Going Gaga over Ghughni N still focusing the Focaccia Bread-Going Strong Together

Ghughni/White Peas cooked with Tomatoes, Onion, Potato, Coconut, Coriander, Cumin into a lip-smacking Curry paired with Focaccia with Rosemary n Nigella seeds

Ghughni is childhood flavored with beautiful spices, coconut, tomatoes, tamarind water n a dash of lime n puffed up Luchis or slices of white charred bread slices. Now that is a taste of culinary heaven and I wanna go back to that as often as I can because it takes me on two parallel journeys-one across the timeline to my childhood and another over the rainbow of flavors. Ghughni is a fantastic medley of white peas cooked with fried coconut slices, tomato, potatoes, red onion, a touch of ginger, garlic, a touch of red chili powder, turmeric, coriander n cumin, fresh coriander leaves- a huge depth of flavors as you are imagining- a great Eastern Indian Curry if you want to call it a curry, I will only call it ‘GHUGHNI’-spelled as ‘Ghoo-gh-nee’.

My mother makes it really well, there is something special n delicate about the way she cooks it that makes this lip-smacking good,  as a kid whenever there was ghughni being made at home, I would grab some tamarind, put it in a tea cup n sprinkle a touch of pink rock salt, a tiny red chili powder, a touch of salt n some water to dilute it to prepare tamarind water, so when it was ready I would take a bowl of ghughni n add a dash of that tamarind water and woo! What a beautiful explosion of flavors. I would always share the tamarind water with my father who loved it, with my didi. And one thing I always love eating ghughni with are Luchis/Poori-deep-friend flat bread, another favorite is the white bread charred over direct flame.

In fact this combination is very popular till date across many eateries in Bengal, specially the small eateries across the streets, this combination is often called together ‘ghooghni-pawroti’, pawroti is the local name of a sliced white bread- so this is pretty special. Paranthas go really well too with ghooghni, another good combination is crispy puffed rice called ‘Muri/Murmure’- the puffed rice adds a new texture, their crunch combined with the soft melting white peas. Now-a-days when I go to the morning vegetable market I see the busy vegetable sellers having their breakfast with ghooghni n muri.

Focaccia is a flat bread risen by yeast, first of all the dough of a focaccia is a fantastic pizza base, the dough is little difficult to deal with because it is very sticky, so whenever you are making the dough I will always advise you to use a pastry scraper when making the dough, one hand to scrape the dough and another to do the kneading, because of the use of warm water in the beginning the dough gets very sticky. In fact you might feel helpless when the dough is almost hanging from your hands but just scrape it from the surface and keep kneading, don’t try to scrape it off your hands too much, scrape from your hands only when you feel you can’t knead anymore like this n carry on n trust me the dough will come together, the dough will be ready when it begins to appear smooth and it will stick a lot less in your hands which will take about 10 minutes of kneading, the final dough will still be soft n sticky but lot less and when you push a finger into the dough n take it off the dough will come up again.

Before the focaccia goes into the oven you sprinkle a generous amount of extra virgin olive oil on top of it which gives it a fruity finish and in my bread I have added nigella seeds/kalonji/kaalo jeere along with rosemary and the smell that came out of the oven I can’t even describe that to you in words. It was like unreal, subtle but so powerful that it made me sniff near the oven door, somehow the smell was so amazingly  good it reminded me of an ice-cream which I have never eaten, I knew the bread was salty but that smell did steal my heart away and it kept reminding me of ice-cream.

Anyways I hope you make both these recipes together n experience beautiful flavors, so let me give you the recipe.

For The Recipe: You will need

For the Ghughni:

Whole white peas/Gota matar/safed sabut matar- 250 gm, soak them in water overnight or around 8 hours

Coconut slices-5 tbsp, sliced n chopped into ½ inch squares

Onion- 2 medium, chopped

Tomato-3 big, chopped

Garlic clove- 3 medium, chopped

Ginger- 2 inch, minced about 1 ½ tbsp

Potato- 3 medium, peeled n halved

Green chili- 2, chopped

Coriander seeds- 1 ½ tbsp, slightly roasted n powdered

Cumin seeds-1 tbsp. slightly roasted n powdered

Red chili powder- 1 tbsp

Turmeric- ½ tsp

Fresh coriander leaves n stalks- 4/5 tbsp

Green cardamom- 2

Cinnamon sticks-2 inch piece

Salt

Pink rock salt

Sugar

Water

Mustard oil/vegetable oil- 5/6 tbsp

Tej patta/Indian bay leaf- 2

For the Focaccia bread

Strong white flour- 500gm

Lukewarm water-340 ml+1-2 tbsp more if required

Salt- 10gm

Caster sugar-1 tbsp

Yeast- 1 tbsp dry yeast

Olive oil- 1 tsp+more for brushing

To finish the bread:

