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| An Attempt at Manipuri Cuisine |
The North Eastern states of India have been on my "Places to Visit" list for a long time. I have unfortunately never had the opportunity to visit any of the beautiful Seven sisters - a situation I plan to remedy as soon as normality resurfaces. For now I shall make myself happy by sitting at home, eating Manipuri food and viewing pictures and videos of this gorgeous state. We DO live in good times (in terms of technological advances and ease of access to information - not in terms of the pandemic).
Recipes Referred to:
ChakHao Tal (Black Rice Poori) - http://entethattukada.blogspot.com
Alu Kangmet (Mashed Potato In Dry Red Chillies) - www.archanaskitchen.com
Mangal Ooti (Yellow Peas Curry) - www.archanaskitchen.com
Rau Ataoba Thongba (Manipuri Fish Stew) - www.bbcgoodfood.com
Madhurjan Thongba (Sweet Besan Dumpling in Milk) - varadaskitchen.blogspot.com
I had initially thought of taking a shortcut and covering all 8 states (7 sisters + Sikkim) in one weekend. But as I started researching recipes, I saw just how varied and diverse the cuisine is. One weekend cannot do justice to the states in North East India. So that's 7 extra weeks for me. But who's complaining? (Answer: Probably C, who bears the brunt of all the experimentation). More fun for me!
The staple Manipuri diet consists of rice, vegetables and fish. Here whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon and cloves are not used - instead chillies both red and green are popular, along with bay leaf (even in desserts) and turmeric. Consequently the food lacks the typical garam masala flavour of Punjabi food and a lot of the deliciousness comes from the inherent taste of the vegetables. The preferred oil is Mustard. An ingredient I found used in many of the recipes was Ngari - dry fermented fish. I did not have access to this and so had to stay away from recipes where this was a key ingredient. On to the individual dishes!
(Also, this is the point where I tried to read up more on Food Photography and hence the drastic improvement in the pics taken, if I may say so myself) 😁
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| Chak Hao Tal |
Yes, you may tell yourself you have eaten pooris before. But could a poori BE more gorgeous than this? While most pooris are deep fried flatbreads made of whole wheat flour or maida, this one is made of Black Rice and Atta (whole wheat flour). That's the reason for the beautiful shades. The pooris were soft and did not harden when left for the next meal. And they taste delicious too!
I decided to make these the minute I laid eyes on the recipe because I already had with me a pack of beautiful Black rice from Manipur. A wonderfully sweet cat parent once got it for me from her home town in Manipur because I boarded her cat for a couple of weeks. I had never had an opportunity to use it till now - and what better time than this! Since then I have come across black rice in grocery stores near my house too - probably because I know of the delicacies made from it and am subconsciously on the lookout for more 😍 Black rice is grown in Eastern India and is not too tough to find. You can also find it on Amazon! If you do, please do try these pooris - and also the black rice based dessert in the upcoming blog post.
Ease of cooking: 3.5/5
Taste: 5/5
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| Alu Kangmet (Mashed Potatoes) |
Alu Kangmet was similar to a Bengali dish - Aloo Shiddho. This is a very simple, straightforward recipe, super easy to whip up. And the ROI in terms of taste is high, with the combined flavours of mustard oil and roasted red chillies hitting just the right spot! It was a little too spicy for my toddler's liking, but us adults loved it! We had it as a side dish and later also as stuffing in pao.
Ease of cooking: 5/5
Taste: 5/5
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| Rau Ataoba Thongba (Fish Stew) |
I used Basa fish for this stew and by the time it was done, the fish had really imbibed the flavours coming from the greens. Ideally the recipe uses mustard greens but this is not the season, and I made do with spinach. Need to retry with mustard in winter :)
A variety of veggies can be used here - I've used potatoes, beans and cauliflower, along with spinach leaves. This was not to C's liking since he prefers the spicy curries, but I loved it, as did A. She is fond of anything non-vegetarian but this was eaten with relish. She even ended up happily eating all the spinachy parts because there was fish too. 😉
Ease of cooking: 3.5/5
Taste: 4.5/5
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| Mangal Ooti Mangal Ooti was very similar to the gugni we get in West Bengal. The tomato based gravy gives a lovely wholesome feel to this preparation. This went so well with the black rice pooris. It can easily be a breakfast option too! Ease of cooking: 4.5/5 Taste: 5/5 |
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| Madhurjan Thongba |
Ahh this one was unique and unlike any desserts I've made before. Sweet dumplings made of besan were deep fried and then added in this very simple milk and sugar mixture. This was the first time I used Tej Patta (Bay leaf) in a dessert - made for a very interesting combination of flavours!
Ease of cooking: 4.5/5
Taste: 5/5
All of these things were prepared on a Saturday morning/afternoon and we had a very heavy Thali type lunch. I know the lunch is good when A eats without any extra prodding and then sleeps for 2 hours.. hehe...
This is the point when I decided - I probably need to space out the effort - cooking all this in one day takes up a large chunk of the weekend. I can plan in advance, procure the necessary ingredients, get the grunt work of chopping etc done at night after A sleeps, so that only the assembly is left for the mornings. That way I can also cook more dishes. And then eat them. Awesome. 😎
Coming up next - Nagaland
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