#DurgaPujaNostalgia: One special dish that city food enthusiasts want to make this season

The biggest annual festival of Bengal, Durga Puja, is just round the corner. This is the time when we keep our work and worries aside to indulge in endless adda and pet pujo. To add to the fun of Pujor bhuri bhoj, we bring you a list of gastronomical delights from the kitchens of a few city food enthusiasts, who tell us about one special dish they would like to prepare during Puja. Over to them...


Chef Auroni Mookerjee was born and brought up in New Delhi. Durga Puja for him was quite a different affair when it came to celebrating or indulging in pet pujo. He said, “For me, it was less about CR Park pandal-hopping and more about being at home with my grandmom since she’d always visit us during Puja with mishti, homemade boris, gobindo-bhog chaal and prawn crackers. To me, she still remains the best chef I’ve ever known and my favourite dish cooked by her is the kankrar (crab) jhaal — a thick gravy dish served with fragrant aromatic rice. It’s the one dish that I’d look forward to every year during Durga Puja. Thus, no matter what menu I’m curating for the Puja season, what party I’m hosting through that week, this is the one dish I will always recreate in some form or the other.”
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Home chef Debjani Chatterjee Alam has always been fascinated by the term ‘niramish mangsho’. And the die-hard foodie loves to prepare this aromatic mutton dish, served specially on Nabami. She said, “If I have to serve one special dish to my customers or family members, I'll make Nabami’s bhoger mangsho cooked without onion and garlic. Though the name ‘niramish mangsho’ is an oxymoron, yet I cannot imagine Nabami's lunch without piping hot rice along with this slow-cooked meat curry.” Pujor bhog is generally served in earthen, copper or silver utensils, but Debajani loves to use kanshar bashon (utensils made from an alloy of bronze and copper metal) to serve this dish. Highlighting the significance of not using onion or garlic in this recipe, Debjani added, “As per the Sakya system of faith, we do not use onion and garlic while cooking bhog. When animal sacrifice was allowed, the sacrificed meat was cooked without onion and garlic and it was served to Ma Durga and Ma Kali during Durga Puja and Kali Puja respectively. It’s called niramish because of the unusual process of not using onion and garlic.”
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Who doesn’t love momos? And if you can enjoy some bite-sized prawn balls along with it, there’s nothing like it. Sikkimese cuisine expert, chef Doma Wang, said, “There are many dishes, which evoke sweet memories of my happy childhood in my hometown Kalimpong. But the prawn balls and momos are my absolute favourites. Memories of a young girl coming back from school to the smell of prawn balls being fried brings a smile on my face even today. Prawns were not easily available in Kalimpong during those days and my father would buy them the moment he found some at the weekly bazaar.

Every time he scolded me and I went crying to school, he would ensure he welcomed me back home with hot prawn balls. Momos used to be Sunday lunch for us and all of us sat in a circle and made loads of them. It was a family bonding time, where we wrapped momos amidst laughter and stories. I would love to serve these to my friends and family during Durga Puja and relive those wonderful memories of my childhood.”
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Chef Sambit Banick loves to experiment with traditional dishes and when it comes to Durga Puja, it’s mandatory that the menu at his restaurants see a fusion touch. Sharing with us the tale behind a very innovative dish, which he would love to serve during Puja is kuler achaar infused murgir temperado. He says, “Temperado is an Anglo-Indian dish, which is derived from authentic Portuguese cuisine. So, during Pujas, I thought kuler achaar infused murgir temperado will be a perfect for the occasion. As children, we were forbidden to eat kul (Indian jujube) before Saraswati Puja, lest you get bad grades in your immediate exam. So, like an obedient child, I sincerely used to abide by it till I met Gopal Da, who used to sell topa kuler achaar outside our school gate all year round. So, as a chef, I thought of incorporating the sweet and sour element like kuler achaar with the complex spices of chicken temperado that’ll make for a lovely starter dish.”
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Food, festival and a foodie make for the most beautiful love triangle we can think of. For chef Sougata Ghosh, Durga Puja is the biggest festival when you can meet your loved ones and also go back to some fond childhood memories associated with festive food. He shared, “My grandma was a lovely cook. And once, during Durga Pujas, I learnt my grandma’s signature egg dish — dim aloor bora diye dalna. It’s a beautiful egg and potato dumpling cooked in onion and cumin flavoured curry, best served with steamed rice. I was surprised by the minimum number of ingredients required for the dish and how quickly it was prepared. I was in Class VI and I still remember the texture and the taste of that dish even today. So, I would love to make that dish during Puja to relive one of my best memories with my grandma.”
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Chef Prakash Chettiyar, executive chef of a city five-star hotel, who is originally from Tamil Nadu, has been staying in Kolkata for work purposes for over two years now. And on every festive occasion, he tries to whip up a special dish that has a touch of tradition from down south. He says, “The flavours and aromas of milk, sugar, jaggery and coconut have always been the familiar essences of festivals and these ingredients often tie together the cuisines and cultures of southern India and Bengal. One of the traditional dishes made during festive days is ‘pithe’ from Bengal, which shares a lot of similarities with Paal kozhukattai (meaning milk and soft rice balls in Tamil). It is cooked as an authentic festival delicacy. Paal kozhukattai is a dish that my mother used to make with a lot of love and it truly brings back the fondest memories of my childhood. So, as I spend another Durga Puja in Kolkata, I would love to prepare this dish and hope to include it in the hotel’s Puja menu.”
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