Like I had written in my previous egg curry post, I have always loved eggs. Dimer Jhol has been one of my favourite dishes right my graduation days at Hyderabad and even when I wish for a change, I would ionstead make omellete curry instead of the regular fare. Omellette curry is quite easy to make and goes very well with both boiled rice or with chapatis. I remember, after marriage, when I came over to Delhi with my husband, the first thing I made in our new rented flat was this omellette curry. My husband had never eaten this curry before, so had never imagined that one could even make a curry out of omellete pieces! He had actually laughed at me when I told him what I was preparing for dinner that night. But then when he tasted the curry, he went gaga about it. So whenever I run out of options or I am in a hurry or whenever I feel very hungry but wouldn't have the time or patience to cook a full meal, I go for this omellette curry.

Ingredients :

Eggs - 4
Potato - 2 medium sized
Onion paste - 3 tbsp
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Tomato - 1 large sized, chopped finely
Boiled white peas - about 100 gms
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
Cloves - 2
Cinnamon - 1” piece
Black cardamom - 1
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt as per taste
Mustard Oil - about 5-6 tbsp
chopped coriander leaves for garnishing

Method :

Wash the pototoes thoroughly and put them into a pressure cooker to boil for two whistles. Then cut them into cubes and keep them aside.
Now in a bowl, break the eggs, add to them chopped onions, chopped green chillies, salt, crushed black peppercorns and some chopped coriander leaves and whisk the mixture to a smooth paste.
Now heating about 2 tbsp of oil in a flat bottomed pan, pour the omellette mixture and spread it nicely to make a thick but soft omellette. Cook it for about 2 minutes and when done, flip it to the other side and once again let it to cook for 2 minutes. Now take it out onto a plate and let it to cool for a few minutes. Similarly, you can make another omellette too, if you wish to have a greated amount of omellete curry. After that, cut the omellette into square pieces and keep them aside.

Now again taking the rest of the cooking in a wok, let it to become hot and then add the whole spices (slightly crushed so that their aroma comes out). Once they start to splutter, add the onion paste and saute on medium flame for a few minutes till they turn golden brown. Add the ginger garlic paste and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Now add coriander powder, chili powder and turmeric powder, also add the chopped tomatoes and little salt and cook till they become all mushy. Keep stirring every now and then so that the gravy doesn't get burnt. Now add the omellete pieces and the boiled potatoes, mix them nicely with the gravy and then pour in about 2 cups of water and let the curry to cook on simmer flame, after covering it with a lid. When it's done, you can garnish the omellete curry with chopped coriander leaves or garam masala powder and serve it hot with steamed rice or chapatis. Normally I prefer to have it with steamed rice. 


Childhood memories are hard to forget. Often I find myself filled with nostalgic thoughts from my growing up years back in Siliguri. Among other things, food memories are the ones that often come to me, hehe.Like it happened this morning when I remembered Roghu Kaku's luchi and alur dum that he used to sell outside our school premises on his bicycle. He used to be very popular for his alur dum around the area, especially we kids used to love his fare a lot. I remember how we used to wait anxiously for the bell to ring for the recess time, so that we could run to our school gate. He would be waiting already outside our school gate during the lunch hours. Those days used to fun. So this morning I decided to make kosha alur dum for breakfast to go with the luchis. I wasn't sure if I could replicate the same taste as that of Roghu kaku's alur dum but I tried and it came quite close to it. May be, the next time when I make alur dum, I will be able to make it taste exactly like Roghu Kaku's used to be.

Ingredients :

Potatoes -5 medium sized (boiled and peeled. Baby potatoes may be used too. We can poke holes in them with a fork to let the steam get into them nicely).
Onion - 1 (finely chopped or can be made into a paste)
Garlic paste - 1/2 tbsp
Ginger paste - 1 tsp
Bay leaf - 1
Green chilies - 2-3 chopped
Turmeric powder - ½ tsp
Garam masala powder - 1/4 tsp
Cumin seeds - ½ tsp
Salt, as per taste
Sugar - 1 tsp
Lemon juice, 1 tbsp (it is optional)
Mustard oil - 4 to 5 tbsp
Fresh coriander leaves - 2 tsp (finely chopped)

Method :

