prawn curry - chingri machh er malaikari - bengali style .

recipe for prawn curry ....

ingredients:

1) prawns

2) potatoes medium sized (equal to the number of people)

3) onions 2-3 (finely chopped)

4) cinnamom (daar-Chini) 2-3

5) black pepper (whole)

6) coconut milk. (most important)

7) green chillies (couple of)

8) teaspoon of ginger paste

procedure:

1) take the prawn and wash them properly with water.

2) after washing in water , wash once again in some vinegar and a very small pinch of turmeric(haldi) nd drain the water+vinegar+turmeric liquid ... be careful bout the quantity of turmeric because it can spoil the taste nd flavour of the prawns. also more vinegar will make the prawns li'l hard. so both in very less quantities.

3) light fry the washed prawns in oil jus for some time ... if frying is in excess, the prawns will lose their softness.

4) peel the potatoes ... cut them in halves

5) fry the potato halves till they get the golden crust. after this , keep them seperately for adding to onions fried later.

6) fry the finely chopped onions(lengthwise) with salt(swad anusar) and half tea spoon of sugar and oil.

7) fry the onions till deep golden brown. Add 2-3 cinnamoms, 2 chillies sliced lengthwise and some whole blak pepper in the fried onion nd fry for another 1-2 min.

8) now , add the fried potatoes to the onions. keep stirring the mix of onions and potatoes till the time the potatoes get boiled and soft.

9) add a teaspoon of ginger paste and the prawns in the above mix and keep stirring for 4-5 min .

10) add the coconut milk (sufficient quantity) to make the gravy and simmer for 10-15 min till everythin gets mixed properly.

Where The Mind is Without Fear - by Rabindranath Tagore

"Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led by thee into ever widening thought and action-Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake"

One of my favorite poems... Takes me back to school times when thoughts and ideas were simpler, crisper, idealistic and unadultarated with confusion, fear or corruption... Maybe if India would have consisted of only school children and no adults, she would have definitely become the country idolized and worshipped by the Nobel Laureate in this poem... Or maybe there should have been a law against suffocating and murdering the child in everyone's heart in the process of materialistic aspirations (read: career,wealth, pleasures) which is so gloriously termed as "SUCCESS". But "maybe's" are part of wishful thinking. And wishful thinking does no good. That is what is taught to children over a period of 20 years of Formal Education. And that , according to me, is the precise period where the child dies, giving birth to the Man. The Man, who is devoid of dreams, innocence, courage to give shape to dreams and all things divine and beautiful. I pray to Thee to give that strength and courage to my fellow coutrymen to dream and to not let that poor child be forgotten. So that one day, some future generation can wake up in that in that free country where ,

"The mind is without fear and the head is held high" ............