar is certainly is one of the pioneers in this field. Happy reading
We have come across his wonderful site recently and again he has done a very good job showcasing so many traditional Assamese recipes with his own innovative touch. The site is:
http://chefatullahkar.com/index.html
If you go through his site, you would realize, Assamese food has been made popular by effort of many individuals and Atul Lahkar is certainly is one of the pioneers in this field. Happy reading
Xukan Machor chutney (Dried fish chutney)
This is not a typical Assamese side dish as a matter of fact. This particular preparation is a derivation of its famous Manipuri cousin called Irumba. In fact we have taken the liberty to change to cater to your taste bud by modifying it a little. Though many tribes and communities do prepare variety of dried fish recipes, in Assamese food habit dried fish dishes are not very common.
In this post, we are going to share a kind of chutney, a side dish which you can have along with your main course or simply with steamed rice or even roti. We would also share another dried fish preparation, a spicy curry with brinjals in our subsequent posts sometime soon.
For you to enjoy this dish, the primary qualifying criteria would be you should be able to bear the "smell" of the dried fish and the other important one is you should be able to bear the "heat" of the recipe as it is nth degree hot.
Ingredients:
250 gm of dried fish. You can take some 10 small dried fish or 5-6 medium sized dried fish. You can take what Bengalis’ called Shutki. Normally for this recipe, you would not use chunks of big dried fish.
1 medium sized potato
1 tomato
1 medium sized red onion
15 green chilies (yes, that’s right)
5 dried red chilies (again correct, if you can get hold of a dried Bhut Jolokia, then that’s best)
5 cloves of garlic
1 inch ginger
A bunch of fresh coriander leaves
Method:
1. Peel the potato and boil the potato and green chilies thrown together in a sauce pan with water covering half of the potato. Do not over boil as we need the green chilies to be intact in shape. Use potable water to boil as we need the water in which you boil the chilies.
2. On a pan put the dried fish and the dried chilies and pour a little water so that the fish and the chilies do not get burnt. Keep the pan on flame for amount 10 minutes on medium low heat.
3. On your gas stove, or electrical ring, place the tomato directly and keep turning it on all sides so that it gets roasted uniformly.
4. Chop the onion into fine chunks. Peel the garlic, cut the ginger into small slices.
5. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and add some salt and little bit of mustard oil. Throw in the fresh coriander leaves to the mixture and using a round ladle or your hand mash all the contents to a homogenous paste. You can put the mixture into a blender or a grinder, if you want, but do not grind it to a liquidy paste. Leave it in a mashy form.
6. Serve it with steamed rice or roti.
In this post, we are going to share a kind of chutney, a side dish which you can have along with your main course or simply with steamed rice or even roti. We would also share another dried fish preparation, a spicy curry with brinjals in our subsequent posts sometime soon.
For you to enjoy this dish, the primary qualifying criteria would be you should be able to bear the "smell" of the dried fish and the other important one is you should be able to bear the "heat" of the recipe as it is nth degree hot.
Ingredients:
250 gm of dried fish. You can take some 10 small dried fish or 5-6 medium sized dried fish. You can take what Bengalis’ called Shutki. Normally for this recipe, you would not use chunks of big dried fish.
1 medium sized potato
1 tomato
1 medium sized red onion
15 green chilies (yes, that’s right)
5 dried red chilies (again correct, if you can get hold of a dried Bhut Jolokia, then that’s best)
5 cloves of garlic
1 inch ginger
A bunch of fresh coriander leaves
Method:
1. Peel the potato and boil the potato and green chilies thrown together in a sauce pan with water covering half of the potato. Do not over boil as we need the green chilies to be intact in shape. Use potable water to boil as we need the water in which you boil the chilies.
2. On a pan put the dried fish and the dried chilies and pour a little water so that the fish and the chilies do not get burnt. Keep the pan on flame for amount 10 minutes on medium low heat.
3. On your gas stove, or electrical ring, place the tomato directly and keep turning it on all sides so that it gets roasted uniformly.
4. Chop the onion into fine chunks. Peel the garlic, cut the ginger into small slices.
5. Put all the ingredients in a bowl and add some salt and little bit of mustard oil. Throw in the fresh coriander leaves to the mixture and using a round ladle or your hand mash all the contents to a homogenous paste. You can put the mixture into a blender or a grinder, if you want, but do not grind it to a liquidy paste. Leave it in a mashy form.