Heat the mustard oil in a deep bottomed pan and temper with bay leaf  and the cumin seeds. Once they begin to splutter, add the grated onion and saute them till they turn golden brown in color. Then add the ginger paste, garlic paste and the green chilies, saute them for a minute or two. Now add alur dum masala (equal amount of cumin seeds, coriander seeds, broken dry red chillies and black peppercorns dry roasted and then powdered) and salt and mix them all nicely. Fry this masala gravy on medium heat till it starts to leave oil from the sides. Now add the boiled potatoes, mix nicely with the masala and saute for 4-5 minutes on medium heat. Then adding a cup of water, stir nicely and let them to cook uncovered on low flame till there come no raw smell of the masala. The gravy should be thicker, so keep stirring every now and then to prevent it from getting stuck to the bottom of the pan. Now add sugar, lemon juice and garam masala powder, mix nicely and cook for another minute or so, then remove it from the fire. Garnish the alur dum with the chopped coriander leaves. It is now ready to be served with luchi, or porotha or even with steamed rice. I ate them with luchis, though not exactly like that of Roghu Kaku's luchi-alur dum, but they tasted very good.


Today being a Sunday, my family members were wishing to have something of a non-veg dish for lunch and were wishing for Ilish mach. Though it's not easy to find Ilish mach in Delhi but somehow my husband managed to find from the Chittoronjon park. We Bengalis prepare Ilish mach in quite a few different methos, sometimes it's cooked with curd (doi mach) and sometimes it is cooked with begun (brinjals) and sometimes it is cooked with only potatoes. Today I thought about preparing it with mustard paste, without using any onions or garlic or ginger. Everyone loved the taste.

Ingredients :

Ilish Mach (Hilsa fish) - 6-7 pieces (about 500 gms)
Potatoes - 2-3 medium sized, boiled, peeled and cut into long pieces
Tomato puree - 3 tbsp
Black Mustard Seeds - 2 tbsp (Soak them in lukewarm water)
Kalojeere or Kalonji or Nigella seeds - 2 tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Red Chilli Powder - 1 tsp
Salt as per taste
Green Chillies - (slited along the length) 8-10 nos.
Mustard Oil - 4 tbsp

Method :

After washing clean the fish pieces and wiping them dry, place them in a bowl and add 1/2 tsp of turmeric powder and some salt to it and mix nicely so that the turmeric powder and salt get coated all over the fish pieces. Let them to marinate. Then prepare a semi-smooth paste of the soaked mustard seeds along with 2 green chillies and a pinch of salt and keep it aside. Heat mustard oil in a wok and fry the Ilish mach pieces to a golden brown colour. Take them out when they turn crisp. Now temper the same oil with nigella seeds and the slited green chillies and add tomato puree too. Cook stirring every now and then till the raw smell of the tomatoes goes away. Add the prepared mustard paste, turmeric powder, red chilli powder and some water to the mixture and bring it to boil over medium flame. Now slowly add the fried fish pieces and the boiled potato pieces as well into the mustard gravy and covering the wok with a lid, let them to cook over low flame for about 15-20 minutes so that the flavour of the mustard paste goes into the fish. When the gravy reaches the desired consistency, remove it from the fire. Sorshe bata diye Ilish jhol is ready to be eaten. It goes very well with steamed rice.


Day before yesterday my husband Biswajeet came home very excited and asked me to get ready at once. Seeing him so happy, I too got excited. First I thought may be he had got an increment in his salary, and so he was going to treat me with a lavish dinner or he would gift me something of my choice. Without asking a question or wasting any time, I got ready immediately. But you know how impatient we women are? I couldn't control myself any more and so asked him where we were going but he only smiled and didn't answer me.

Ten minutes later, we were at the Airtel outlet near our house. What? My husband had brought me to the Airtel shop and not to a clothing store or a restaurant! I was totally surprised and had no idea why and what we were doing there.  I refused to enter the Airtel outlet. It had ruined my mood and Biswajeet could read that from my face.

He asked, "Kunmun, weren't you complaining the other day about our slow internet connection? How it does not let you to watch videos of Pakistani cookery shows on youtube without any interruption? Even when you decide to download them in full HD resolution, how it keeps you waiting for hours to complete?"
Without battling an eyelid, I answered "yes, I am fed up with our internet connection. But what has it got to do with Airtel? Are we going to take a new internet connection from Airtel?"
By now slowly a smile had crept up on my lips.

"Yes, we will be taking a new internet connection but that won't be an ordinary one. It will be superfast, something that has ever been experienced in India. Airtel has now launched its 4G Internet services in 296 cities and it is not double or triple times faster but is almost ten times faster than a 3G connection. That is why we have come here, to check for more details" Biswajeet said.

