Holi me Bachka

Come Holi, the festival of spirit, colour, joy and happiness. The first thing that we all ever think of this festival and relate to is typically assortment of sweets and bhang/thandaai to drink...

For a change, I thought of sharing a slightly different recipe here that one must try during this festive season. I had read about this dish on one of the sites and felt it must be interesting for us to try out. I am told this dish is popularly cooked in Bihar. I am putting in my effort to replicate this dish here, not knowing how much justice I would do.. So, here we go.

Bachka

Ingredients
1 cup bengal gram
2 onions
2 teaspoon finely chopped coriander leaves
2 green chillies
1 tea spoon grated ginger
salt to taste

Method: Soak the grams over night. Pour it into a mixer and grind it coarsely with salt and little water. Add finely chopped onions, coriander leaves, ginger and green chillies.

Spread the dough mixture on our palm slightly greased and shape it in any form of cutlet, round or heart shaped and leave it on a heated non stick pan. Layer it with a teaspoon of oil around the cutlet. Shallow fry the cutlet on both sides till it turns brown. Keep adding oil as required. Leave the cutlets on low flame till it is crisp and cooked. Serve it with coriander/mint chutney.

Gobhi Ka Keema

A Recipe from Mother’s Kitchen : Dedicated to the memory of our beloved Aunt and a Wonderful Mother Late Smt. Shreeda Srivastava.

Ingredients:
1 Cauliflower medium size
1 Bowl fresh green peas
1 Onion
1/2 Teaspoon grated garlic
1 Teaspoon grated ginger
1 Tea spoon desi ghee

Oil, Cumin Seeds and Spices of your choice for seasoning
And Salt to taste

Method:

Grate the cauliflower and saute it on medium flame with one teaspoon desi ghee till the moisture evaporates and its semi cooked. Remove it from the pan and put it aside.

Prepare the seasoning (Chaunk) in the pan. Heat oil in a pan, add cumin seeds, finely chopped onions, garlic and ginger and fry until brown. Add spices to taste like chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder and pepper powder. Add Green Peas and cook it for two minutes. Finally add the half cooked grated cauliflower, mix well and cook for 2 minutes. Pour the keema into a serving bowl and garnish it with freshly chopped Coriander Leaves.

Here the dish is ready to be served with plain paranthas.

Tip: The leftover keema makes a good filling to make gobi/mutter parantha also.