6. Serve it with steamed rice or roti.
Jalukiya Koldil Paro Mangxo (Pigeon meat with Banana Flower in black pepper)
If you think we are too cruel to talk about pigeon meat, then probably go ahead and skip this post. Otherwise, if you are a non-vegetarian, we guarantee you, you would simple love this recipe. Trust us, this is one of the traditional recipe which people of Assam have been preparing for ages and they know what goes well with the pigeon meat. Yeah, you guessed it right, its the banana flower.
In Assamese society, every part of a banana plant has its usages. Right from the main produce of the plan i.e. the fruit, banana to the leaves and the stem to the trunk. To give you an idea of its different usages you can check out our previous posts on Assamese eating habits and on 'Khar'. Koldil, the banana flower is cooked in several ways and is eaten as a side dish. You can find many recipes to cook banana flower in the Assamese way in Nomi's blog or in many other Assamese cuisine websites.
Pigeon meat is considered to be a "warm" meat i.e. it gives you a warm feeling from inside when you eat it. This dish is generally prepared in the winter season or when it gets cold in the monsoon season. If you catch a cold or have a allergy to cold, then this is the must have dish for you. The other main ingredient of this dish, i.e. a lots of black peppercorns also add more heat to the dish. You can have this preparation with rice, roti or as a starter if you wish.
For this recipe you would need:
500 gms of pigeon meat cut into small pieces (make the pieces really small, cut with the bones)
1 fresh whole banana flower (make sure, the banana flower which you pick up is really a fresh one, you would not get the intended taste of the dish if you do not use a fresh banana flower)
1 medium sized potato
6 cloves of garlic
1 inch of ginger
2 red chilies
1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder
Salt to taste
2 Bay leaves
1 teaspoonful of the mixture of whole cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seed, ajwain seeds and black cumin seeds in equal quantities
Cooking oil (again if you have mustered oil, its better)
Serves: 4 people
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 - 30 minutes
The most important part of this recipe is how you cut and clean the banana flower. Banana flower has many layers of skin which covers the inner most portion. By looking at the color and freshness of out layers you can determine whether a banana flower is fresh or not.
First you start peeling out the layers of banana flower. When you remove first 2-3 layers, you would find a ring of smaller white colored slender projections. These are the actual flower part of the entire big piece of the banana flower. The outer layers basically designed to protect them. These slender pieces are also edible and you can cut them into small pieces and make another dish out of them. If you touch them, if you find a "powdery" feeling, you would know the banana flower is fresh. Keep peeling of the layers until you find a off-white part of the flower. And here you go, this is it. Cut of the top and bottom portions out of the white part.
Now, wash the entire white part which you have before cutting. Then chop into fine pieces. You can also cut the actual flowers as shown in the accompanying picture, but you have to take care to remove the longest of the thready part in the center. Add some salt into the chopped pieces and using your hand, mash them. Some water will come out from the mashed pieces. The mashed output would turn to a darker shade. Drain out the water and keep the mashed banana flower aside. This step is important so that the basic taste of the banana flower is removed.
Make a paste of ginger and garlic.
Cut the potato into 8 wedges of equal size and fry them till they are half cooked and set aside.
Heat a wok (kadai) and put some cooking oil. Once the oil is hot and vapor starts coming out, reduce the flame a bit and crackle the mixture of cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and black cumin seeds. Add the dry red chills and the bay leaves. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry them for 2 minutes in medium low flame. Once the smell of garlic starts coming, add the pigeon meat and the mashed banana flower portions. Mix the entire mixture well. Add turmeric powder and the cumin powder. Keep stirring and fry them on medium high flame for 5-7 minutes. Now reduce the flame to minimum and cover the kadai with a lid. Let it simmer for say 15 minutes. Keep checking periodically to ensure the meat does not stick to the vessel. Generally the banana flowers will release some water and the meat gets cooked in that water. You can add some water if you think the meat might be burnt.
After cooking for fifteen minute, uncover the pan but do not increase the heat. Put the potato wedges and salt to the curry and mix them well. Cook the curry till the water evaporates and the banana flower mash is reduced to very fine size. Check if the meat has become tender. Do not add more water now but make sure the curry does not become too dry.
Coarsely grind the black peppercorns and add them to the curry and keep stirring for say 5 more minutes. If the meat has become tender to your level of satisfaction turn off the heat and your curry is ready. Serve hot with rice or roti.