Rosemary dry-1 tbsp, if using fresh use double

Extra virgin olive oil- 35 ml

Nigella seeds/kalo jeere/kalonji- 1 tsp

Flaky salt – few pinches

1. First drain the water from the soaked white peas, they would have fluffed up a bit, now put them in a pressure cooker n add water so that water stands 1 ½ inches over them, put the flame on high, add a little salt, a pinch of turmeric, 1 crushed green cardamom pod, the whole potatoes  and let the water come to a boil, as the water boils  little foam will collect over the water, scoop that out, when there is no more foam put the lid of the pressure cooker on and give it 3 whistles , 2 on high n 1 in medium flame. If you are boiling them without a pressure cooker they might take about 40-50 minutes, when you press them between your fingers they should smash, try not to make them too soft at this stage.

2. In a deep kadai or wok heat the mustard oil to smoking at first, then reduce the flame to low, add the chopped coconut pieces n fry them until they get slightly brown all over, take them out, now the oil is flavored with coconut flavor, so add the tej patta/Indian bay leaf, the chopped garlic into the oil, don’t let the garlic color, then add the chopped onion n green chili, increase the heat to high and give it 2 minutes, add the chopped coriander stalks, then reduce the heat to low and give them around 5-7 minutes on low heat, then add the ginger , mix. Add a pinch of sugar to them and give it 1 minute, then add some salt n then the tomatoes, mix well and on a medium heat give it 5 minutes, smash the tomatoes slightly with the a ladle or something, so after 5 minutes add the red chili powder, turmeric, coriander powder, cumin powder along with 2 tbsp of water so that the spices don’t burn, give it 2 minutes like this and then add the boiled white peas n potato along with the remaining water in the pressure cooker. Now add the 2 pinches of pink rock salt, salt to taste and 1 tbsp of sugar, add some water if at this point of time it looks very thick, add around 2 cups n adjust the salt again, let it come to slight simmer, add some fresh coriander leaves, the fried coconut pieces and give it 10 minutes on low heat. In 10 minutes the flavors will mix with each other, the white peas will become even softer.

3. In the meantime in a mortar n pestle take 2 cardamom pods and cinnamon and 1 tbsp of water and pound them until it becomes a coarse mixture. After 10-12 minutes put the flame off and add this mixture, mix well, give it 4 minutes of standing time and ghughni is ready, take it out into a deep bowl and sprinkle few coriander leaves.

4. Now the bread, first take some warm water from the measured water and sprinkle the yeast on that n mix, give it 5 minutes until the yeast has dissolved, make sure you can dip your finger n hold it there in the water, if the water is too hot it will kill the yeast. In a deep bowl take the flour, the salt, sugar, the oil and give it a good mix,  add the yeast and the rest of water in 2 parts and mix well, it will be sticky. If the dough is too stiff add 1-2 tbsp more water, the dough will be soft n sticky. Now tip the whole mass onto a well-floured wooden or marble surface and start kneading the dough. Take a pastry scraper in one hand and with the other hand knead the dough, scrape it back with the scraper and knead, it will be very sticky n soft and it will trouble you, you will think this is all wrong but trust me this is how it is supposed to be, so keep kneading it for 10 minutes like this and when it approaches 10 minutes you will see that the dough has becomes more smooth,  not so sticky anymore in an uncontrollable way like before, the dough will be elastic n resilient to the push of a finger and springs back when you stop pushing. Now make a smooth ball out of the dough and place it in a deep bowl oiled inside where it will triple in its volume. Brush the top of the dough with a little olive oil, cover with cling film and keep in a warm place for about 3-3 ½ hours.

5.  After about 3 hours when the dough has trebled in size, tip the dough on a heavily floured surface, tap the dough out firmly with your palm and heel of your hand to a rough rectangle, fold in half, then in three in the other direction like a blanket. Tap and press the dough again into a rectangle. Take a Swiss roll tin of about 30cm/20 cm and flour it, then place the rectangle dough inside it and press it gently so that dough almost reaches the corners and the dough is distributed evenly, cover it with a cloth and leave to rise again for 1 hour at room temperature.

