Blue Gill Maccher Tok-If you teach a man how to fish...

..you should teach him how to gut it too. It should not be upon the spouse to clean and cook it too. A few weeks back we were invited to friend's place. Their backyard faces a lake which is swarming with blue gill.After an evening of fishing at the lake behind our friend's house , my dear husband decided to bring it home and eat it too. We have had such fishing related adventures in the past, but the fish involved was slimy in this case. After a thorough scrub and gutting , the fish looked pretty appetizing.

I decided to make a tok with the fish. Tok is a sweet tamarind sauce and people from a certain part of West Bengal can make tok from fruits, vegetables and even fish. When I was newly married my MIL talked about how her MIL used to cook Fish Tok on a daily basis. I have cooked tok from Rohu, Hilsa but never a Blue Gill. So I decided to try it out considering everything has a first time. The fish being small, I cooked them whole and the Blue Gill Tok was delicious at the end of the meal. Ingredients:

Blue Gill Fish 9-10

Turmeric 1 and 1/2 tsp

Salt to taste

Panch Phoran 1 tsp

Tamarind paste 1 tbsp

Sugar 2 tbsp

• Wash and clean the blue gill and apply a tsp of turmeric and a tsp of salt and keep them aside.
• In a shallow fan fry the blue gill in some vegetable or canola oil until they are brown on both sides. Please do not use olive oil as that might overwhelm the flavor of other seasonings.
• In the same pan add a tsp of oil and add panch phoran and let them splutter.
• Add the remaining turmeric and salt and add 2 cups of water.
• In the water add turmeric paste and stir it till the paste dissolves.
• Bring the sauce to a boil and add the sugar.
• When the sugar dissolves add the fish and cook till the sauce is to a sticky consistency.
• Add a tsp of mustard oil at the end( optional).
• Serve this at the end of a meal with boiled white rice.

The tok turned out to be delicious even though the fish was too bony and didn't have much flesh on it. You can also cook it with other fish but remember it needs to have some bones and skin on it. Otherwise the fish will fall apart.

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Vegetable gardening and a baked potato salad

For the long weekend, I did something I have never done before-planting a vegetable garden. I plant the flowers every year. Usually the onus of planting a vegetable garden falls upon my dear husband(DH), who loves to garden. This year with him falling sick on Saturday, I ventured out in the hot sun and went to Home Depot and bought bags of garden soil. The vegetables were already bought a few days before from the nearby nursery. I decided to get more adeventurous this year and bought lettuce, cauliflower and cabbage plants on top of the usual tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers we plant every year. After planting for a couple of hours, I completed the task on Sunday morning by working straight for three hours. Needless to say, I gave a pat on my back for a job well done. I even planted some seeds for herbs in various pots on the decks. I will keep you updating on my garden adventure as soon as I get a good harvest.

June being the end of spring soccer, we had a potluck pool party at the coach's place. I decided to take some chicken burgers and wanted to experiment with something new- a staple summerbarbecue side. Instead of boiling potatoes I used baked red potatoes with Italian seasoning to make a Potato Salad. I also wanted to pack in some flavors. So I opened my bottle of Kasundi(Indian Mustard) that I had saved from the stuff DH had brought from back home last winter. I was apprehensive that people might not like the spicy nature, but it was appreciated by the ones who like spicy food.

Ingredients for the Potato Salad dressing:

1 cup of cilantro

1 bunch of spring onions.

2 tablespoons of Kasundi or Mustard

1/2 cup of mayonnise

2 tablespoons olive oil

• Chop the cilantro and the spring onions finely.
• In a large bowl add the mustard and mayonnise.
• Drizzle in the olive oil and whisk the dressing.
• Add the cilantro and spring onions and mix well
• Add the baked potatoes which should be at room temperature to the dressing and coat them using the spatula.

I used about 10-12 medium sized red potatoes for the salad. Don't worry if it turns out a bit salty as potatoes tend to absorb the salty flavor pretty soon.

Finally here is a picture of a strawberry from the garden. The plants were planted three years back, but every year the rabbit ate them.This year they were saved by the chicken fence and they are delicious. The small fruits are mulberries from a tree in the yard. So when you are reminded of the nursery rhyme "Here we go around the mulberry bush", please don't be fooled. Mulberry trees can grow quite tall.