In Assamese society, every part of a banana plant has its usages. Right from the main produce of the plan i.e. the fruit, banana to the leaves and the stem to the trunk. To give you an idea of its different usages you can check out our previous posts on Assamese eating habits and on 'Khar'. Koldil, the banana flower is cooked in several ways and is eaten as a side dish. You can find many recipes to cook banana flower in the Assamese way in Nomi's blog or in many other Assamese cuisine websites.
Pigeon meat is considered to be a "warm" meat i.e. it gives you a warm feeling from inside when you eat it. This dish is generally prepared in the winter season or when it gets cold in the monsoon season. If you catch a cold or have a allergy to cold, then this is the must have dish for you. The other main ingredient of this dish, i.e. a lots of black peppercorns also add more heat to the dish. You can have this preparation with rice, roti or as a starter if you wish.
For this recipe you would need:
500 gms of pigeon meat cut into small pieces (make the pieces really small, cut with the bones)
1 fresh whole banana flower (make sure, the banana flower which you pick up is really a fresh one, you would not get the intended taste of the dish if you do not use a fresh banana flower)
1 medium sized potato
6 cloves of garlic
1 inch of ginger
2 red chilies
1 tablespoon of whole black peppercorns
1 teaspoon of turmeric powder
1/2 teaspoon of cumin powder
Salt to taste
2 Bay leaves
1 teaspoonful of the mixture of whole cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seed, ajwain seeds and black cumin seeds in equal quantities
Cooking oil (again if you have mustered oil, its better)
Serves: 4 people
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 - 30 minutes
The most important part of this recipe is how you cut and clean the banana flower. Banana flower has many layers of skin which covers the inner most portion. By looking at the color and freshness of out layers you can determine whether a banana flower is fresh or not.
Now, wash the entire white part which you have before cutting. Then chop into fine pieces. You can also cut the actual flowers as shown in the accompanying picture, but you have to take care to remove the longest of the thready part in the center. Add some salt into the chopped pieces and using your hand, mash them. Some water will come out from the mashed pieces. The mashed output would turn to a darker shade. Drain out the water and keep the mashed banana flower aside. This step is important so that the basic taste of the banana flower is removed.
Make a paste of ginger and garlic.
Cut the potato into 8 wedges of equal size and fry them till they are half cooked and set aside.
Heat a wok (kadai) and put some cooking oil. Once the oil is hot and vapor starts coming out, reduce the flame a bit and crackle the mixture of cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and black cumin seeds. Add the dry red chills and the bay leaves. Add the ginger garlic paste and fry them for 2 minutes in medium low flame. Once the smell of garlic starts coming, add the pigeon meat and the mashed banana flower portions. Mix the entire mixture well. Add turmeric powder and the cumin powder. Keep stirring and fry them on medium high flame for 5-7 minutes. Now reduce the flame to minimum and cover the kadai with a lid. Let it simmer for say 15 minutes. Keep checking periodically to ensure the meat does not stick to the vessel. Generally the banana flowers will release some water and the meat gets cooked in that water. You can add some water if you think the meat might be burnt.
After cooking for fifteen minute, uncover the pan but do not increase the heat. Put the potato wedges and salt to the curry and mix them well. Cook the curry till the water evaporates and the banana flower mash is reduced to very fine size. Check if the meat has become tender. Do not add more water now but make sure the curry does not become too dry.
Coarsely grind the black peppercorns and add them to the curry and keep stirring for say 5 more minutes. If the meat has become tender to your level of satisfaction turn off the heat and your curry is ready. Serve hot with rice or roti.
Hanhor Mangxo Komora (Duck meat with Ash Gourd)
Traditionally, this dish is considered to be a delicacy cooked and served on special occasions like Bihu, feast or for special guests. Even now-a-days, this dish is still integral part of any celebration or festivities.
Though there are many variety of ducks available in Assam and NE India, we are going to talk about Paati Hanh (a type of mallard duck). People from Assam and NE region also like geese, wild ducks (especially a variety called as Xorali Hanh, a migratory duck, it is illegal to hunt for one though!) and this preparation can also be done for them.
In Assam, the best season to eat duck meat is considered to be from Kaati Maah (late October) till Bohag (Early April). During this time frame, normally all domesticated ducks gorge on the freshly harvested rice grain residues and small fishes in the pond or bils (small lake) and become quite matured with meat and fat. In fact, in the villages of Assam, people used to select which duck to catch for dinner depending upon the speed at which a duck runs in its folk.