By now, the customer care executives had seen us standing outside and so gestured to get inside. Biswajeet immediately told them the reason of our visit. The executives were very friendly and explained us everything about the Airtel 4G network in details. They even carried out a test to show us how fast a 4G connection can be. They brought two smartphones and opened the same HD Video (that had a considerable size) simultaneously on both the devices but one phone had a 3G connection while the other had Airtel's 4G connection. While the phone with 3G connection still took about 1 minute to buffer and start playing the video, on the other hand, the video had already started playing on the phone with 4G network as soon as we had clicked it. Thus there was absolutely no buffering at all. They also downloaded an even bigger HD video on both the networks and once again, the 4G network came out the winner, finishing the download in mere few seconds! That was unbelievable. I was highly impressed. I had never seen such fast internet connection ever.

So even before Biswajeet could ask me, I said, "yes, we are taking this 4G internet connection from Airtel".
The customer care executives then informed us that we could also get a free 4G SIM from Airtel if we tweet them with the hashtag #GetAirtel4G on twitter. They would then deliver the SIM at our doorstep for free. That is exactly what we did, we sent them a tweet with the hashtag #GetAirtel4G and they assured us that we will get our 4G SIM in maximum four days. Probably by tomorrow we will be delivered the 4G SIM and then we will be able to enjoy a superfast internet.





(Photo sourced from http://telecomtalk.info )

P.S. : You can also go to their official website http://www.airtel.in/4g/ and know more about the various packages available.

Let's face it, our physical appearance often determines how we would be treated by others! People often get discriminated because of their over-weight. Suppose I was very over-weight and I was applying for a particular job. Irrespective of whether I possessed the requisite skills or not, my flabby shape would have created a negative first impression on the interviewers and the chances of me getting rejected would have been high. Because sadly the society judges us based on our outer looks. A plump, over-weight person is often regarded as being lazy and indisciplined. But it's not just due to the pressures of our society that we should be serious about acquiring and maintaining a lean and fit body. Rather it should be for our own well-being. A person who remains physically active and has got a lean body will most certainly be healthy too and so can easily minimise the risks of many chronic illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure and even some cancers whereas an over-weight person always remains at a risk. Thus everyone who is over-weight wishes to shed off the excess fat as quickly as possible. However losing weight is easier said than done. Because most people these days are not only leading an inactive, sedentary lifestyle devoid of any physical exercise but they are also eating mostly junk food and aerated drinks that contain lots of sugar and calories. As a result, they are bound to add up more fat to their bodies. 

Most of them aren't patient enough to try losing weight gradually and steadily. Instead of choosing to cut down on sugar intake, altering their unhealthy eating habits and embracing a suitable exercise regimen, they fall for the temptations of immediate results and so choose the quick fix solutions. They do not hesitate taking drastic measures like crash dieting wherein they subject themselves to intense fasts or they survive on only liquid diets. Such starvation techniques may give one fast results and may succeed in making one lose weight in just a few days, however they aren’t healthy. What people don't realize is that such crash diets can have serious negative consequences on their health. By severely restricting the food intake, not only does it slow down one's metabolism considerably resulting in even further weight gain, but also as a result of being deprived of many essential nutrients, one feels very weak and low on energy most of the time. When the metabolism slows down, the body starts storing fat instead of burning them. Not only that, such crash diets can also increase the risk of dehydration and so also can weaken one's immune system. One also experiences depression, mood swings and lethargy.

Thus it is important to try losing weight in a gradual and safe manner. And the best way to do that would be to eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly. One's diet should comprise of mainly the whole grains, pulses, fruits, vegetables, fish, and toned milk, so that she continues getting vitamins, minerals and fiber and maintains optimal energy levels throughout the day. 

One can also include honey in their dietary plan to fasten up the weight loss, while still without any side-effects. One tablespoon of Honey when taken with a glass of warm water, it helps in stimulating and improving the metabolic rate in the body. One can also mix a tablespoon of lemon juice to the mixture as it contains lots of Vitamin C, which spurs the liver's metabolism function and thus the excess fat get burnt off. It is also often advised to take a spoonful of honey before going to sleep at night. Not only does honey improves the digestion but it will also relieve the liver of the stress hormones because of which the liver will be able to function properly.

I have seen positive results myself and have benefitted a lot by replacing sugar with honey in my sweet dishes, be it in desserts or cakes. I use honey even in tea and coffee. Even while having cornflakes for breakfast, I add honey to the milk instead of sugar. Not only have I succeeded in losing my extra flab around the waist area after starting this honey diet, but I also feel energetic all day long, unlike the crash diets which make one feel weak.