6. Pre-heat oven to 250 Celsius/475 Fahrenheit/gas mark 9. Now with your fingers poke the dough to make dimples in the surface in a straight line, sprinkle the nigella seeds, the rosemary and zigzag the olive oil all over and with a light hand spread it all across the surface, then scatter some flaky salt over and place the Swiss roll tin on a heavy baking sheet in the middle of the oven for 10 minutes, then reduce the oven to 200 Celsius/400 Fahrenheit/gas mark 6 and bake for 15-25 minutes, when the focaccia will have risen to about a height of 4-5 cm and it will attain a light golden color all over. I put the top grill on in the last 10 minutes for the color n crust to develop, give it 5 minutes more if it needs in your oven. Remove and leave it to cool for 10 minutes in the tin, and then take it out, it is done.

So now the bread is ready and tell me the feeling when you smelled the air while the bread was in the oven, it was unreal wasn’t it? Now for the ghughni, prepare tamarind water or cut some lime, sprinkle a bit on top of the ghughni and scatter some fresh coconut slices all over and then cut the bread into stripes, now dip the bread and scoop out the ghughni on the bread and into your mouth. Soooo good…right! See I told you…n Bon Appétit!

Aloo ke Parathe ban ke taiyaar hein… Sound of everybody running………………………………………

Flavorful mashed potato stuffed fried flat-bread-the classic Aloo Paratha

Now if you haven’t tried this reader, yes I am talking to you, you have missed something amazing and until you try it you can’t even guess what you are missing! Once you make them or try them somewhere you will make them again n again or go back to them time n time again. Yes they are indeed so lovely.

                                                              Hearty potatoes treated in the healthiest way, boiled, flavored with herbs, onion and spices and stuffed inside flat bread which then shallow fried on a pan and they are a heavenly delight to eat. Eating them is such a fulfilling experience in it.

 

                                            A classic Indian staple dish that has stood the test of time and has made numerous men, women, children n dogs(;)) happy throughout hundreds of years and will keep on doing so. Aloo is potato in Hindi, Urdu n Bengali, in Marathi it is Batata. Undoubtedly one of the most popular breakfast or snack dishes served in homes across the western, central and the northern part of the Indian sub-continent. They are mostly served with yogurt or chutney of mango/radishes/mix-vegetables/tomato or with butter. To eat them hot while the blob of butter melts on their surface is a sight to watch and to eat! So often these flat-breads/parathas are fried in butter and then again served with butter! But also they are equally delicious fried in vegetable oil. Eating them with lots of butter day by day has its own effects on you…you can get fat! How will I forget to tell you they are simply amazing with tomato ketchup! Sometimes I add a touch of chaat masala in the tomato ketchup and it is mouth watering. The combination with yogurt is also to cherish, lovely creamy yogurt adds tang and so refreshing.  With chutneys it’s a beautiful moment. Now tell me that you are making them tomorrow.

                                                                                                      Potato is such a beautiful vegetable, healthy, nutritious and amazingly versatile! No wonder they are a staple food across many nations. We can have them in breakfast, lunch, dinner, in between meals and they are used both in savory and sweet dishes. Of all the stuffed fried breads found across the corners of India, I think aloo paratha is the most popular; the other popular ones will be mooli paratha, paneer paratha and recently cheese paratha.

                                                             If you are making them for the first time, which you must do, you can find them a bit challenging, like every new thing. Making the dough is easy, preparing the mashed potato is easy, when it comes to stuffing the mashed potato into the dough and rolling them out, it becomes challenging. All you need is soft hands, a bit of delicacy and a dose of confidence. That’s all n you are literally ready to roll.

                                                                                                                                                                         Once the mashed potato and the dough is done, you take a ball of dough , flatten it, make a dent in it and then stuff them with the mashed potato and then enclose the mashed potato with the dough, it will like a ball of dough with mashed potato inside it. All you need next is a soft hand when you roll them, because if you with heavy hand you will be spilling the potato mixture from the dough from everywhere. Remember that the mashed potato is very soft, so handle them softly.

Now I will tell you about the recipe, get ready with you rolling pin.

