Chef Jayanto Banerjee of Hotel Hindustan International has given the much-loved kumro phuler bora a new twist

If you do a Gallup poll in Bengal right now, I am sure it will endorse a view that I have held for long years — that this is the most- awaited, food-filled fortnight for Bengalis. The Pujas are over, but the food fest continues till Diwali or Kali Puja. And the food — a mix of savouries and sweets — can be as delicious as the imagination and the taste buds allow it to be.

I can imagine the Bengali kitchen. Dough is being kneaded somewhere, oil is boiling in a huge kadhai while sugar syrup bubbles in another pot. Fish, meat, chicken, cauliflowers and potatoes are being chopped in one corner. And a huge array of snacks — from cutlets and chops to kachoris and samosas — are being readied, along with trays of sweets — carrying everything from rosogollahs and sandesh to kheer and malpoas.

To help the good men and women in the kitchen, I thought I’d ask some innovative chefs of Calcutta to give us their recipes for their favourite snacks and sweets for the occasion. I have some wonderful recipes with me, which I shall share with you in two columns.

Go for the chingri machher shalmi that chef Sushanta Sen Gupta has cooked at 6 Ballygunge Place

To begin with, you could try out a dish called chingri maachher shalmi, suggested by Chef Sushanta Sen Gupta of 6 Ballygunge Place. For this dish, take 12 pieces of prawns, 150gm shrimp, the juice of a lime, 1-2 chopped green chillies, 2 sprigs of chopped coriander, 1tbs yellow mustard paste of mustard seeds, 1 green chilli, turmeric and salt, 1tbs onion and ginger juice, ½tsp white pepper powder and 150gm bread crumbs.

Make a batter with 5tbs flour, half an egg, salt and ¼tsp white pepper powder. Clean the prawns, discarding the shell and the head but leaving the tail intact. De-vein them, hammer lightly to flatten them out and marinate with salt, white pepper powder, lime juice and onion and ginger juice.

Try out the hanser dimer devil that chef Sukumar Roy serves at Nola

Chop the shrimps into small pieces, and mix with chopped green chilli, coriander, mustard paste and seasoning. Place the shrimp stuffing in the middle of the prawn and fold the prawn around it. Dip each prawn in the batter, and coat with bread crumbs. Fry in hot oil till golden brown. Serve hot with kasundi and an onion and cucumber salad.

Dimer devil — a savoury made with boiled eggs and minced meat — is the hot favourite of the season. Chef Sukumar Roy of Nola gives us a recipe for a dimer devil with duck’s egg — hanser dimer devil.

For this you need to first cook some minced mutton with chopped onion, ginger, garlic, green chillies, powdered coriander, cumin and turmeric. Pressure cook for 10 minutes. Evaporate the excess water by cooking on a high heat. Grind the minced meat into a smooth paste. Add a raw egg, lime juice and cornflour to it. Season. Divide the mince into individual portions. Take a boiled egg and coat with the mince. Fry in hot oil over medium heat till the mince-coated eggs are golden brown. Cut the eggs into halves and serve with a chutney.

But snacks for the season don’t have to be all meaty and fishy. There is a whole host of savouries made with vegetables — samosas with peas and chopped cauliflower, beetroot chops and cutlets, pea kachoris and so on. Chef Jayanto Banerjee of Hotel Hindustan International has given us a recipe for kumro phuler bora — fritters of pumpkin flowers, a much-loved delicacy of the east.

Chef Joymalya Banerjee of Oh! Calcutta loves his maachher binono kochuri

For this, you first need to make a batter with besan (25gm), rice flour (10gm), water (50ml), salt, lemon juice (1tbs) and ajwain (1/2tsp). Mix grated coconut (10gm) with mustard paste (7gm). Add salt and sugar. Wash the pumpkin flowers (6) well. Stuff each floret with the coconut and mustard paste. Heat oil, coat each floret with the batter and fry in oil till golden brown.

Chef Joymalya Banerjee of Oh! Calcutta loves his golda chingrir chinay kabab — kebabs cooked with jumbo prawns — and maachher binono kochuri — braided fish kachoris. The chingri kabab recipe will come to you next week, along with some other delicious recipes.

Meanwhile, have fun with his fish kachoris. The Durga Puja is over, but we’re not done with the worship yet. This is the time for pet puja.

Maachher binono kochuri (10 pieces)

Ingredients

• 700gm rahu peti • 150gm chopped onion • 40gm ginger paste • 25gm garlic paste • 5gm whole garam masala • 3 bay leaves • 5gm turmeric •20gm chilli powder • 20gm chopped green chilli • 20gm chopped coriander • 100gm mustard oil • 50gm grated tomato • 5gm roasted cumin powder • 3gm garam masala powder • Salt and sugar to taste • 400gm flour l50gm refined vanaspati • 25gm salt lWater to knead • Oil to fry

Method

Sieve the flour and salt in a bowl. Add the vanaspati and rub it in. Make a well in the centre and add water. Knead well to prepare a semi-hard dough. Cover with a wet cloth and keep aside. Now boil the fish in water with salt and turmeric. Drain, de-skin and flake the fish to take out all the bones. Heat mustard oil in a kadhai, temper with whole spices. Add the chopped onion and sauté. Add the rest of the ingredients except the garam masala powder, coriander and cumin powder. Cook on high heat. Add the fish and cook till done. Season and add the powdered spices. Cook for a few minutes, remove and spread out to cool. Add the coriander leaves and divide into 10 portions.
Divide the dough into 20 portions. Roll each portion into 4-inch discs. Place a portion of the stuffing on a rolled out disc. Wet the sides and place another disc on top. Crimp the sides in a braid to seal the fish. Repeat this with the remaining portions. Lightly heat refined oil in a large kadhai, fry all the kachoris on low heat till they puff out and become crispy like a samosa. Serve hot with a mint-tamarind sauce, or tomato kasundi.