CURRY AND SPICE: STAR ANISE FLAVOURED PLUM PRESERVE

I think I was capable of clicking a better picture of it but I left it casual just as a breakfast table would look like sans the butter pot and glasses filled with milk. Although having a proper breakfast is a necessity, this home is not in the habit of having elaborate breakfasts unless we are travelling. We usually go out of the hotel in the morning for the day and the breakfast is within the package. The husband is an expert getting the best hotel deals online. He keeps on teasing me he would one day unmask me in public. Its nothing like that, I actually loved the kind of hotels we stayed in Shimla & Manali or Cappadocia. When the devastated self after 8 hours of continuous puking reached Shimla sometime after the sunset, I felt I am in a paradise. The wise husband knows exactly when I wish to be left alone. While he attended our little boy of seven, I soaked in the beauty of the nature that is in abundance there. It is in the hotel that we stayed in Manali where I tasted the best strawberry and mixed berry preserve in my life till date. When asked, the hotel staffs told me it is locally made with home grown fruits. Perhaps that is also a reason for me not to use artificial preservatives in my jams and preserves. I cannot find the pictures of the dates & blueberry preserve I clicked few months back, they must be in hiding somewhere, I felt let me share the yum & easy recipe of STAR ANISE FLAVOURED PLUM PRESERVE today.

I cook and click, then has to scroll back to get them.... some I miss, some I delete if I forget the recipe altogether or if the picture is too horrible. I deleted the family style Bengali Fish Stew recipe picture I so wished to share on Bianca's birthday. Do you know some of us have a heart to heart connection from the G Plus days... I feel we really do not need to be formal to each other, our connection goes beyond virtual. I left GPlus three times and a doe-eyed girl got me back there each time. Now it feels how silly I was and how much that forum was close to my heart. I feel bad for those who really had a strong base there, I do worry to have lost a couple of connections I had there. Anyway, I keep all my sorrows at bay and find solace in food or anything related to it. I have regained all the fat I got rid off few years back, then who cares? .. I do not wish to live long, I just keep praying for my own. What made me happy early morning are those "Mushur Dal er Bori." I soaked the dal yesterday and then forgot all about it. I completed doing them this morning and then sat to write this recipe. Feels satisfied, the family is visiting in few days. I will be going to the Bangladeshi shop this evening because they just cannot have salmon, the brother is allergic to prawns, crab. On their earlier visit I served salmon and he could not. So, when we are not eating out, it will be typical Bengali food at this home.

I will miss the old man who was seen in the airport in a shocking red t-shirt sometime in 2013. The husband's sister would always say "mesho carries himself so well, looks smart in his body hugging Ts".... Oh! yes, he indeed was called "little master's look alike" in our DumDum neighbourhood; played football, did yoga, was a member of the YMCA, ran from his hostel at Thonthonia Kali Bari to the Maidan to play football until arthritis crippled the sportsman in him, he got his daughter dresses from "guys & dolls" just beside the Globe building and Rehmania too, her salwar suits were made by ace muslim tailors in the New Market area, till date I swear on one gentleman Meenaz if it's tailor made. The daddy did not like me wearing sarees but I was unable to carry myself well and wished for a different image.

May be not for maintaining an image, my taste was / is different.... I never agreed to my mother wearing a sleeveless blouse or doing a top knot, wear too big a bindi .... I wished to see her in ethnic wear, in soft colours. I never agreed to her stand about my father... he was different, carefree and she wanted something else from him.... doing household works with her, not to have friends, not to chat. I told her several times to let him be, no she had all kinds of weird complaints against him. Marriages are indeed prefixed but not really ideal at all times. Pictures are imagery, what is imagery is not always the truth. We try to build a home accepting and adjusting to each other's flaws. So, I think instead of researching the life history of my "choddo purush"and go public with it, I should do something fruitful..... like eating a "kora toast with the STAR ANISE FLAVOURED PLUM PRESERVE" in the morning, share the recipe with you, pray to the Almighty to give us some sunlight for the next seven-eight days, prepare a list of "deshi" things to buy, praying that I get a good quality big katla / rui, standard sized ilish today. You will see me cooking "shukto, aloo tomato diye maacher jhol, murgi, patha, toker dal" over the weekend.

I do not like, never feel good taking a dig at others. If the brain, memory bank betrays, I enjoy battering those who act innocent without having a bit of it in them. I do not feel guilty doing, I wish to unmask such kinds who find pleasure in hurting others. An evil lives within all of us but we control it instead of using our evil power on others. I avoid those who I know do not leave a chance to hit you without a reason and also those who lick the feet of these kinds. I have trimmed and chiseled my associations. I enjoy cooking and experimenting a lot, some fail and some I am happy with a lot and share the recipe with you asap. Same is with my "non-Bengali Aam er Achar".... I am happy with its taste and clicks and wish to share soon. As of this vegetarian condiment, I did it very simply with hardly four ingredients, ripe plums / aloo bukhara, sugar, lemon juice, star anise to flavour. You can see in the unedited picture below how lovely it looks. Had I have not mixed some black coloured plums, the STAR ANISE FLAVOURED PLUM PRESERVE would have more beautiful hues of red. I am a diabetic and not a regular fan of plain bread is true, but at times I love an overly toasted bread with butter and jam together, taught by the husband while we were at Toshali Sands for our honeymoon.

I belonged to a home where bread entered when our mother had fever, while the husband had travelled different shores of the world by then. Toshali was nice at that time, in Puri we stayed in "Nilachala Asoko" for 3 days on our 6-7 days of total tour, the 25 year old boy had to keep his wife in places better than those her father kept her. The banker father used to get travel allowances from the bank, his friends "kakus" chose decent places of stay for us. I could understand the emotions, ego working inside that young boy but for an overweight, dwarf, almost blind woman who carried mostly sarees on her first tour with her husband? I was literally shaking while at stay in Toshali Sands, today I know what to serve Jack, Bianca or Liz if they visit me. Yet, who am I? That soul who thinks private beaches are an insult to the nature, the vast sea would feel claustrophobic if hotels and resorts start owning beaches privately. I belong to no one, amidst the green, beneath the age old banyan tree I sit alone and for hours, I flow and flow care free with the stream.... Anybody home? Yes, run quick, the reptile family is treading fast.

INGREDIENTS :

FRESH PLUM : 300-400-500GM [I USED THE RED AND BLACK VARIETY]
SUGAR : 1MEDIUM TEA CUP OR 150GM
LEMON JUICE : 5-6TBSP
STAR ANISE : 3-4
WATER : 1COFFEE MUG

PROCEDURE :

We will wash the fruits under running water thoroughly. Cut each into 4 pieces and throw away the seed.

Now take all of the cut pieces of plum / aloo bukhara, star anise, in a heavy bottomed vessel.

Switch on your gas stove and add the water and sugar.

Bring to boil. After 5-6 minutes, the fruit pieces will release water.

We will continue to simmer further after a stir. Adding the lemon juice, we will give a stir again. After about 7-8 minutes, it looks like below.

We will reduce the heat from medium-low to the lowest now and simmer until it gets sticky. Know that it will thicken more on cooling. So, we have to switch off the gas oven accordingly.