Feeling down? You think food might cheer you up? Well, certain foods lift our spirits and their aromas stir our appetite. We are certain that they do the same to most of you! We have drawn up a list of most beloved Bengali comfort snacks. While these snacks are available on the street and in restaurants, they can be quite easily prepared at home, too.
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Phuchka
Is there a Bengali out there who does not love phuchka? Perhaps just a few, if there are any at all. Phuchka is a 365-day snack; you can eat it any day, it’s that good!
The very image of a plate full of crispy semolina shells filled with seasoned potatoes, white peas, diced onion, coriander leaves, and green chillies and topped with grated boiled egg makes our mouths water. Let’s not forget that sweet-and-sour tamarind sauce that brings an extra burst of flavour to this dearly loved gustatory delight.
Chotpoti
This one is another beloved snack of Bengalis, especially Bangladeshis. Prepared with white peas, potatoes, and onion, this flavourful food is topped with green chillies, coriander leaves, grated egg, tamarind sauce, and crushed semolina puris. It sounds almost like “phuchka in a bowl.” However, a key difference is that chotpoti is served steaming hot while phuchka is not.
Chotpoti can easily be prepared at home with packaged chotpoti seasoning. The rest of the ingredients are widely available at local bazaars and supermarkets. If you are a Bengali living abroad and cannot find white peas at local groceries, use yellow chickpeas instead. Chotpoti made with yellow chickpeas turns out quite well.
Cold days are right around the corner. Eating chotpoti on a wintry day is such a wonderful idea. This December, you can perhaps even throw a comfort food party at home and include Bengali’s all-time favourite comfort snacks in the menu!
Jhalmuri
This one is the easiest to prepare at home! You do not need too many things; puffed rice, chanachur, salt, onion, chillies, coriander leaves, mustard oil, and tomato are all you need to make a bowl of flavoursome jhalmuri.
The key to mouthwatering jhalmuri is to mix and shake the ingredients right; I usually place all the ingredients in a big bowl, cover the bowl with a plate and shake the jhalmuri until it appears as if the ingredients have all become friends! You will see the yellow of mustard oil spread evenly throughout your jhalmuri, if you have shaken it right.
If you have old magazines at home, use the pages to make small cone-shaped pockets to serve the jhalmuri. If you have kids at home, they will adore this serving idea.
Aloo and Daal Puri
A fluffy puri and a steaming cup of milk tea will cheer any Bengali up! Whether filled with daal or aloo, a puri is always pleasing to a Bengali’s sense of taste. Growing up, my mother used to prepare aloo and daal puris at home, especially on rainy and chilly days. She also prepared a special hot-and-sweet tamarind chutney to accompany the puris. To me, puri is a nostalgic food from my childhood days.
Here in the US, I bought frozen aloo puris from deshi groceries many, many times, but they never tasted as good as mom’s or the freshly-made ones you can eat at Bangladeshi restaurants.
Shingara
If you know how to fold a shingara then kudos to you! A shingara with folds in the right places is a work of art. I love vegetarian shingaras as much as I love non-vegetarian shingaras prepared with goat liver. This triangular puff pastry was once a tea-time staple in both Bengals. Friends and neighbours got together and chattered over cha-shingara on a lazy afternoon - - they discussed politics, music, art, and literature. In cafés and roadside restaurants, many brilliants ideas, plots, and plans stemmed from these adda sessions.
We are so engrossed in adopting foreign and global cultures that we are forgetting to embrace and re-embrace our own. In the crowd of burger, pizza, and fried chicken, are we slowly forgetting our traditional Bengali comfort snacks? Let’s bring them back in our lives, no matter what part of the world you live in. After all, Bengali comfort snacks are the most appetizing, most flavourful hands down!
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