Food festivals have a charm of their own as you get to see, experience and eat flavours from a region in much precision and going by the same Tamra, the all-day dining restaurant at Shangri-La Eros New Delhi held the Bengali Food festival. This restaurant is known for its wide range of cuisine selection right from European, North Indian, Italian, Japanese, Thai, Chinese and Mediterranean and more. The Interiors of the place is are classy, contemporary, stylish and gives a very chic look.
The Bengali food festival saw Sucharita Bhowmick bringing flavours from Bengal on the table. Sucharita who loves to play with flavours in her kitchen, tells that she loves to cook with all seasonal veggies and believes in the no waste concept. The festival saw all featured signature specialties from the cuisine be it the kosha manghso, chingri bhapa, misti pulao, Kolkata biriyani, Luchi, aloor dun, cholar daal, tomato chutney, chenar payesh and more. Interestingly the menu kept changing every day, so even for those staying in the hotel there’s no monotony. The charm of the cuisine lies the fact how well and delicately the spices blend giving some real exotic dishes on the table.
Sucharita made sure that each day every thing is done from scratch so that the freshness of the dishes is maintained. This experiential culinary celebration loaded with flavours and textures that remind you of home was a good platform to satiate the cravings of both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dishes.
Here's a recipe from the festival that happened to be one of my favourite.
Ingredients
• 15 pieces of cleaned and deveined prawns
• 2 Tbs of black mustard seeds.
• 2 Tbs of yellow mustard seeds.
• 2 Tbs of grated coconut.
• 2 Tbs of poppy seeds.
• 2 Teaspoons of turmeric powder.
• 2 Tbs of yogurt.
• Salt and sugar.
• 3 Tbs of mustard oil.
• 5 green chilies.
• Water as required.
Method
• Soak black and yellow mustard seeds in water along with poppy seeds. Once soaked then then add grated coconut, one green chili and some salt. and grind them with very little water
• Make a thick paste and take it out in a steel box or bowl which has a tight lid.
• Add yogurt, turmeric powder, more salt and little sugar. Mix these with the paste really well.
• Then add the shrimps, 4 slitted green chilies and the mustard oil. Mix well.
• Cover the bowl and keep aside for an hour.
• In a kadai heat 1 cup of water.
• When the water starts boiling place the steel box with tight lid into the water.
• Boiling water should cover half of the bowl.
• Cover the kadai and cook for 15 minutes on medium flame.
• Take the box out from hot water very carefully.
• Let it rest for 15 minutes then open it. Stir a little and serve hot.