The Mushroom Bhaji - with an eggy twist

1. Take a handful of mushrooms and peel away the outer skin. 

2. Chop up the mushrooms.

3. Add a generous glug of vegetable oil.

4. Take three chillies,

5. Chop 'em up.

6. Place the chillies in the heated veggie oil.

7. When the chillies are sizzling add in the mushrooms.

8. Take a stock cube, veggie or chicken.

9. Crumble one of the stock cubes up in between your fingers and add to the mushrooms. 

(like Kabir Bedi in Octopussy when he powders a roller-dice in anger)

10. Take two eggs and add half a teaspoon of salt.

11. Whisk away.

12. Stir the mushroom aside to one side of the saucepan.

13. Add in the whisked eggs into the saucepan.

14. As you start scrambling up the whisked egg mix in the mushrooms.

15. Stir away until the egg mixture and mushroom are mixed in.

16. And you have a very tasty side-dish to go with the rest of the meal.

The Boiled Egg Curry - Tastier Than It Sounds

1. Hard Boiled Six Eggs and Peel.

 2. Add in a small hint of orange/red food colouring for a more dramatic aesthetic effect. 

 3. Chop up one large onion and a few cloves of garlic (about half a bulb).

4. Shallow fry the eggs so that there is slight crispy texture.

Afterwards put aside the eggs.

5. Fry the onions and garlic in some vegetable oil. 

6. Add in a teaspoon of salt to soften up the onions.

7. Add in one teaspoon of each of the following spices:- tumeric, chilli, ginger and garlic.

8. Stir in the spices into the onions for a few minutes.

9. Add in a few peppercorn, cinnamon sticks and mashed up cardamoms.

 10. Once you are satisfied that all the spices have mixed properly together add in the eggs.

 11. Allow the eggs to cook in the sauce for a few minutes.

 12. And now the secret ingredients ....... half a cup of milk. 

13. Allow it to all cook.

12. And in the following minutes that come by you would've made yourself an amazing dish of boiled egg curry. 

The Spicy Mash Up

1. Boil a few medium sized potatoes.

                                        2. Fry one large onion in vegetable oil in high heat.

3. Take some dried red chillies.

4. Add the chillies to the hissing onions. 

5. Mash up the boiled potatoes and season.

6. Fry the onions and the chillies to the point where the onions start reddening. 

7. Add the potato mash and stir into the onion-chilli mix.

                                           8. Add in a handful of chopped-up coriander.

8. Add in two table spoons of mustard oil; this adds fragrance and a zingy taste.

9. Leave it to cook for a few minutes.

10. .....And Voila....... 

The Bottle Gourd

When economic immigrants like my parents came over in the sixties and seventies they came over with the burden of their family's survival on their shoulders. They were scared and nervous as they ventured into this new world. It was the age before the Internet. Whatever they knew about United Kingdom was hearsay and historical. UK - the great empire, Queen Victoria, Lord Mountbatten, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin. Life will be better here. There will be opportunities of work, of financial and physical security, money will be sent back to the home country to family and relatives where the impact will resonate for generations. 

My father had two brothers, six sisters and parents. If my father succeeded then so would his family. They would have money to resettle from the villages with lushious crops and gigantic rivers to the comparatively modern progressive world of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh. They will have access to education, jobs, a chance to better themselves, his sisters would attract better suitors and for the family overall there would be the promise of a better future. The family status would go from village people to the up-and-coming middle class. It's a big responsibility for a twenty something year old. Don't you think.

They take the risk to come over to a place they do not know, language they do not speak, a culture they do not understand but come over they do. As they come they don't just leave their country and everything they know behind, they bring it with them. For Bangladeshi people they bring their food, their recipes, their spices, their fish and vegetables which evoke the nostalgic, heart-warming, familial memories of home with every bite, every mouthful. 

At the end of my parents garden in Seven Kings, East London you will find a homemade vine where every summer they grow bottle gourd. A thicker, fleshier version of the British courgette. 

                                          

In Britain if you visit a friend or a relative you may take a bottle of wine or box of chocolates. Similarly in Bangladesh it would be typical to take a big, heavy, fresh, light-green, straight from the market, ready to be cooked bottle gourd to your host's house - otherwise it would be rude to turn up empty-handed, right; this is a customary Bengali practice especially in the village from where my father comes from. 

The Classic Dhal

1. Take a small glass full of red lentil. 

2. Wash the red lentils well and place on the cooker for it to boil. Add as much or little water as you like depending on how watery you want the dhal; I add twice as much water as that of the red lentil volume.  

3. As the water starts to heat up add half a teaspoon of tumeric. Then cover the pan and allow the red lentil to boil and open up. Altogether this takes approximately 20 minutes. After the red lentil has boiled, reduce the heat slightly and as you continue to cook the dhal add in further ingredients.

4. Pre-packaged fried onions can be found in most big food department stores in the 'World Food' section. Take two/ three table spoons of fried onions and add them to the saucepan with red lentils. Alternatively, you can always just chop up some fresh onions, fry them and add them in to this recipe.

5. Add one tea-spoon of mild curry paste - I used Pataks.

6. Add a teaspoon of salt.

7. Add a handful of coriander.

8. Add some sun-dried tomatoes.

9. Leave the mixture to cook for a few minutes further and serve up the dhal with a Paratha.