This recipe is indeed very simple (as like other Assamese recipes) and easy to remember. But for this recipe, you need to use some whole spices (unlike most Assamese dishes) especially the black pepper. The Assamese, (with the exception of those who has to halal due to reasons what so ever) normally kills the duck by a single blow at the bottom of the neck and then tears down the feathers. Now, the most important step here is to burn the duck with the skin on a high flame. This ensures the root of the feathers are removed and any other impurities on the skin is destroyed. For this recipe you need to cut the duck with the skin on. The thin layer of fat under the skin, makes the meat very very delicious. Another important aspect of making this dish is how you cut the duck. It is important to slit open the duck in the belly part and throw away its digestive system very carefully to avoid blasting of its intestine. You need to cut the duck meat into smaller pieces than you would make for a chicken for a chicken curry.
Ash gourd or White Gourd which is known as Komora in Assamese is the main ingredient of this dish. There are a few different types of white gourd available. For this dish, you need to pick up a tender white gourd. The one which is called as Joha komora or Jaali komora in Assamese are the best for the duck curry.
Ingredients:
- Duck meat (cut into small pieces) 750 gms
- A portion of ash gourd 350 gms
- 2 medium sized red onions
Masala
- Dry Red Chillies (whole) as hot as you might want
- Cumin Seeds (whole)
- Coriander seeds
- Black Peppercorns (whole) you need this bit more than other garam masala items
- bay leaves medium sized 2 nos
- Garlic medium sized 8 - 10 cloves
- Ginger 1 inch
- Green Chilies 3 nos. slit length wise
- Turmeric powder 1 tablespoon
- Salt to taste
- Cooking Oil, preferably mustered oil 4 tablespoon
- Coriander leaves for garnishing
Serves: 4 persons
Preparation Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
1. Wash the duck meat pieces and strain out and set aside to dry
2. Cut the ash gourd into small cubes of one by one and half inch size and keep aside
3. Make a paste of ginger and garlics
4. Heat a pan without putting any oil and put cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dry red chilies and black peppercorns and stir them till the smell start to come out. Do not burn them.
5. Grind the hot garam masala together to a powder.
6. Grate or grind the onions to make a coarse paste.
7. Heat a wok (kadai) or heavy bottom deep frying pan and put the mustered oil to get warm. Make sure to put as much oil as required to get the grated onions to get fried well without burning.
8. First put the bay leaves into the hot oil and then throw the slit green chilies.
9. Then put the grated onion in the pan and keep frying them on medium high flame till they turn golden brown and oil starts to come out of the paste.
10. Put the duck meat pieces in the kadai and mix them well with the onions and keep frying them for 5 to 7 minutes in medium high flame. Add turmeric powder
11. Add the ginger-garlic paste and mix well. Reduce the flame and keep frying for another 10 minutes.
12. If your duck meat had some fat, oil will start to come out by now. Now add a little water to the garam masala powder which you made earlier and add the paste to the meat and mix them well. Add a tea spoon of sugar to caramelize if you want.
13. Cover the pan with a lid and leave it for sometime so that the aroma of the spices is reserved.
14. Now put the ash gourd pieces in the pan and mix with the meat and masala and fry for 2-3 minutes in high heat. Add some hot water so that your meat does not get burnt and stick to the pan. Do not put much water; just add as much as to marginally cover the meat.
15. Add salt to your taste
16. Reduce the flame and put the lid back on the pan and leave it for 15 minutes or so till the pieces of ash gourd starts to melt. Keep checking and stirring so that it does not stick to the base of the pan.
17. Gradually the fat of the duck meat would be released and the resultant product would be a oily gravy. Check if you need more gravy. If you want, pour some water, but this dish would be more enjoyable with less gravy.
18. If the pieces of the duck meat is tender to your taste, then you are done.
19. Garnish with fresh coriander leaves.
20. Serve with hot steamed plain raice (bhat), arahar daal and lemon (kaaji nemu)
Optionally, if you are a potato lover, you can cut a medium sized potato and add it along with the ash gourd pieces in the dish. If you like it little hot, then add some more coarsely grounded black peppercorns before you get the pan out of the stove.
01/30/2011: Just adding a picture of our home-cooked dish here:
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