SHEEM BHARTA

 

BOILED VEGETABLES MASH & BHARTA; MY FAVOURITE!

Long back during my student life, I would have rice in the morning before leaving for school. Starting Monday until Friday, I would have rice three times a day in spite of been an obese! In our family, it was a practice because the father too had rice before leaving for office. We would have it with vegetables boil & mashes, fries & ghee, lentils too for me & a basic fish curry for the father may be! The brother hated food & had to be force fed! T had fragrant rice-potato-eggs & ghee or butter his entire student life in the mornings, never showed up in his body! My son too was fed the same as his father until I landed in this island! The few years the maternal grandfather stayed with us until 1985, he definitely ate rice with a vegetable, fish, dal on the sides before leaving for office! He was not in the habit of eating outside food, would eat fruits & puffed rice in office I can remotely remember! The mother had a hurried morning with the toddler brother to handle. It was not an easy task, she did not get enough rest after Bhai's birth! These days after 4 pm she would retire to bed switching on the television. After finishing her chores, she would take the final round of shower for the day around that time & would not want to take on shoulder much of work. Only on Wednesday evenings, she would go to the Barrackpore station area to get garlands for the deceased family members & her God family, rest of the week her homegrown flowers are enough! At this time she is at our flat as her daughter-in-law is having summer vacation in the school. For her dinners, Mani would prefer these veg boil & mashes unwilling to have fish; even the grandmother would I had seen closely! In those days, I did not understand this point; today I get! I may not be willing to turn full vegetarian but I like vegetarian food these days. More because I do not like the meat varieties of this island; I did not enjoy the mutton curry last night, but liked the lentil fritters & jackfruit seeds, potato curry a lot! The later is sent by a neighbourhood aunty!

Inspired from Kakima's "sheem lau er dal", I would share a Bengali dish today that also has the same dal in the platter!

I WAS BUSY SHOPPING FOR MY CLIENTS TODAY!

And the culprit happened to be a chappal from Bata, Kolkata. They are not meant to walk long distances. Although I did not walk the full distance today, yet there had enough walking, now the legs are paining starting from the hip! I take the blame on myself for not wearing my walking shoes! I did not ask Cristine to accompany today & the trolly got heavier. I handed over everything to her & had my lunch at our neighbourhood mall! That's the advantage of staying beside the mall & a station! Anyway, I was not wanting to eat Indian food today! I had the fried fish & chicken bowl with mushroom sauce & rice; thereafter jelly & fruits with shaved ice. The chicken was smelling, to get rid of that I had the dessert!

Thereafter, I came back home, had a good shower & sat to write a blogpost! Tomorrow & Saturday would be very busy cooking for my clients! Also, tomorrow evening I got to cook for ourselves, every week I cannot allow ourselves to eat meat & party food alone! I would share in public what I would cook for ourselves this week!

WHAT IS SHEEM BHARTA?

As I say always, my family used to boil a couple of vegetables on a regular basis & have with piping hot rice, roasted dry red chilli, salt! Bharta / Mishmash too they cooked as per other Bengalis! Just that in it, the boiled vegetable is further mashed & enhanced with fried onion, chillies, garlic! Today, I want them everyday! Unfortunately, I am unable to eat rice or chapati in as many meals as I want! This SHEEM BHARTA is a vegan, gluten-free Bengali recipe with the vegetable, sheem / broad beans / hyacinth beans!

The Bengal variety is more near to Hyacinth Bean & it has a popular version, flat shaped a little! Today, I got the above one! This Bengali Recipe is quite popular & I was for long wanting to blog about it! My family used to dry roast the matured seeds of Hyacinth Beans, store in jars throughout the year to use in various vegetarian & non-vegetarian fish dishes!

INGREDIENTS :

SHEEM / HYACINTH BEAN / BROAD BEAN : 10-12

SLICED ONION : 1/ 2 SMALL TEA CUP

CRUSHED GARLIC : 1 TSP

GREEN CHILLI : 3-4

SHREDDED COCONUT : 2 TBSP

NIGELLA SEED : 1/4 TSP

DRY RED CHILLI : 2-3

TURMERIC POWDER : 1/4 TSP

SALT : AS REQUIRED

SUGAR : 1 TSP [ I USED BROWN SUGAR]

OIL : 2 TSP + 2 TSP TO DRIZZLE ATOP [WE USE MUSTARD OIL]

PROCEDURE :

What we would do at first is cut small each of the sheem, taking out the fibre on the side as we cut the two ends. We would wash them, add some water, salt, & turmeric along with them to a microwave proof bowl & microwave at high for 8-10 minutes!

Thereafter,  we would pass them through a strainer & squeeze out all of the residual water!

We would crush the washed & peeled garlic. We would heat oil in a wok & temper it with the nigella seeds, dry red chillies & the crushed garlic.

We would add the sliced onion, fry them till brown! We would then add the shredded coconut & fry until brown! After that we would add the boiled bean pieces & cook for sometime!

We would transfer them to a blender from the wok; add the washed green chillies, a little of salt & 1tsp sugar! We are to blend all to a paste!

We are to transfer it to a bowl & drizzle with mustard oil atop!