For The Recipe: You will need

For the Mashed Potato

4-5 medium potato in skin, halved and put a cross mark on top of both the halves with knife

Water to boil the potatoes

1 tbsp of salt

I medium onion, finely chopped

2 green chilies, finely chopped

1 tbsp of fresh coriander leaves, finely chopped

1 tsp of Cumin seeds

½ tsp freshly ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1 tsp of oil

For the Dough

200 gm plain flour or 100 gm of whole-wheat flour+100 gm of plain flour

Pinch of salt

85-90 ml of water

1 tsp of vegetable oil

For Frying

Around 2 tbsp of oil for each paratha/flat bread

1. Let’s make the dough first, mix the 2 flours if using 2 flours, then add the salt, 1 tsp vegetable oil and rub it in the flour, make a well in the center and add half of the water in the well, then slowly incorporate the flour, add half of the remaining water and do the same, then add the rest of the water and make the whole dough come together.  Start kneading the dough from this point until the dough becomes smooth n elastic which will take about 6-8 minutes. The dough will be moderately tight, not very soft neither very stiff. When the dough is smooth, divide the dough in 4 balls, smooth them out , then place them in a bowl, sprinkle 1 tsp of vegetable oil on them, coat them in the oil n rest them for 30 minutes.

2. Wash the potatoes, then cut them in half across the length, then with the knife put shallow cross mark on the top of all the halves, then heat the water in pan, add salt in the water and add the potatoes. After about 10 minutes check with the knife, if the knife goes smoothly inside the potatoes, they are done. Drain the water, cool them in normal water, then peel the potatoes and then smash them with a fork.

3. Put a pan on low heat, add the whole cumin seeds and toss them in the pan for about 2 minutes, then put them in a mortal n pestle and grind them to a powder, put the black pepper corns in the heat for 1 minute and similarly grind them.

4. Add 1 tsp of vegetable oil in the pan and put it on medium heat, when the oil is hot add the chopped onion, the chopped green chilies and toss them for 2 minutes, reduce the flame to low, add the chopped coriander leaves, give them 1 minute, add a little salt to them, then add the mashed potato in the pan and mix everything well. Next add the crushed cumin powder, the crushed black pepper, salt to taste and mix well, give them 3 minutes in low heat in the pan, take them out in a bowl and let it cool.

5.  Now when the dough has rested for about half an hour, on a dry surface sprinkle some flour, then pick one ball of dough and sprinkle that ball with a little flour and cover it lightly with flour, then place it on the surface and press gently with your palm to flatten it slightly with your three tallest fingers. After that pick that flatten ball in your palm and start pushing the dough along the circumference to the center with your thumb while you go around doing that all across the circumference. What you are basically doing is creating a little dent in the middle region of the ball by pushing the dough and stretching the dough around the sides towards the center. This dent will be the space for the stuffing.

6. So pick about 1 tbsp of the mashed potato stuffing and place it in the dent, put such an amount that you still have about 1 inch side above it, now with your fingers stretch the sides slightly and put all the sides together so that the stuffing is covered, now twist the gathered edges lightly to seal them, then press the twisted edges on to the ball so that it again looks like a leveled flatten ball. Here the images will help you understand.

7. Now is the time for soft hands, a crucial point. Place the ball back on to the  floured surface and press lightly with your hands to flatten it even more, then with your rolling pin do the same, press on it gently to flatten it uniformly, then start rolling with a very light hand and give it a round shape. Don’t try to roll this ball very thin because in that case the stuffing will tend to leak from the sides. So roll it to a thickness when the stuffing is just about to come out, it will be around 1 cm thickness when this will begin to happen. Stop there and aloo parathas are always thick simple because they have stuffing. Do the same with the rest of the dough balls.

8. Put a pan on medium heat and let it get hot, don’t let it get very hot, when the pan is moderately hot, place on paratha on the pan and put I tbsp of vegetable oil on the surface and with the back of a spoon smear it, then flip that side over so that it begins to fry, take 1 tsp of butter and place on top of the paratha while the lower side is getting fried.  After about 2 minutes the lower side will be starting to brown. Keep the heat medium and let it develop some brown color, then flip it over and let this side also get light brown. Once done take it off the pan and do the same with the other parathas. Done!

Since they are very hot give them some minutes and then jump in, tear them off and eat them warm. Aren't they just amazingly yummy? I know, I know…..Bon appétit.