by Kasturi De
[box]Kasturi De shares with us her joy of discovering Paanch Phoron – the Bengali spice blend that has dramatically altered her cooking. Read on to know more about Paanch Phoron and the author’s cooking experiments with this interesting blend of spices.[/box]I have always considered myself a pseudo-Bengali as I have not spent the majority of my life in the ‘City of Joy’. My pseudo-Bengaliness can be attributed to my father as he had been serving in the Indian Navy and thus, apart from a short stint in Kolkata, we’ve spent majority of Dad’s service years in Kochi, Delhi, Mumbai, Goa and Port Blair. Though I am fond of typical Bengali food such as ‘chorchori’ (mish-mash of vegetables), ‘shukto’ (a Bengali version of the Malayali ‘avial’), ‘maacher shorshey bata’ (fish in mustard sauce) and ‘malpua’ (wheat flour fritters), to name a few, I could never imagine myself in my mom’s shoes cooking all these gastronomic delights.
I married another pseudo-Bengali like me who has spent majority of his life in Bangalore and Pune. In fact, his degree of Bengaliness is much lesser than mine. To cite an example, once during our courtship period, I told him that I was having ‘magur maach’ (cat fish, a Bengali delicacy), and he was aghast at the thought of having crocodile! He had never heard of it and thought I was feasting on magarmach!
I love eating all kinds of fish and can devour each and every part of it. Unlike me, he doesn’t enjoy fish that much. Rather, his love for chicken is so intense that within his family, he is better known as “Chickanu”, a play on his real name Krishanu!
Now, after three years of marriage, I have gotten comfortable to some extent, about cooking without mom’s frequent, telephonic assistance. Though I have still not been able to produce a meal that can be called entirely Bengali, I recently discovered my new-found love for an amazing Bengali spice called paanch phoron!! Despite having seen my mother using it in her recipes, never did I try it out till the day when I happened to be in the kitchen while my mom was tempering some dish using it. The aroma that I smelt that day made me a big aficionado of paanch phoron and since then it has become my magical spice!
Paanch phoron is a mixture of five, dry whole spices – Methi (fenugreek), Jeera (cumin seeds), Saunf (fennel seeds), Kalonji (nigella seeds) and Ajmod (wild celery or ‘Radhuni’ in Bengali), which looks a lot like Ajwain (carom seeds) but is poles apart in flavour. As Radhuni is typical to Bengal, many people replace it with Rai (mustard seeds). Also known as paanch phutana or paanch puran, it can be made by simply mixing the five spices in equal quantities and storing it in a bottle.
Apart from Bengali cuisine, this mixture is often used in Assamese and Oriya cuisines as well. It seems to have an unusual appeal not only because of its extraordinary flavour but also because of the variety of colours lent to it by the different spices – golden (fenugreek), green (fennel), black (mustard and nigella) and brown (wild celery and cumin). Paanch phoron is usually used for tempering. This is done by heating oil and adding the spices to the hot oil before adding rest of the ingredients. This makes the blend splutter and release the aroma of each spice. And the assortment of aroma leaves your olfactory senses tingling.
A speciality of this blend is that unlike other spices, you will rarely find it being ground to a powder or a paste or being roasted. Only while making chutneys, it is ground to a coarse powder and sprinkled on top. It lends its magical flavours only when used as a whole.
There are a host of recipes that feature paanch phoron; from dal to vegetables to fish. You can temper red lentils (masoor dal) with paanch phoron to give it a different taste. Amongst veggies, you can almost add it to anything to get a great tasting dish. Some of the most popular vegetables that go well with paanch phoron are cauliflower, potatoes, beans, ridged gourd, spinach and so on.
A common dish that you will find being cooked in a Bengali household is paanch phoron added to a combination of diced potatoes, cauliflower and green peas. Paanch phoron in tomato and mango chutneys are a must. It goes well with fish curries too. A weird but delectable dish that my grandmother makes using paanch phoron is ground poppy seeds (‘posto’ in Bengali) added to a combination of okra, pumpkin, potato and prawns. Though I have not heard of anybody adding it to chicken, I experimented and lo and behold, emerged an amazing recipe of chicken (thanks to some prompting by my husband to try using it in chicken too!). Besides paanch phoron, I had added vinegar and lots of red chilli powder to the chicken, which made it taste like pickled chicken. I am glad that my husband bears the brunt of such culinary experiments by me with a smile on his face.
Thanks to paanch phoron, I can see the Bengali in me finally emerging. And I am experienced enough to suggest to anyone cooking a Bengali dish to try using paanch phoron in your recipes. You will see your dishes attain new heights of taste and aroma!
Pic: lorises – http://www.flickr.com/photos/52569650@N00/
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