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The tiffin box- A food fiction featuring a deli egg salad

"Rice again? I don't like taking goopy and lumpy rice in my lunch." said her ten year old.
"Its good for you.The fried rice has chicken and vegetables in it." Sharmila retorted back.
"What's so good about it? It makes me feel sleepy. I am tired of Indian food. Why can't you make sandwiches like Christina's mom?" "What's wrong in porota and alur dom( pan fried flatbread and curried potatoes)? I used to love it in my tiffin box when my Ma packed my lunch." "Stop calling it a tiffin box! Everyone calls it a lunch bag. Why can't you buy me a good thermos from the store? Why do I have to carry that big box you got from India? It is so embarrassing! I hate opening it during lunchtime." "What can I do?I don't know how to drive around yet. I will buy you one when I go out during the weekend shona(sweetheart).I promise!" Her daughter wiped her tears and reluctantly carried the tiffin box with her backpack to walk to school with her.

After dropping her child at school, she walked to the nearby grocery store.She had heard from her neighbor that she usually bought lunch meat from the store deli and made sandwiches for her children.She hesitantly headed to the deli section. She saw a variety of beef, ham and turkey in big ovals.The person at the counter was asking what the shopper wanted and packing them in plastic bags for the customer. Sometimes, she was asking if someone wanted a sample. She walked to the counter and saw big mounds of salads.But this was not the salad that she had seen before. They mostly looked white and yellow and were called "potato salad", "chicken salad" or "tuna salad". "How can they make salad out of fish? Maybe it is like an achar(pickle).", she thought.She smiled at the deli person and asked ,"Can I have some sample of the egg salad please?" She was handed some in a small cup with a tiny spoon. It was pretty delicious. She could not ask for the recipe. "What is the white and green thing in the salad?" "Its parsely and mayo." She had heard about mayo.It was mainly made from eggs and vinegar. She thanked the person and bought some ingredients for the Egg Salad and headed home.

That night she boiled some eggs, shelled them and put them in the refrigerator for the next day.She woke up early next morning and started making the egg salad. She packed it in the tiffin box. Mou came down for breakfast and looked glumly at the tiffin box."What did you pack today?Some rice again!" She smiled conspirationally at Mou."Its a surprise!Let me know how you like it." She patiently waited for Mou to come back from school in the afternoon. Her daughter had a huge smile on her face "It was very tasty Mamma.Even my friends loved it! Christina was asking for the recipe for her mom to make. Can you write it down for her?" Sharmila smiled satisfactorily looking at her daughter's face.
Ingredients:
2 eggs hard boiled
3 tablespoon Miracle Whip
2 chilli peppers
Few sprigs of cilantro
Salt and pepper to taste

• Chop the eggs including the yolk into big chunks. The eggs have to be at room temperature.The yolks turn into a big mush otherwise.
• Finely chop the chilli peppers and cilantro.
• Combine the eggs, cilantro, chilli pepper and the rest of the ingredients and slowly mix them together with a spatula or a spoon.Be careful not to break the eggs too much.
• Serve it on its own or as a filling in a egg salad sandwich.

I have tasted many egg salads and finally came up with one of my own.I don't add any mustard as the flavor seems to overwhelm the eggs. This is a submission for the second edition "Of Chalks and Chopsticks" hosted by BongMom this month.Hope you enjoy it!

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An ode to Lassi- An all time favorite in our home

Some like it salty, some like it sweet

Anyway you like it , its a real treat

We love it in the summer evenings

When there's some backyard grilling

So how do I make this , you may ask

Will tell you, its such an easy task

What you do is take a handy mixer
Get some ice from the refrigerator
To that add two cups of plain yogurt
Cut some lime and add a few juicy squirts
Add a few tablespoons of sugar to the mix
And a final teaspoon of salt will do the trick

Turn the mixer into a spinning motion

You will soon have a frothy concoction

The resulting drink that is too thick

Will need some water to do the trick

Froth this up with just two cups of water

You finally have a hit drink for four to cater.

We enjoy the lassi every summer from the days my daughter would just call it "latsi". According to my family, I make the best lassi in the world. Since this was such a simple drink, I wanted to showcase another passion of mine -writing limericks.

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