Bengali Bhate- The Ultimate Comfort Food
Nothing is better than "bhate" if you want to try hyper-local Bengali food. It is a cooking style involving steaming or boiling vegetables, lentils, or pulses rather than a specific recipe. After that, they are mashed into a smooth consistency, rolled or mixed with a dollop of ghee or mustard oil and spiced with chopped onions, fresh coriander leaves, and green chillies. The literal meaning of the word "bhaté"- is "in rice." Perhaps the practice of boiling or cooking vegetables in the same pot as rice originates in the term's genesis. In other words, bhate is essential to Bengali food. A few common choices are okra, sweet pumpkin, bitter gourd, ol, elephant foot yam, kochu, or taro.
| Ranita Ray
Nov 18, 2022
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Alu Bhate
As the name suggests, it's made with alu or potatoes. After boiling them, they are peeled and smashed. Ensure that there are no lumps. Don't use the blender; it should be hand mashed. According to your taste preference, use mustard oil (for a pungent aroma) or pure ghee for a subtle flavour. Add chopped onion if using mustard oil. For the ghee variant, mash a green chilli and add some chopped fresh coriander leaves. Roll the mixture into medium size balls.
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Kumro Bhate
Kumro, or sweet pumpkin, is a favourite vegetable among Bengalis. Kumro bhaate is one of them. There is no laid-down recipe to make it. The basic step is to peel the pumpkin and chop it into medium cubes. Then the pieces are boiled but not overcooked. It should be mushy, not watery. A fancy process is to mash the cooked pumpkin and then temper it with black cumin seeds, chopped onions, and green chillies and season with salt. A few add kasundi to suffuse a pungent flavour into it.
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Ol Bhate
This Ol Bhaate is also referred to as 'ol makha.' Elephant foot yam, also known as suran, is boiled till soft and tender before being mashed with a few other ingredients. The boiled ol is mashed and seasoned with finely chopped green chillies, kasundi, lemon juice, and salt in a dish. After a final mustard oil sprinkle, all ingredients are mashed together and shaped into balls.
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Dal Bhate
It is a staple in many Bengali households, mainly using musur dal or red lentil or mung dal. After washing the dal thoroughly, it is placed in a thin or muslin cloth and then tightly tied up like a potli or bundle. It is then dropped in a pot with boiling water till the dal is cooked. Untie the bundle and pour the boiled dal. Add ghee, salt and green chilli, hand-mash it, and roll it into a ball. For musur dal, replace ghee with mustard oil. Ensure, the dal isn't watery. It should be semi-solid.
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Alu Dim Bhate
In this simple preparation, chicken eggs and potatoes are boiled in a steamer. Once they are cooled down, the peels are taken off. In a bowl, these two ingredients are hand-mashed coarsely. For tempering, sliced onions and red chillies are fried in mustard oil until they turn a little crispy. Then the tempering is poured over the mashed paste, salt is used for seasoning, and all the ingredients are mixed well and rolled into balls.
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