Rumi's Kitchen

Kasundi is a traditional Bengali recipe which is a variety of mustard sauce.  It is generally a pungent paste of mustard seeds and mango which is also known as aam kasundi. It is a sour, sweet and hot sauce which can be served as a dip or as a side dish with rice or roti.

After making mango pickle twice for this season, I had some raw mangoes left in my refrigerator.  So I decided to make aam kasundi today.  I didn't make this mustard sauce in the traditional Bengali method. Bengalis kept the sauce in earthen pot for 7 days before consuming and they use raw mustard oil.  I made this kasundi to serve instantly after making. Actually I don't have an earthen pot to keep my kasundi sauce and so I adopted this method. 

My 7 year old daughter was so curiously observing me while I was making the sauce. She asked me "what are you making momma?" I said " you'll not like it dear,  it's taste is so pungent" But she insisted to taste it. And after she tasted, she…

The Tea production and consumption was introduced in India by the British during the British regime in India. Born and brought up in Dibrugarh, the tea city of India made me a tea addict. Most of us wake up in the morning and the very first thing we do is to sip a delicious cup of tea.  It's a common practice in many household in India. But the taste of tea differs from person to person. Someone may like light tea without milk and someone may be addicted to strong karak chai with spices and milk. My personal favorite is orthodox black tea. 


Now why orthodox tea? 
Orthodox tea is whole leaf tea processed  by the old traditional method using hands.  But in some factories modern machinery that mimics hand rolling is used to process orthodox tea. For making orthodox tea,  the best leaves combination (2 leaves and a bud) are plucked with utmost care by hands from the tea brush top to unsure a better taste. Before the introduction of CTC style, people drank their tea processed by orthodox…

Continuing with my pickle recipes, today I'm going to share a simple garlic pickle recipe which you can serve instantly. There are many different garlic pickle recipes and this one is sour and spicy.  I love garlic pickle.  I don't remember from where I learned this recipe but I liked to enjoy garlic pickle whenever and wherever I got the chance to taste it.  So I apply my own ideas in making garlic pickles or any other pickles. Indian pickles are more than just preserving. It contains oil and spices which makes it more flavourful. So without further delay let's jump to the recipe below. 
Garlic Pickle Recipe 
📎Course : Pickle 📎Cuisine : Indian
🔪Preparation Time : 20 minutes ♨Cooking Time : 5 minutes  🕞Total : 25 minutes
INGREDIENTS:
1 cup of garlic cloves 4-5 dry red chilies 1/4 cup yellow mustard seeds 1/2 tsp cumin seeds 1/2 tsp coriander seeds 1/3 tsp fenugreek seeds1/2 tsp fennel seeds1/2 tsp hing or asafoetida1/2 tsp nigella seeds 1 tsp red chilli powder 1 tbsp salt 1/2…

I did a little experiment in my kitchen. Made egg curry and instead of ripe red tomatoes, I added unripe or green tomatoes. The result was fantastic. 
Egg curry is one of the most easiest recipe which I like to cook when I get no time for cooking.  Sometimes when I have nothing else to cook for dinner, I make egg curry. Basically I add potatoes in egg curries and sometimes I like to add okra in the curry. I don't really remember when I cooked egg curry for the first time but my mother  often used to cook egg curry when I was a kid. I enjoyed my mother's egg curries a lot but my kids don't enjoy eating egg curry.  So I don't often cook egg curries. I cook egg curry for my husband and me. My kids love boiled eggs only.  But my son enjoys the gravy.

So the other day I made egg curry in green tomato gravy. I had two green tomatoes left in my refrigerator. These were the same green tomatoes I received from my dad and from which I made Green tomato pickle. Well those green tom…

Ahom Bogori (Assamese আহোম বগৰী) in English is called Peach. It's scientific name is Prunus persica. Peaches resembles and closely related to apricots and plums. Peaches are soft when ripened and are very delicious. Unlike apricot and plum, peaches have one large middle seed.  As I googled I found that peach fruit was domesticated and cultivated for the first time in Northwest China. It's a summer fruit and largely available in Assam.

It is believed that the name 'Ahom bogori' is derived from the Kingdom of Ahom. It may be because the Ahoms have brought with them the seeds of peach.  Ahom is a large community originally from the Chinese province of Yunnan, which is located on Southwest China. From Yunnan, they migrated into Myanmar and then after crossing the Patkai Mountains entered Assam. The Ahoms have established their dynasty and ruled the Ahom Kingdom, the present day Assam for about 600 years. 

We call this fruit as ahom bogori from childhood.  But according to so…

Bhoot jolokia/Bhut jolokia (ভোট জলকীয়া) or Ghost chilli is one of the hottest chilli on earth cultivated basically in Assam and some other parts of northeast India. The bhoot jolokias are two or three inches long and starts out green in colour.  It turns red only when ripened.  This ripened ghost chilli in the first bite gives an intense sweet chilli flavor.  The heat doesn't kick at the beginning. As you started chewing it, the heat kicks in and your mouth started burning together starts sweating and watery eyes.

Don't touch ghost chilli with bare hands after cutting.  But as we Assamese people do not use spoon and fork and eat our meal with our fingers, we have the practice of touching this red hot chili with our bare hands. Do you remember the Indian chilli queen Anandita Dutta Tamuly.  She is know for eating and rubbing bhoot jolokia on her bare eyes. But you don't try this and don't even touch bhoot jolokia with bare hands if you don't have practice.  Today I m…