Yet another Bakhried away from home, yet no loss of the sense of Barkat the festival brings. Being able to feed someone is truly a blessing or Barkat (Arabic). And as much hate Bakhried garners all across, it resonates with me because of its community care aspect more than anything else.
I did not cook any Biryani, Kaleji ka salan or Sewai that my mother ritualistically makes - after the qurbani is done and the meat distributed. On all three days, the tied up wfh routine was more of a reason to not cook than the fact that the kitchen in the new house is still under-equipped. But hey, this is not about me missing those festivities. Not at all! In fact, the celebration came a night before when two of my friends shared some incredible products for me to cook with.
I stewed the mutton Proneet sent and Thai chilli crab from the crab Nandini had shared. Mutton stew recipe I knew at the back of my head and the fact that it uses all whole spices or Khada masala saved me from using the blender (which I do not possess at this point). Both were cooked back to back, in about 1.5 hours and the end of the cook looked like a frantic restaurant service where I was packing and labelling stuff to be delivered to both these guys. Even the delivery executives stepped up to be a part of the chaos. However, everything was out by 10:30 I suppose.
For me, Thai Chilli Crab was a straight winner. I had never cooked one before but binge-watching food shows all-time brought me an instinct that told me what ingredients I could cook with. Fish sauce, lemon-grass, basil and brown sugar (replacement for palm sugar) among other ingredients. I also added a tiny amount of tomato puree to get enough sauce to coat the steamed crabs.
Three small crabs and half a kilo of mutton does not sound a lot, but let me tell you, all in all, it was barkati enough to share among three people. The satisfaction of cooking at par with the conceptualized and more importantly filling up family and friends - both don't have to necessarily come out of special occasions. Instead, we just pick random days and make them special. And in my case, it mostly happens through food.
Leaving the crab recipe here.
(It will taste equally good with prawns and any white meat protein)
Ingredients:
Three small crabs (fresh or frozen)
Lemongrass (Snip one skin on the inner part into thin stripes)
Basil (a handful bunch)
Fish sauce (1tbsp)
Brown Sugar or palm sugar/jaggery (1 tsp)
Ginger and garlic (chopped - about 1 tbsp of both)
Onion (1 small chopped)
Dry red chilli (2-3 depending on how much spice you can tolerate)
Tomato puree (2 tbsp - please use puree because we need the sauce to coat the crabs)
Oil/ Butter ( Any neutral flavoured oil is good to go, I used butter because of the lack of any)
Salt (to taste)
Coriander to garnish.
Method:
Clean and Steam crabs (10 minutes for thawed and 5 for fresh). In another pan, heat oil and fry ginger, garlic, onion and dry red chilli for a minute. Add basil and lemongrass and let it infuse for another minute. Add tomato puree and mix well. Add brown sugar, fish sauce and salt at this point. Let it cook for another 2-3 minutes. Taste the sauce at this point for all the seasoning. Toss in the crabs and mix well till they’re all coated in the sauce. Sprinkle with coriander and serve.
(This is not a saucy dish, we just have enough to get all the flavour inside and outside the crab). Enjoy the claw pricks while you eat.