CURRY AND SPICE: FULKOPIR PATA BATA

Friday, 6 September 2019

FULKOPIR PATA BATA

I enjoy having it with plain rice. Few decades back this would have been my third option, keeping fish curry, fry forth, even meat curry given meat was once in week affair, we treated it as weekend celebration. Now, I have crossed prime phase of life..... meat is no more main interest although I am unwilling to quit it... fresh water fish remains love. We do not get kind of fish I prefer here in this island on regular basis, I lean more on vegetarian dishes I have grown up eating. By God's grace, this island sells vegetables that Bengali homes eat.... we even get packeted jackfruit, Hyacinth bean seeds. I saw grandmother, mother roasting Hyacinth bean seeds in sand, stored year long to use in curries. Its not possible to follow them ditto in modern homes, I do as much I can. This rustic, humble vegetarian dish with cauliflower leaves & stem FULKOPIR PATA BATA is one of them.

I can have it every week, rest in family would not mind to taste anything that may feel like "shutkir bhorta" but problem is this island sells "fulkopi in nyara form".... all leaves are thrown, then sold, even stems are rarely kept.... they make lovely dish when cooked with chilli-mustard paste. No part of cauliflower was been wasted in our family. I try to follow. For cauliflower with leaves, I have to go hunting for it in Indian shops who get their supply from India, South Asia, even Taiwan Gobi I love comes without leaves. I had an existing picture of this dish stored in Google Photos but I was not keen about sharing, I felt I should do better plating so my family does not feel being left out. It was quite an exercise yesterday.... a cauliflower gives you this little amount of leaves if ain't you are getting it from your family's farmland. So, I included the stems too, never mind we need to cook them too well to avoid bloating.

This was earlier one, the present one is definitely not a perfect one either. I am unhappy with my photography skills! We had quite a few dishes to have last night, beyond 3-4 dishes at this home seems excess.

We had "maacher jhol" too. So boiled potato was refrigerated, prepared "aloo chokha" this morning and packed their lunch boxes with "ruti o aloo chokha"..... You can see I must have one "ruti" with my morning tea. The "chapatis / rutis" today were not good, perhaps I could not maintain temperature level of oven well.

Food is religion, it energises me. I am not an energetic person, not 1/10th of our mother but whatever little I cook, I try to do it with love like her, her kinds. By the word "authentic Bengali" I always refer to an era I have immense respect for because I have seen what hard work is, what doing it for family is, I would continue to stick to my belief.... who ever says what. I do not know how authentic this vegetarian recipe with cauliflower stems FULKOPIR PATA BATA is, when it dates back to history of Bengali Food. I am doing it how our mother used to do. Among us, it is done with good amount of onion, a tempering of crushed garlic too is must.