Dim’er Dalna (Bengali egg curry)

 Best served with Bengali fried bread called “Luchi”, otherwise, white rice and raita are a really good combo as well.

Ingredients (for the egg curry) - serves 3-4 people

- 6 eggs, hard boiled and peeled.  Then if you’re a beginner, take a toothpick and prick small holes in the egg all around, I would say about 10-15 per egg.  If you’re confident with your knife skills, make slits into the eggs, 6 per egg along the length of the egg.  Do not cut too deep otherwise your egg will fall apart.

- One large red onion, thinly sliced or finely chopped up.  The choice of cut depends on the texture of the gravy.  If you want it chunky, use sliced onions, for a smoother gravy use finely chopped.  If you’re unsure of your knife skills you can make an onion paste as well.

- 1 large ripe red tomato diced, seeds and skin and all.  Again, if you want, you can make a tomato paste

-  An inch of ginger and a couple of cloves of garlic, smashed

- Yogurt

- Dry spices: cumin,

- Olive or mustard oil

Preparation

In a wok or a large pan, heat up about a table spoon of olive oil.  Now, coat the eggs in a bit of salt, pepper, and turmeric (and red chili powder, optional).  Once the oil is hot, fry the whole eggs till you get a nice sheen on all sides. Move them around.  If it sits for too long on the pan the skin will start to wrinkle and the texture gets rubbery.  So once you start seeing a golden color, you’re done.  Typically takes about 2-3 minutes.  Take the eggs out and keep aside.

In the same pan, add 2 table spoons of mustard oil (or olive oil).  Before the oil heats up too much and smokes, add the tempering ingredients: bay leaves, cardamom, cinnamon, cumin seeds, and cloves.  If you’re using olive oil, you can throw in some mustard seeds as well.

Fry for a couple of minutes till there is an aroma.  Turn the heat up. Now add the onions.  Remember if you’re using onion paste it will cook a lot faster than chopped or sliced onions.  I prefer sliced onions.  Add a bit of salt and sugar.  Fry for about 2-3 minutes.  Now add the smashed ginger and garlic and continue to fry for 1 more minute.  Remember the garlic can burn easily so you want to keep an eye on it.  Cooking it till the raw smell goes away is enough.  Now add the tomatoes.  The water from the tomatoes will prevent any burning so you don’t need to worry about that anymore.  Make a slurry of the dry spices: cumin powder, coriander powder, red chili powder, turmeric powder, salt, and a bit of hot water.  Add the slurry and fry.  You want the tomatoes to melt away and most of the water to evaporate.  This will take about 5-6 minutes, you’ll have to keep stirring.  Lower the heat and cover.

In the meantime, peel and cut up two big potatoes into 1/8ths or about 1 inch cubes.  Put them in a microwave safe bowl, add a bit of salt, and a couple of spoons of water, cover with cling wrap and microwave for 3 minutes. 

Okay back to the main attraction.  Uncover, stir, and turn the heat up to medium.  Most of the water should have gone by now.  Add 2 heaped table spoons of beaten yogurt and mix thoroughly.  Add the potatoes, graham masala, and the fenugreek.  Stir till everything is coated.  Add the eggs and gently mix.

Now there are two options.  You can keep it as a dry gravy, in which case, lower the heat, cover and let it cook for 5 minutes.

For a lighter gravy for rice, add about 200 ml of water, lower the heat, cover and let it cook for about 7 minutes.

Uncover, sprinkle in roughly chopped cilantro and a bit of ghee and you’re done!

Mushroom Risotto a la Maity

Okay the mushroom risotto is a classic, but here's my take on it, and we got here after a lot of iterations.  It's a simple recipe with few ingredients so make sure you get good ingredients.  

Ingredients for 2 people:

1. A good Italian risotto rice like Arboreo or Carnaroli - a fistful person, so two.

2. A good extra virgin olive oil

3. Unsalted butter

4. A good chunk of actual Parmesan cheese

5. Your favorite mushrooms.  You can get whatever kind you like best - you can mix and match too

6. A medium white onion or a couple of shallots

7. A good white wine - the one you drink is the one you cook with.  You can also experiment with Vermouth.

8. Stock - you'll need about a liter.  I prefer veggie stock, but you can use chicken or mushroom stock.  Beef or others are too strong.

9. Parsley, lime or lemons, a couple of cherry tomatoes, tarragon, basil, rosemary (whatever you're feeling like.  This is a garnish, not part of the main risotto)

10. Thyme 

Process:  This meal takes time and patience to make. So put on a good audiobook or an album before you begin.

In a deep pot heat up a couple of table spoons of olive oil.  Finely chop the onions or shallots and throw in them in the pot once the oil has warmed.  You want the heat to stay low to medium all the way through - it's all about the slow cooking.  Sweat those onions.  Add in a couple of sprigs of thyme to flavor the oil.  Once the oils release a nice aroma, toss in the rice.  Now, you can blanch the rice in cold water for five minutes if you want if the rice looks unclean but this is not necessary from a fresh bag.

Give it a good stir.  You'll be stirring a lot to make a nice risotto.  Now you want to toast the rice till you get a little bit of browning and a lovely nutty aroma to arise.  Don't worry about anything sticking to the bottom of the pan, we'll be deglazing it in a moment. Once the rice is nice and toasted and nutty, usually 5-6 minutes.  Now you want to add in the white wine - at least a cup or so.  Don't worry, all the alcohol will evaporate.  The wine deglazes the pan as you stir it in.  Let it reduce and evaporate.

Once most of the wine has evaporated, pour in one ladle of the stock.  DO NOT pour in all of the stock at once.  This is critical.  You're only going to put in one cup at a time and keep stirring till it is all absorbed by the rice.  If you don't, you'll get a soft exterior and a hard interior of the rice.

In the mean time, in a pan toss in 3/4th of your mushrooms.  Chopped up, torn up mushrooms.  Don't worry so much about elegance here.  Add a small, about a tea spoon of butter and let the mushrooms release their water.  Stir 'em up till the water is gone and the mushrooms have nicely browned from the butter.

Keep going at it on the rice.  Add stock, stir, let the rice soak it, repeat.  Keep going till there is one ladle of stock left.  You will typically need about 1 liter of stock.  With the last ladle of stock, drop the cooked mushrooms.  This allows the mushrooms to also soak up some of the stock.  Once most of the liquid is gone, add about a cup of freshly grate Parmesan cheese and about a tablespoon of the butter.  Give it a nice stir... everything should start taking on a beautiful creamy texture.  Cover it, turn off the heat and let it sit and chill.

In the meantime, toss in the remaining mushrooms in the heated pan where you cooked your mushrooms.  No butter this time.  Let them toast nicely and char a bit.  Cut up some de-seeded cherry tomatoes, say about 5 into small pieces.  It's an odd choice I know, but trust me, the tomatoes add this nice little fresh crunch that make all the difference.  Roughly chop up some parsley, tarragon, rosemary, basil... whatever is handy, some olive oil and the juice of half a lemon or lime. Finally add in the toasted mushrooms and give it a nice mix.  This is your amazing garnish.

Serve up the risotto on two pre-warmed deep dishes with the garnish and some freshly grated Parmesan and cracked black pepper.  It'll knock your socks off :)