Posts tagged: manipuri
Kangsubi / Candied black sesame
Those who know Manipuri cuisine well know that when we talk of something sweet and something Manipuri, we are talking about the fascinating array of Kabok. Kabok can refer to any food grain which is heated and puffed… like popcorn or rice puffs. But because grains are traditionally puffed only to be candied and shaped with molasses into various shapes and sizes, the word, kabok, can interchangeably mean both puffed up grains and also foods (mostly grains and seeds) that are candied and shaped with molasses.
Kangsubi or thoiding/sesame kabok happens to be one of my favourite. And ever since I had decided to venture into kabok making, I have been eager to try this recipe. I haven’t perfected it yet… in the sense that I have not been successful in giving it a refined shape. But, the crumbly texture makes a good photograph. Let’s see what I can churn out from my kabok factory in the future!
As some of you might already know, I am obsessed with making things from scratch. And so, I harvested a sugarcane stalk from our farm and decided to make the molasses from its juice myself. But you can always start your kabok from sugarcane molasses or buy sugarcane juice to make things easier.
Hawai uri thongba / bonavista beans stew
Hawai uri or bonavista beans are one of my favourite beans and they are always tasty regardless of the cook’s skill. They are one of the foods that I like for their visual appeal. They are dark and green and handsomely proportioned. And I have always thought of them as freshly harvested food since I remember Mama cooking them that way… plucked from our kitchen garden or gifts from friends’ kitchen gardens. These came from Mama’s friend’s home garden.
Black rice pancake / Chaak-hao tann
I first had chaak-hao tann when I went for a trip to Moirang during Lai haraoba*. Right outside the Thangjing temple, there were stalls selling assorted exotic goodies. There were chaak-hao tann, singju, fried river crabs, boiled eggs, bora, etc. But, chaak-hao tann intrigued me most since I had never heard of it then. Apparently, they are sold in Moirang and Kakching keithels** and are not available in Imphal keithels. It is sweet and chewy and has the aroma of the exotic black rice.
This is my first try at making chaak-hao tann.
Long beans cooked with slow roasted fish
Hawai asaangbi ngaaphak ka thongba or long beans cooked with slow roasted fish is one of my favourite Manipuri dishes. But my father hates it because of a bad childhood memory. I was telling Mama about my blog and had asked her to help me document some of the Manipuri dishes. Though she doesn’t belong to the internet generation of the Manipuri population, she is someone who is very fascinated by it (she thinks that one can find anything on the internet - she is almost right), so she was more than happy to oblige. So, this one is prepared by Mama and I am the photographer.
I saw some really nice looking lo(oooo)ng beans lying around in the kitchen so I thought they would make a good photograph. That in turn, led to this recipe based on it.
The ingredients that you will need for this are as follows:
Laiwaa paaknam - baked bamboo shoot
I had done a couple of paaknam posts earlier and had described it in one of them. In brief, it is any assorted ingredients packed in turmeric leaves (and sometimes also banana leaves) and baked. Maybe it is the yaingang-laa (turmeric leaves) season that is making me do so many paaknam posts (3 so far).
But anyway, here is another one.
I was at our gate the other day, playing with our dogs, when a vegetable seller from the hills came along. She didn’t have much to sell. She had ginger with the leaves intact, some loklei (galangal) and something else which I hadn’t seen before. They were pointed and long and looked like missiles. When I enquired about it, she told me that they were called laiwaa. It was bamboo shoot, most probably from a variety of bamboo locally called laiwaa (I am just speculating here). I got fascinated and bought a bundle for 20 rupees. As I headed upstairs to store them in the kitchen, I crossed ways with one of the leikai (community) women. She instantly recognised my bundle of goodies and said,
Ngaa atoiba thongba (Manipuri fish stew)
Ngaa atoiba thongba is more of a way of cooking fish than a dish itself. The name itself describes the way the fish is cooked. Ngaa means fish and atoiba means disintegrated in our language. So, the fish is disintegrated in this way of cooking it. Usually, the ingredients are almost the same as the ones that are used in the Manipuri fried fish curry (will post that later)… the difference is in the way it is cooked. It is a dish best eaten with clean bare hands rather than with a spoon, fork or chopsticks. But if you do not want to venture into eating with bare hands, you could always remove the fish bones before cooking the fish.
Cauliflower / kobi kangsoi
Kangsoi is the most basic and loved dish in Manipuri/Meitei cuisine. It is healthy (I suppose) and requires no fuss in cooking. It can be defined as an assortment of vegetables boiled with ngaari and ginger and garnished with cilantro (this is a must). Sometimes, smoke roasted fish is added to it to enhance the taste.
However, with more and more Manipuris settling/studying outside Manipur, there has been an array of innovative dishes in which ngaari is replaced (because of its unavailability) with a meat or simply with fried fish. Slowly, these dishes have also started coming under the umbrella name, kangsoi. Though, I would like to think of kangsoi as a fish dish only, we now have chicken kangsoi, beef kangsoi, fried fish kangsoi, vegetarian kangsoi and so on. The ingredients, then, that makes a kangsoi a kangsoi is the ginger and the cilantro. I think these two ingredients are very very important as they add the slightly tangy, slightly garden-y (if I may say so) taste in a kangsoi.
These are smoked/roasted fresh water fish that I got from Manipur called phabou-ngaa. They always come in pairs stuck tail to tail. It’s almost like they were killed during fornication!
They are commonly used to flavour various kangsoi* or are stir fried with onions and green chillies. I just had them for dinner. And I thought it would make an interesting picture.
*Boiled vegetables with fermented fish and ginger, usually garnished with coriander leaves.
Stir fried phabou-ngaa.
