From the mother’s treasure trove
Pushpesh Pant
Musallam is a quintessentially celebratory dish. While murgh musallam is the commonest avatar, camel musallam is stuff fantasies that are made of. In between falls the now rarely encountered baqra musallam.
Now, most food lovers are also content drooling over a well-made salim raan — pot-roasted hind leg of a goat. The vegetarians are dished out, more often than not, a lauki musallam, which is bottle gourd packed with a filling of assorted vegetables, hung curd or paneer.
Now, the trouble is that all these recipes are cumbersome and take a long time to cook. However, amid all these recipes, what has always stayed with me is bandgobhi musallam, the way mom cooked it.
She would most often make this refreshingly light and quick fix recipe when guests arrived at short notice. It had the crunch of a salad and left a subtle spice after-taste on the tongue. Try it and trust us, you won’t be disappointed.
Band Gobi Musallam
Ingredients
- 1 cabbage (medium sized, firm, outer leaves removed)
- 2 onions (medium sized, peeled and grated or ground)
- 2 tomatoes (medium sized, blanched, skin removed, pulped)
- 1/2 cup green peas
- (shelled, preferably fresh)
- 2 potatoes (peeled, washed and cut in halves)
- 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 inch cinnamon
- 2-3 cloves
- 1/2 tsp black pepper
- 1 brown cardamom
- 1 tsp cumin powder
- 1-1/2 tsp coriander powder
- 1/4 red chilli powder
- A few blades of mace
- Salt to taste
- 2 tbsp oil
Method
Take a sharp knife and make deep cuts through the cabbage in a criss-cross manner, taking care that the head remains intact and the quarters remain joined. Heat oil in a pressure cooker and add whole spices. When these change colour, put in the grated onions, tomatoes and garlic-ginger paste. Add potatoes and peas along with powdered spices and salt. Stir fry on medium flame until oil separates. Sprinkle a few drops of water if required. Now place the cabbage in the masala and carefully place some spice mixture in the spaces created by deep cuts. Drape it evenly with the fried spice. Crush the blades of mace and sprinkle. Add 3 tablespoon hot water and cook without pressure for 10 minutes on medium-low flame. Serve with phulka or rice and daal.
