The Well-Fed Bong

Stranded in New York far from ingredients and helpers, I learned to make quite a few Bengali dishes on the quick, none more successful than bhapa mach – this translates to the somewhat pedestrian "steamed fish" Its got a short ingredient list, quick prep and (horror of horrors) can be made in a microwave without any side effects and looks, as you can see, quite spectacular – one can easily imagine it the fruit of long labour and extensive technique. Yesterday, I needed to produce something to compete with Sunanda's world-class tiramisu, feed friends and impress people, so this was resurrected, adjusted to frozen prawns ( chingri ) rather than fresh fish, and voila! Shorshe Bhapa Chingri , double quick. The process is pretty much the same as bhapa fish – an old blog post I strongly encourage you to read. Its got all the theory, I'll just describe the twists that got me to this one. Ingredients Prawns: super-jumbo-tail-on, why not Mustard: Colman'...

A conference took me to Hyderabad in the month of Ramadan; and it was clearly a city obsessed with haleem. Its a city I had not seen in a while. The last time I was here, the ISB was just a gleam in Rajat Gupta's eye, the old airport was still called new and Saikat Dey (now father of two) was still an unmarried hunter-gatherer of biriyani. In those days we thrilled over Shadab, sneered at Paradise and felt reasonable satisfied with the corner chacha's stall, focused entirely on that magic b-word (biriyani – not those other x-rated alternatives your dirty dirty minds are pushing forward). Hyderabad has changed beyond recognition. The scrappy, dusty city of my memories seems to have been replaced by some magic teleporter to a developed country. The expressway transporting me to ISB (Chinese infrastructure in a Sholay set is the best I can describe it) had posted speed signs of 120kmph - that's 75mph, you slow American commuters. The infrastructure was, frankly, nauseating...