SPICY CHILLI

Well, it had been a recent wish to share the recipe of this dish that is easy to do and yum to eat. This variety of chillies are available here every few hundred steps and in abundance. They are less hot and makes for a wonderful ingredient for fritters and stuffed vegetarian or even non-vegetarian dishes. Having chillies as a side dish is not a Bengali thing, I saw my non-Bengali speaking friends in school getting wonderful pickles made with chillies, the varieties my family never made. I am ahead of my family when it comes to the acceptability of a varied kinds of food! Hence, I have to experiment with different ingredients and include in the family menu card those which more or less appeals to our taste buds. I see my visiting family choosing the "lyangra" variety of mango among at least ten variety of it. What was causing me irritation was that why do I have to choose a mango that might have been packaged a month ago keeping aside the freshest produce coming in from the neighbouring states. 

I do follow Bengal while in the market, I am not the kind who will get Bengal from there and try to  install it here, I go to the Bangladeshi shops for fresh vegetables our kinds, long back I have stopped buying the stale, frozen fish coming in from there.... they would do no good to my men's health. Then, if your men are happy with salmon, prawn, chicken and snapper, you would not go to that extreme. The mother did not have problem in her 11/2 month of stay, she got fresh "rui and chingri", she can survive on prawn+noodle soup, salad, even chicken strips in soups, fruits.... moreover the daughter prepared different vegetarian dishes. She does not fancy chunks of meat, no problem.... her daughter prepared a stuffing with minced chicken, did kofta... this... that! She enjoyed this vegetarian side, oven grilled SPICY CHILLI, but loved more the chilli pakoras I prepared last Friday when we had a visiting guest with us.... you can see some fish tikki beside.

Our guest loved what we served, then our son loved both the dishes with this fat, big variety of red chillies. This mother taught her son to have moderately spicy and hot food, problem is with the husband who does not enjoy too much of hot and spicy stuffs. I do not like this trait in him, but so long he provides me enough to eat, eat and eat more of pizza and kueh, food in general.... I have no problem. Yesterday was pizza night which we have every fifteen days, the mother loves it too.

By the way, if you want to have good quality "kueh" here, always buy from shops which sell it fresh.

Being an obese, I have them may be once every six months but from such shops usually. This recipe with big, red chillies may not be innovative, some parts of India and South Asia do eat it, I went my way & did not follow any particular recipe!

INGREDIENTS :

BIG FAT RED CHILLI : 1-12
GRAM FLOUR / BESAN : 1TBSP

TURMERIC POWDER : 1/2 TSP

CORIANDER POWDER : 1/2 TSP

CUMIN POWDER : 1/2 TSP

RED CHILLI POWDER : 1/2 TSP

DRY MANGO POWDER : 1/2 TSP

KULAMBU SPICE MIX : 1 TSP [ANY SPICE MIX WOULD DO]
SALT : AS REQUIRED
OIL : 1 TBSP 

PROCEDURE :

Wash the chillies, pat dry. Make slits in each one of them and de seed. Cut them further or you may not! Wash again and pat dry.

Now marinate them with the ingredients mentioned in the ingredients list. 

Keep aside for 1/2 an hour.

Grease an oven proof plate with 1/2 tsp of oil and place the marinated chillies in a single layer on it.

I work with a convection mode microwave oven! I placed the low height wired stool inside and then the plate atop it.

I cooked them for 8 minutes in the microwave+grill mode. We should be done.

Doing it in a pan on stove top may require more of time and oil. 

Whatever you are serving it with, varieties of rice or chapati, serve it fresh and hot, else the crunch from the gram flour goes away. West, I cook "aloo-peyaz bhaja" / potato-onion fry in the oven using 1tsp oil!