By Prabir Ghose
The charm of shelling the peas and once in a while shuddering at the sight of green caterpillars squeezed comfortably within the pods are not uncommon experiences. In fact these add to the charms. Green peas herald the arrival of winter..
The arrival of green peas in the market heralds the arrival of winter. The frozen variety is available the year round in modern air conditioned outlets like the Reliance Fresh in Maharashtra and the Nilgiris in Bangalore. The young ones park their cars, get down, link arm in arm and enter the wonderful market place. They take one of the carts and move from one counter to another to pick and choose from the vegetables kept on the shelves and chaperoned by well dressed and well mannered young boys and girls. No hackling over prices, no cheating on weights – that is taken care of at the time of payment. Peas are kept in packets – select the one you want, check the date of validity, drop it in the cart and in case you have a penchant for peas-paneer, add a packet of paneer as well.
There was a time in the 60s, when there used to be dried peas – it was known to all and sundry as the Hima-peas. All you had to do was to open the packet and empty the contents into a container of boiling water. The dried ones would wake up from slumber to become the attractive green ones, ready for further action.
But, the charm of shelling the peas and once in a while shuddering at the sight of green caterpillars squeezed comfortably within the pods are not uncommon experiences. In fact these add to the charms.
There is hardly any Bong who does not relish the kadai shutir kachuri – kadai shuti is the Bengali name for green peas. There are three methods – the first one is to cook the peas with a mixture of garam masala. This garam masala is a blend of the three main ingredients – lawang, elaichi and dalchini (cloves, cardamom and cinnamon). The peas are mashed and kept aside. Next, dough is made of maida and separated into small, easy to fry balls. The peas are stuffed into these balls, and deep fried in pure ghee over a medium heat. These used to be fantastic offerings of the famous Dwarik Ghosh’s outlets in Kolkata of the 60s.
Another version is the one where the green peas are made into a paste in the food processor. While doing this, the common additives are green chilies, a bit of ginger and saunf along with salt. Here the dough of maida is stuffed with the paste, rolled and then fried. They resemble ordinary poories but with a difference.
In the third variety, the second process is simplified. Instead of stuffing, the paste is mixed with the dough and directly rolled into poories. I saw this in the house of a relative – when I asked her why the deviation, she smiled and said, “Who has the time and patience to stuff and then fry? After all, they will all go to the same destination!”
Needless to say that these delicious and irresistible snacks, could very well bring about an enormous change in the way the mind works – in fact, if aggressively marketed, it could be employed to bring about world peace. Who knows!
