Kumro-alu bhate - Yellow pumpkin and potato mishmash

What you’ll need:

 

Potato: 1 medium

Pumpkin slice: any size

Onion :1 sliced

Chilly: 1 green or red dried

Cumin seeds: ½ tsp

Mustard or any other oil: 1 tsp

Salt: 1 pinch

How to:

1.      Skin the pumpkin if it is yellow. If the skin is soft and green, you can leave it on.

2.      Boil the potato and the pumpkin. You can also put it inside your rice pot. That’s how it was done by my mother (all our mothers), and that' how the name came by. Since I cook my rice in the microwave I boil them separately.

3.      Skin the potato.

4.      Fry the cumin seeds, chilly and sliced onion in the oil, and pour the entire thing on the boiled veggies, add salt and mash.

YOU'RE DONE !!

Looks great and tastes absolutely delicious. Just try it out. You can substitute the pumpkin with pointed gourds/ eggs/ brinjals – tastes great any which ways.

Kochu – Kumro’r chhokka – Diced Pumpkin and Arbi flavored with roasted spices

This was one of the first things I had cooked…when I started to cook way back but stopped cooking it for some unknown reason. After many years, my quest for cooking new (read old, forgotten ones) recipes for my blog brought out this jewel my Mom used to cook….in the process filling the entire house and the staircase with the wonderful smell of roasted spices.

Kochu-Kumro’r chhokka– Diced Pumpkin and Colocasia/Taro/Arbi  flavored with roasted spices

Ingredients :

Pumpkin –   Remove the outer skin if it’s  yellow, leave it on if its green. Dice them

Kochu(Arbi/Colocasia/Taro) - Boiled and peeled. You can peel and then boil but boiling first does two goods: a) the nutrition remains intact    b) It is much easier to peel after it is boiled. The coat just slips out like opportunities in my hand.

Cumin seeds: 1 tsp

Dried red chillies: 2 long ones or 4 cherry ones

Ginger: ½ tsp

Paanch Foron: ½ tsp – if you donot like the flavor of Paanch foron, which you may not, if you are not a Bengali, you could use a mixture of jeera, saunf and mustard – lends a slightly different flavour, works just as well.

Oil: 1 tsp (I used mustard, you can use any oil of your choice)

Salt

Turmeric

How to:

1.      Roast the cumin seeds and the chillies and grind them in a mixer. You add according the quantity of your dish. You can keep the remaining powder in an airtight container an use it within 15 days. I always make it a point to roast a little more than I need and keep it to be used later in my Masala muri (Bhel puri) or alu kopir chochchori {dish of chopped potatoes and cauliflowers usually taken along with roti’s/plain triangular parathas/ luchi’s(puri’s) as a part of breakfast in a Bengali household}.

 

2. In a wok, heat any oil of your choice and add the paanch foron. Now add the diced pumpkin and the boiled arbi cut in a somewhat same size. Add salt, turmeric and the ginger, mix well. Cover and let the pumpkin cook.

3. When the pumpkin is done, add the ground jeera-chilly, mix well and ........

DONE IT IS !

PS. Something has happened and the fonts are all messed up, and hoever hard I'm trying I cannot correct. I'M giving up !!!