About The Author
Hello! From Chuchura (in Hooghly District) and a foodie, I created this blog with a mission to preserve the food of the land; with a message to encourage and promote clean and real food. I hope you enjoy and gain out of this blog, happy reading!
Looking forward to read and hear your feedback.
- Cuisine: Bengali
- Complexity: Easy
This is the first of the many lost recipes of India that I am trying to recover.
I never had this dish while growing up. It was a lost dish as early as the 1990s.
In 2018, I came across this dish while doing some research on the internet. So I waited for the winter and got my hands on the season’s first cauliflowers that came with their leaves intact.
My joy new no bounds and I started to develop it.
For my non-Bengali reader, this is a dish of mashed young cauliflower leaves, simply put!
Phulkopi is cauliflower, pata means leaf in Bengali and bata is a word that means mash.
Recipe of Lost Dish – Phulkopir Pata Bata
Note
The equipment & ingredient quantity provided in this recipe is to assist you in cooking this dish. Feel free to experiment with your ingredients. Remember that we all have different set, size & shape of kitchen tools in our pantry.
Equipment
- Sauce Pan
- Wok
- Mixer Grinder
Ingredients
- 1 piece cauliflower should have young and fresh leaves
- 2 pieces green chilies chopped
- 2 cloves garlic whole
- 3 cloves garlic chopped
- 1 piece red dried chili whole
- 1 tsp black cumin seeds
- salt to taste
- 2 cups water for blanching the leaves
- 1 tbsp mustard oil preferably, you can use regular oil too
Instructions
- Separate the leaves from the cauliflower
- In a saucepan, heat water and drop the leaves
- Blanch the leaves for a 3-4 minutes
- Separate the leaves and put it in a mixer-grinder
- Roughly chop the garlic and chilies and add in the garlic along with a teaspoon of salt
- Make a paste
- In a wok, take oil and once hot, add dried red chilies, black cumin seeds
- Once it starts spluttering, quickly add the chopped garlic cloves and stir for a few seconds
- Add in the mashed leaves
- Stir until there is no water in the wok
- Take off the flame and serve hot with rice
Notes
- Young, fresh cauliflower leaves make all the difference. There will be a marked difference in the taste if the leaves are not fresh
- Buying fresh leaves and keeping them in the refrigerator also impacts the final outcome negatively. This dish demands freshly bought leaves from the market directly put to use
- This dish is best served hot with steaming rice. Once the dish cools down, it loses all its flavors and tastes awful
Bengali Wintry Delight
Bengali Wintry Delight is taking the lost recipe and adding ingredients that are loved across Bengal during the winters. You need warm food that is loved by the locals, and seasonally available for a cozy afternoon lunch.
And later, a nap if the fortune permits!
What I have done is take phulkopir pata bata and give it a facelift. I haven’t done anything complex, I have taken two of the most special winter vegetables for a Bengali – phulkopi (cauliflower) and piyaj koli (onion stalks).
This is what you would do once you have prepared the cauliflower leaves mash.
- Chop the onion stalks and fry it in oil
- Season it properly while frying
- Separate in a bowl
- Cut the cauliflower into small florets
- Blanch for a minute or two, separate and allow to cool
- Marinade the florets in turmeric powder and salt
- Heat ghee in a wok, temper with dry red chilies
- Fry the florets
- Separate in a bowl
- Assemble the phulkopir pata bata, and the fries
- Serve with hot rice and desi gawa ghee
This, trust me is a wonderful meal in itself.
As I mentioned before, the most beloved vegetables of the winter for a Bengali – fried, assembled and served with hot rice and ghee.
What more could you have asked for?
Help Recover Lost Recipes
Do you know of a dish that –
- You ate while growing up but do not get it anywhere in the current era
- A dish that you heard people ate long before, but never tasted it as it is no longer available
- A dish that is losing its relevance and place in Indian cuisine
If so, please write to me. You will get necessary credits for the hard work I will do in the kitchen.
Excellent dish. Can posto bata be added?
Good idea – I guess it would be better to put in posto dana (lightly roasted). Do try both out (posto dana and posto bata) and let me know the outcome