BM# 63: Journey through the Cuisines
Week 1: Bengali Cuisine
Day 6: F for Fulkopi Posto (Bengali Cauliflower curry with poppy seeds)
Letter F was one of the tough letters to find a dish. Initially I wanted to make 'Fuchka', a Bengali variation of our beloved pani puri. But then after looking at couple of recipes, I wasn't sure if it was puchka, phuchka or fuchka. With so much ambiguity, I left it at that (but I still have a pack of store-bought puris waiting to be used). Then I thought of making Fuluri, a lentil based bajji but I wasn't in a mood to deep fry, so finally chose a simpler and easier to make dish.
F for Fulkopi or cauliflower in Bengali. Posto or poppy seeds is a popular ingredient in Bengali cooking. I have already tried bittergourd posto and potato-eggplant posto. This cauliflower posto is very easy to make, cook cauliflower with ground spiced poppy seed sauce. It tastes great with rice or roti. Most of the recipes I saw online also had potato in them, but I skipped it and made the curry with only cauliflower. So add potato if you want to.
Recipe from Aparna's Akcookbook:
Fulkopi Posto
Ingredients
- 1 head Cauliflower Medium of , cut into florets
- ½ cup Green Peas
- 2 tsps Mustard Oil
- 1 Bay leaf
- ½ tsp Seeds Nigella
- 2 ~ 3 Chilies Green , slit
- 10 tbsps Cashews water , soaked in warm for minutes
- 1 tsp Peppercorns
- 10 tbsps Poppy Seeds water , soaked in warm for minutes
- ½ Cinnamon " stick
- 2 tbsps Yogurt , whisked well
- To taste Salt
Instructions
- Steam or microwave cauliflower until fork tender.
- Drain the cashews, poppy seeds and grind them to a smooth paste along with the peppercorns and cinnamon stick.Set aside.
- Heat oil in a pan; add the bay leaf, nigella seeds and green chilies. Saute for 1 minute. Next add the steamed cauliflower and cook for 3~4 minutes.
- Add the ground paste, green peas and cook until the flavors get a chance to mingle, about 4~5 minutes.
- Stir in the yogurt and season with salt. Sprinkle some water if the dish looks too dry. Cook covered for another 5 minutes. Serve with rice or roti.
Priya Srinivasan
Lovely flavors pavani. Love how amazingly u have captured the pale colored cauliflower so amazingly. That wooden spoon looks very pretty!!
Ruchi Indu
Nice fulkopi curry. loved the combination with peas... And nice wooden spoon in those pics...
veena krishnakumar
All the varities of cauliflower posto looks tempting. Awesome clicks Pavani