Mushur Dal Bharta Recipe
By
Published 11/16/2013
Ingredients
- Red lentils or mushur dal 150g
- Ghee, 1 tbsp
- Chopped onion, 1 tbsp
- Green chilies, 2
- Salt as required
Instructions
- Wash and soak the pulse for 30 minutes.
- Take a wide piece of muslin or cheesecloth. The pulse will need some space to cook properly. Put the soaked pulse and one green chili into it and make a pouch. Tie it well and put it into the pot of boiling water while cooking your rice. It will cook well along with your rice.
- Give it a standing time of about 5 to 10 minutes inside the hot rice pot. Take out the pulse pouch carefully from the pot. Put it into a bowl and mash the pulse with chopped onion, green chillies, salt and ghee. Enjoy this dal bharta with piping hot rice. Happy cooking.
As I said there is an emerging gap between sophisticated Bengali cuisine of Kolkata or any other big cities of the world and classic Bengali dishes. Modern culinary art of Bengali cuisine introduced the names of the dishes to the world. Kolkata cuisine has become popular now, but Kolkata does not mean Bengal rather it means everything else but Bengal. From the very beginning the conditions of life in Kolkata and the livelihood of the people living here and their manners are quite different from those Bengalees living in any other part of the province.
Simplicity is the key to the classic Bengali cuisine. Sometimes some ingredients are prohibited during cooking due to different issues and some must be eaten in the ritualistic way, but their creativity in the kitchen enriched timeless treasures in the Bengali cuisine. Bengali people provide knowledge and expertise in every distinguished flavor and taste to please the taste buds and palate.
The urge to feed tasty meals with restricted ingredients to the young widows, some innovative cooking options with less oil and fewer spices for the economically backward people of Bengal, encouraging herbal thoughts during cooking for acutely and chronically ill people in the family due to toxic malaria, kala ajar (কালা জ্বর), typhoid, and cholera, and going seasonal with the fondness of native Bengali people for observing rituals hence symbolized as 13 festivals in 12 months (baro mashe tero parbon) to gratify 33 crore gods as we know Indians are spiritually bonded to 33 koti devtas referred to in the Vedas. It sounds traumatic now, but ideally a kinship was started through social harmony during the age of early social life. Some innovative dishes were made to please the landlords or kings also.
The experiments with simple food items gradually reached a high point due to their artistic mind and ultimately food is portrayed as an art, "Randhan Shilpa".