Chicken Khirmich Pulao

Chicken Khirmich Pulao 

(Murgir Khirmich Pulao)

If one asks me about the exact moment when I got so interested in the kitchen I would not be able to give the person a straight answer. Part of it was because my mother who always stays away from the kitchen had taken up cooking delicious Chinese food when I was about 11 years old. It was more so delightful for me because I was usually an ostracized person in groups where people of my age group would brag about their mother's skill in the kitchen. What amazed was how close my mother's Chinese was to the food of old Chinatown from Calcutta. Unlike my friends who brought greasy Chinese which was doused in soya sauce or lacked the flavour my mother made balanced mild flavoured Chinese food which had amazed me. I had later learnt that she had learnt this from a friend who had studied hotel management. Then came a period when as with many teenagers I had a dramatic relationship with my ma and she stopped cooking and focused on her love of mountains. So perhaps it was to taste her delicious dishes that I started cooking Chinese food the ones she made at home. She had shared the recipes. That will be for another post.

If I close my eyes I see myself salivating while reading Enid Blytons books and the descriptions of picnic baskets and having this urge to taste all of them but the truth is I grew up among my maternal grandmother and aunt (mother's brother's wife) who left a deep impact on my mind about cooking. While my mother was the fiery no nonsense woman who was rough and tough I grew up in a world of drying lentil dumplings and making lip smacking Bengali dishes. My aunt's influence and an urge to imitate her filled me with an intense desire to learn the way she would render her magic to dishes. She is like a mother to me and taught me all that she knew about Bengali cooking encouraging me and appreciating my efforts.

What I learnt from her was mostly what had been passed down by her mother some 40 years ago hence I have the greatest regard for tradition when it comes to cooking.

Much later I realized that if I do really want to know about my Bengali culinary roots I must do what I believe if the only way to gather knowledge, that is read books.

What I discovered has left me brimming with pride for imagine this in Bengal women were publishing cookbooks at a time when emancipation for women was unheard of in most parts of the world.