Among all the festivals HOLI is the most colorful festival of India. Almost all parts of India celebrate the festival of colors. Every year we all wait for this special day with lots of fun and food. HOLI is known as DOLL JATRA in West Bengal. Especially in SHantiniketan they celebrate the day in a huge way with BASANTA UTSAB, every year plenty of people visit Shantiniketan to become a part of this colorful festival.
And all festivals have their own charm for foods. And we Bengalis are born to have good food. For this special occasion I prepared some sweet it’s called CHANAR GOJA a very authentic Bengali sweet. I learnt the recipe from my Ma. Enjoy your holi with your family and friends and have lots of good foods.
Preparation time: 5 mints.
Cooking time: 20 mints.
Ingredients:
1.Chana or cottage cheese: 100 gm.
2.Suji or Rawa: 3 tea spoon.
3.Pinch of baking powder.
4.Sugar: 2 Cup.
5.Few raisins for garnishing.
6.Sunflower oil and ghee.
Prcoess:
Mix the chana, suji and baking powder and keep it aside for 30 mints.
Now make some square shape sweets with the mixture.
Now make some thin sugar syrup and boiled the sweets for 8 to 10 mints in medium heat.
Now take out the sweets form the syrup and fry them in half ghee and half oil till both the side turn brown.
Now make some thick sugar syrup and soaked the sweets for 8 to 10 mints.
Serve cool and garnish with some raisins.
Another sweet delicacy from West Bengal and also all over the India was my today's venture. Being a sweet lover I always love to make sweet dishes to give us a treat. And that’s why I always try to make the authentic Bengali sweets to feel the essence of Kolkata. But this one is really famous in all over India too.
I prepared some KALAKAND or MILK CAKE a delicacy which gets melted in mouth easily. For making this sweets you need few basic things like Chana, Thick Milk, Sugar and some pistachios for garnishing. But the sweets are just too good. Almost in every sweet shop in India you will get this sweet, a very easy but very tasty one.
Ingredients:
1.Thick Milk : 4 cup.
2.Chana or cottage cheese: 100 gm.
3.Sugar : 4 table spoon (depend on your taste also).
4.Some Pistachios for garnishing.
5. Few drop of ghee.
Process:
Put the milk in a heavy bottomed vessel and start boiling when it’s become half of the original quantity then add the Chana.
And stir continuously now add the sugar and stir till the milk and chana mixture become dry.
Now grease one plate with little ghee and spread the mixture into the plate proportionately and garnished with pistachios.
Keep it in fridge for 20 mints. Now cut into small pieces.
Give your family members a sweet treat…
Chanar Dalna or Chena Ball Curry
Today is a veggie day for us because do not have anything in my fridge. So I prepared one more my Ma’s special dish ‘Chanar Dalna’ or 'Chena Ball Curry'. It’s an authentic Bengali dish. Whenever I need to cook vegetarian dish my first phone call goes to my Ma. It’s a very simple recipe without onion and garlic. Try this with plain rice. The main ingredients of this dish is chena and Potato.
Preparation Time: 15 mints.
Cooking Time: 20 mints.
Ingredients:
1.Chena 200 gm.
2.Tomato puree : Two table spoon.
3.Ginger, cumin & green chili paste: 1 ½ tea spoon.
4.One medium size potato cut into small cube sizes.
5.Turmeric Powder, coriander Powder, Red chili powder (one tea spoon of each item).
6.One table spoon all-purpose flour.
7.Few cumin seeds, one small dry red chili, 2 clove, 2 cardamom, a small cinnamon stick.
8.Half tea spoon tomato ketchup.
9.Few drops of ghee.
10.Salt & Sugar as per taste.
11.Sunflower oil.
Process:
Mix the all-purpose flour with the chena with some salt, sugar and a pinch of turmeric.
Now make some small flat balls with the mixture.
Fry the balls till it golden brown and keep it aside.
Now fry the potato pieces and keep it aside.
Add the all spice powder into the ginger paste with some water.
Now put some oil in a vessel and add the cumin seeds and all whole garama masala, next add the tomato puree and ginger and masala paste with some salt and sugar.
Cook for few mints, now adds the tomato ketchup and the fried potato, cook till the oil separate.
Now add some water and the fired chena balls and cook with a lid till the potato boil properly and the gravy become little thick.
Remove the lid and add the ghee.
Serve with plain rice.