(Photo sourced from www.vagabomb.com )

P.S. - This is about "Honey Diet - A sweeter alternative" for shedding excess weight without any harmful side-effects like crash dieting does and this is courtesy http://www.daburhoney.com/ 


Cholar dal with vegetables is a regular dish for dinner at my home. Not only does it taste very good but it is also very nutritional, as bengal gram dal is high in fiber and so helps in fighting cholesterol. It is also good for the diabetics as it is low in fat content and rich in zinc, calcium and proteins. Normally cholar dal is prepared with only grated coconut in it by the Bengalis and then is given a seasoning of ghee and cumin seeds and red chillies. But I add carrots, brinjals, pumpkin, potatoes, green peas and radish too. It tastes differently from the normal cholar dal but everyone loves having it this way at our home.

Ingredients :

Bengal gram dal or channa dal - 1 cup
Carrots - 2 small sized, diced into small pieces
Pumpkin - 150 gms, diced into small pieces
Potatoes - 2 small sized, diced into small pieces
Brinjals - 150 gms, diced into small pieces
Green peas - 100 gms
Raddish - 150 gms, diced into small pieces
Grated coconut - 1/2 cup
Turmeric powder - 1 tsp
Freshly prepared Garam Masala powder - 1 tsp
Sugar - 1 tsp
Salt
Ghee - 2 tbsp
Bay leaf - 1
Asafoetida (Hing) - a pinch
Red chillies - 2-3
Green chillies - 2-3 slit along the length
Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
Freshly Grated ginger - 1/2 tsp
Fresh coriander leaves - chopped finely

Method :

Wash the vegetables and cut them into small dices and keep them aside. Then wash the cholar dal (chana dal) in water and after draining off all water, put into a pressure cooker. Add the diced vegetables as well as the grated coconut. Then add turmeric powder, garam masala powder, sugar and salt and some water (about 2 cups) and closing the lid, let the dal and the vegetables to boil to two whistles. After two whistles, when the steam goes out, this dal mixture will need to be given a seasoning. So for seasoning, take some ghee in a pan and heat it. Add hing and the slit green chillies, then red chillies and cumin seeds and saute them for a few seconds, and then add the boiled chana dal along with the vegetables into this pan. Stir in another cup of water, mix nicely and give it a boil (for about 2-3 minutes). Then turn off the burner and garnish it with the chopped coriander leaves and garam masala powder before serving it. This cholar dal goes very well with hot rotis or porothas or even with luchis.


I have always loved eggs and Dimer Jhol used to be a regular item for dinner during my graduation days at Hyderabad. I often used to cook bhat and Dimer Jhol for dinner after returning back tired from my tuitions. Even now after marriage also, whenever I run out of choices or have not much options in terms of vegetables, this Dimer Jhol comes as a rescue. Today I added a twist, I added boiled matar as well, so it was a dimmer-jhol-cum-ghughni.

Ingredients :

 Eggs - 4
Potato - 2 medium sized
Onion paste - 3 tbsp
Ginger-garlic paste - 1 tbsp
Tomato - 1 large sized, chopped finely
Boiled white peas - about 100 gms
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1/2 tsp
Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
Cloves - 2
Cinnamon - 1” piece
Black cardamom - 1
Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
Salt as per taste
Mustard Oil - about 5-6 tbsp
Chopped coriander leaves for garnishing

Method :

 Wash the pototoes thoroughly and put them into a pressure cooker to boil for two whistles. Then cut them into cubes. Boil the white peas for a whistle in a pressure cooker and take them out to soak in plain water for sometime. Boil the eggs as well in another pan with a pinch of salt, till you see cracks developing on the egg shells. That would mean that they are cooked. Now let them to cool down a bit and then drain out all the water and add fresh cold water to the pan so that the eggs remain in them for 4-5 minutes. Then remove the egg shells and sprinkling some salt and turmeric powder, coat the eggs nicely on all sides. Then heat the oil in a deep bottomed pan and fry the eggs till golden. Fry the potatoes too and keep them aside.
Again to the same oil, add the whole spices (slightly crushed so that their aroma comes out). Once they start to splutter, add the onion paste and saute on medium flame for a few minutes till they turn golden brown. Add the ginger garlic paste and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Now add coriander powder, chili powder and turmeric powder, also add the chopped tomatoes and little salt and cook till they become all mushy. Keep stirring every now and then so that the gravy doesn't get burnt. Now add the fried eggs and potatoes and the boiled white matar, mix them nicely with the gravy and then pour in about 2 cups of water and let the curry to cook on simmer flame, after covering it with a lid. When it's done, you can garnish the dimer jhol with chopped coriander leaves or garam masala powder and serve it hot with steamed rice. I had it with bhaat today. Ah, it tasted heavenly. 

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