Dak Bungalow (or Bangla) cuisine, sadly, is really a near-forgotten culinary treasure that survives among a couple of remaining khansama families and Anglo Indian households. Rajika Bhandari's The Raj on the go retraces a few of these flavours from sooty kitchens offered for that 'Sahib' and also the 'Mem'
One would be a dish known as 'Country Captain'. It's also a dish which has travelled the world and it has thus adopted a variety of forms: some globetrotters report consuming a dish known as General Chicken in a Chinese restaurant, simply to uncover it had become indeed an unmistakable close cousin from the Indian Country Captain curry. In the very fundamental form, it's a curry or stew of chicken, enhanced with turmeric and chillies and bread, or no was available. Butter wasn't readily available, and instead the prepare was most probably to give the unsuspecting visitors some red-currant jelly inside a little bottle which has formerly contained pomade for that hair.
Caramel custard, or 'custel brun' because it was known among Indian servants, ended up being to become another staple from the dak bungalow dining room table due to the easy accessibility to eggs and milk. Like 'sudden death', it too acquired a nickname -- '365' -- since it was offered almost everyday of the season, approximately it made an appearance. Some British vacationers banned the dessert in your own home simply because they were made to convey more than their fill from it while remaining at dak bungalows and eating at railway stations.
However, many inspired cooks went far above, tinkering with known techniques and inventing a repertoire of dishes unique towards the menu a traveller could expect at these bungalows. Famous khansamas for example Bernard from the Bilaspur Circuit House and Peter from the Krishnaghur Dak Bungalow, who learnt to organize a hybrid Anglo-Indian cuisine, offered up memorable dishes that may almost border on sublime. One particular dish along with a star of Anglo-Indian cuisine was the delectable chicken cutlet that survives even today and it has adopted many variations, varying from vegetarian to mutton and paneer cutlets.
When Lady D'Urban, the wife of Mister Benjamin, the previous governor of Cape Colony, grew to become seriously ill during her remain at the Cape of excellent Hope in 1840 and it was not able to eat the typical meat dish, an amazing Bengali prepare from India associated the audience created a 'delicate little chicken cutlet' which was at the same time easily digestible and scrumptious, so much in fact the Lady consumed little else for the following a few days.
Country Captain
Cold meats and curries are occasionally changed into this dish, the condiments that are listed below: Two chittacks or four ounces of ghee, half a teaspoonful of ground chillies,one teaspoonful of salt, one fourth of the teaspoonful of ground turmeric, and twenty onions, chop up lengthways into fine slices.
Chop up within the usual way a regular curry chicken. Warm the ghee and fry the sliced onions, that when brown put aside fry the floor turmeric and chillies, then toss in the chicken and salt, and then fry, stirring the entire before the chicken is tender. Serve up, strewing regarding this the fried onions.
Source: The Indian Cookery Book, 1948
Dak Bungalow Murgh Roast
Serves 4
Ingredients:
1 whole 3 1/2 lb chicken, cleaned (don't take away the skin)
1/2 teaspoon salt
Juice of 1 lemon
2-inch bit of fresh ginger root root, peeled and chopped
2 cloves of garlic clove, smashed, peeled and chopped
2 eco-friendly chillies, seeded and chopped
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
two tablespoons yogurt
1/2 teaspoon garam masala
3 tablespoons ghee (clarified butter)
Method:
Prick the chicken throughout then rub using the salt and fresh lemon juice well in to the skin. Place it inside a bowl and allow it to marinate to have an hour.
Put the ginger root, garlic clove, chillies, turmeric, yogurt and garam masala inside a mixer and tactic to a puree.
Pour this puree right into a plastic bag and put the chicken within the bag too. Fasten the bag safely and shake it before the chicken is well engrossed in the marinade. Refrigerate it for 4-5 hrs, or perhaps overnight.
Preheat the oven to 375 levels F (190 levels C, gas mark 5).
Using whether wok or perhaps a saucepan big enough to consider an entire chicken, melt the ghee over high temperature.
Drain the chicken from the marinade, reserving any remaining, and brown the bird on every side within the wok. Use a set of wooden spoons or tongs to show it.
Don't pierce it having a fork. Now put the chicken inside a baking pan and pour the ghee residing in the wok regarding this.
Allow it to bake within the oven for half an hour, loosely engrossed in a bit of foil.
Half-way with the baking time, spoon any remaining marinade within the chicken, after which baste it using the juices and ghee towards the bottom from the pan.
Serve cold or hot.
Baked Rose Custard: An Update from the Classic Caramel Custard
Serves 5
Ingredients:
1 pint milk
4 tablespoons sugar
3 whole, beaten eggs, plus 2 beaten yolks
1/2 teaspoon rose water
1 tablespoon flaked almonds
A couple of rose petals
A pinch of salt
Method:
Preheat the oven to 300 levels F (150 levels C, gas mark 2).
Blend the milk, salt and sugar together.
Beat within the eggs and egg yolks.
Add some rose water and blend well.
Pour into a stove-proof dish and bake for one hour.
Remove in the oven and sprinkle the very best with almonds.
Decorate having a couple of rose petals.
Source: Jennifer Brennan, Curries and Bugles:
A Cook book from the British Raj, 1990
