Kamala Kopi - Orange Cauliflower curry
Winter means to us 'the Kolkatians' of "The City of Joy" as the season of Gali Cricket matches [the lane crickets of India] and Badminton and Volleyball till late night, Picnics in the suburbs, Film festivals at Nandan and Gorky Sadan, Dover Lane Music Conference, Russian Ballet 'Swan Lake', 'Gemini Circus' at Park Circus, P C Sorcar 'Magic shows', 'Yova Utsav' at Netaji Indoor, Theater at Academy of Fine Arts, Book fair and Exhibitions of the Maidan, the late night classic movies on DD channel and on Sunday afternoon the best Indian movies of all states and enjoying Arthur Conan Doyle detective stories under the blanket before sleeping. Also what definitely comes in mind with the onset of winter are the various food fairs comprising of Oranges and Cauliflowers held at home almost everyday. Thoughts of Flury's cake on Christmas Days and also Hot patties from Great Eastern, red meats on alter days, and Nolen gur; clutters the mind. .
Today we have so many options to enjoy anything anywhere even getting off season vegetables at the Modern Food Marts. We miss those days sooo much, the flavor in food, we lost those togetherness, sadly we could not carry forward the aesthetic sense of art in the masses, which was nourished by some great artists for long. Also we are at a huge loss after loosing the Imaginations behind the likes of 'Kalpana' by Uday Shankar. All we know is that we have to wait with evident eagerness with the hope of the revival of the flavor of Kolkata and the Bengal.
This recipe, previously I thought it is only cooked in our family as a speciality of my mom, but happened to come across one very similar bengali niramish recipe known as "Kamala Kalia" in a very old cookbook, which we Bengalis look up for traditional cooking guidelines written by Bipradash Mukhopadhay named "Pak-Pranali".
Kamala Kopi - Orange Cauliflower
By Barnali Dutta published by November 26, 2014
00:10 | Cook time: | Total time: 00:20 | 3 servings
Ingredients
- Fresh cauliflower 500g
- Orange pulp 1/2 cup
- Boiled potatoes, 2
- Oil , 1 tbsp
- Whole spices cardamom 2, cinnamon 1 inch 1, cloves 3, black pepper 4 to 5, bay leaves 1
- Spice paste red chili, turmeric, ginger 1 tsp each
- Roasted nutmeg powder, 1/2 tsp
- Salt to taste
- A tsp sugar to balance the taste
Instructions:
- First prepare the orange for this recipe, take segments of the orange, open the middle edges, and take out the juicy pulps, discard the seeds.
- Cut the cauliflower into big florets, check thoroughly if there are any worms, blunch into the boiling water and quickly into the iced cold water, season with turmeric powder, keep aside.
- In Bangladesh we always prepare the Cauliflower in this way in the believe that it can guard us from the bloating and belching .
- Cut boiled potatoes into medium pieces, season with turmeric. fry them until golden and keep aside.
- Fry seasoned cauliflower until golden in color, keep aside.
- Heat oil in a pan, add tempering of whole spices, add paste, fry a little, add cauliflower and potatoes, mix and fry well, do not let it burn, add 1 cup hot water. After boiling for 2 minutes now add salt and sugar. Check if vegetables are properly cooked and a thick gravy has been prepared, add orange pulps, let it boil one or two minutes, put off the fire. Garnish with orange segments and whole green chilies.
- Serve with any type of hot rice or bread.