‘Shorshe Bata’. The first impression you are bound to get from these two words is, ‘it is coming from a Bengali’. Well, unlike this time, probably everytime you might not be correct with your judgement, but the words, ‘Shorshe Bata’ do unfurl some emotions and memories for a Bengali, hidden or safely stored in the brain’s memory center.
Being it Dim Shorshe, or Maach Chrorchori, or Data Chorchori, or spicing up soft tender eggplants called ‘Begun Shorshe’, we Bengalis know how to simply enrich a dish just with a spoonful of mustard paste, flavoured with golden colour mustard oil. Only God knows since when Bengalis had befriended this yellow pungent creamy paste, but whoever had made the decision, seeing the everyday evolution of beautiful dishes with the help of mustard paste, he or she must be proudly singing ‘’Yehi hain right choice Baby. Aahaa! 😉 ”
Now sitting in the twenty first year of twenty first century, when the entire world is coming together, when the word ‘global’ is the ‘in’ thing, being it for ‘warming’, or ‘pandemic’, or ‘music’ or ‘food’, I too find myself disobeying from the famous words of Rudyard Kipling from his famous poem ‘The Ballad of East and West’ “Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” and unite the very eastern ‘Shorshe Bata’ with the western ‘Spaghetti’, through this dish ‘Shorshe Bata Diye Spaghetti’ or ‘Spaghetti In Mustard Sauce’.
Adding mustard paste to spaghetti makes the dish pungent yet not spicy. It gives you the kick (the associated feeling after having a dish with good mustard sauce taste) without making you uncomfortable. And the compatible vegetables only make the dish more pleasurable to have.
So, here is my East Meets West Dish, ‘Spaghetti In Mustard Sauce’.
Recipe: Spaghetti In Mustard Sauce
Preparation Time: Around 25 minutes Cooking Time: Around 43 minutes Equipment Used: Knife, chopping board, Sil Batta, wok, turner, grater, pan (to boil the spaghetti) Yield: Serves 4-5
Ingredients:
- 10 cloves of garlic
- Around 25-30 French beans
- 2 bell peppers or capsicum
- 2 tomatoes
- 1 tablespoon yellow mustard seeds
- 1 tablespoon black mustard seeds
- ½ tablespoon butter
- 5 tablespoon refined oil
- 8 teaspoon dairy whitener
- 23 gm cheese cube
- 2 teaspoon salt & salt to boil spaghetti
- 500 gm spaghetti
- Water to boil spaghetti
Method:
- Chop the garlic cloves
- Clean and cut the beans to 3-4 cm length
- Clean the bell pepper and cut them to thick strips
- Cut the tomatoes to wedges (around 6 pieces from each tomato)
- Now grind the mustard seeds to a smooth paste
- Take a saucepan or a container and fill the container with water. Place the water on heat for boiling
- In the meantime, heat a wok
- Add butter in the wok once the wok is hot
- Sauté the chopped garlic pieces in butter
- Add oil in the same wok once the garlic pieces are sauteed
- As light smoke starts coming out from the oil, add the vegetables in the wok and fry the vegetables for 2-3 minutes on low flame
- Add mustard paste into the wok followed by dairy whitener, cheese cube and 1 teaspoon salt
- Stir and let the vegetables cook on low flame along with other ingredients
- Add the spaghetti sticks into the boiling water along with little salt
- Reserve 1 and ½ cup water from the spaghetti pan once they are almost cooked or ‘al dente’ and transfer the spaghetti to the wok
- Mix the spaghetti with the other ingredients in the wok
- Add the water (reserved from the container used for boiling spaghetti) into the wok
- Cook till the water is absorbed by the ingredients in the wok
- Taste and adjust salt. I have added another 1 teaspoon salt
- Switch off the flame and enjoy the dish
Chop the garlic.
Cut the beans.
Cut the bell pepper to thick strips.
Cut the tomatoes to wedges.
Grind the mustard seeds to a smooth paste
Fill a container with water. Bring the water to boil.
Heat butter in a wok.
Sauté the chopped garlic pieces in butter.
Add oil in the same wok and heat the oil.
Add the vegetables in the wok and fry the vegetables for 2-3 minutes.
Add mustard paste into the wok followed by dairy whitener, cheese cube and 1 teaspoon salt .
Stir and let the vegetables cook on low flame along with other ingredients .
Cook the spaghetti sticks into the boiling water along with little salt.
Reserve 1 and ½ cup water from the spaghetti pan.
Transfer the almost cooked spaghetti to the wok.
Mix the spaghetti with the other ingredients.
Add the reserved water in the wok and cook till the water is absorbed by the ingredients in the wok.
Taste and adjust salt. Switch off the flame and enjoy the dish.
Tips:
- Quantity of butter is provided after bringing the butter to room temperature
- Heat the butter and sauté garlic on low flame as butter tends to emit smoke fast
- Fill the container with sufficient water so that the spaghetti can be soaked
- Ensure to give a stir once or twice while the spaghetti sticks are boiling, so that they do not stick together
- After sautéing garlic, heat the oil on low flame, else garlic pieces will burn
