Spoonful of Stories

A bong’s liking for food is next level. Even if you are dating him/her since long, you will truly get it once you start staying together 24X7.

Same happened with me. I knew my husband LOVES food but the extent of it was fully understood only after marriage. He can talk about food at mid night. We all eat food, bongs live food. Sometimes I tease him saying, food is your first love, I come later. He has never defended this statement, so I think it is true 😉

Bengali recipes are very different from Maharashtrian dishes. The use of panch phoron (dry mix of 5 spices: Cumin, Brown Mustard, Fenugreek, Nigella and Fennel) gives the dishes a peculiar flavour. The style of preparation also gives it a different taste. Many of the recipes are tedious, time consuming but delicious!

Whenever we are with my in-laws, most of the discussion revolves around food. They plan next day’s dinner the previous day morning. My mother-in-law is a great cook. Whenever she is preparing something, my only job is to sit with her chit-chatting and be her sous chef. I keep asking her questions to understand how the dish is prepared. Some of my favourite Bengali dishes are Begun bhaja, Kumro bhaja, Potoler Poor, Doi chingari (the 1^st bong dish I made), Payesh, Mishti doi, Dimer devil; the list would go on and on.

Dim (Egg) devil is a dish I had never heard of. One fine day when I went home from office my mother-in-law said, aaj sham ko khane ke liye dimer devil banaya hai. (Have made deviled eggs for evening snacks). I knew dim means egg so guessed it would be something like an omelette. I went to the kitchen to check. On the kitchen platform a dish was kept, looking like big ostrich eggs which were fried, resembling bread rolls.

I asked her, are these bread rolls filled with egg filling? My mom makes delicious veg bread rolls and was happy to have the egg version. But no, this devil was something different. She told me how it is prepared. This surely sounds time consuming, I said. By that time my husband had come. We had dimer devil with ketchup & kashundi (Bengali mustard sauce), discussing about its name’s origin. It may have come from the name devil’s egg, I said. We had to take google baba’s help to check the details.

The story goes like this…The first known printed mention of ‘devil’ as a culinary term appeared in Great Britain in 1786, in reference to the dishes including hot ingredients or those that were highly seasoned and broiled or fried.

That’s how the current Bengali Dimer Devil got its name. The Khansamas (royal cooks) made a lot of variations in the original recipe  as they were not merely satisfied by stuffing the egg with a spicy filling but went a step ahead to coat and fry it like a chop or croquette and thus giving birth to “Dimer Devil“.

It became immensely popular in Bengali homes and street side stalls started selling this deep-fried delicacy like hot cakes.

Sharing the recipe for all those foodies who want to bring this devil home:

• 

For the Potato Mixture:

• Medium sized potato 1
• Oil 1 tablespoon
• Chopped onion 1
• Ginger & garlic grated 1 teaspoon
• Chopped green chilies 1 teaspoon
• Turmeric powder 1/2 teaspoon
• Cumin powder 1/2 teaspoon
• Garam Masala Powder 1/4 teaspoon
• Salt to taste
• Chopped coriander 1/4 cup

For the batter:

• All-purpose flour/besan 3/4cup
• Crushed peppercorns 1/2 teaspoon
• Baking soda 1/2 teaspoon
• Salt 1/2 teaspoon

Other Ingredients:

• Hard boiled eggs 2
• All-purpose flour 1/4 cup
• Breadcrumbs 1/2 cup
• Oil to deep fry
• Black salt to sprinkle on the Dimer Devils

Make the Potato Mixture first:

• Boil the potato & mash it. Make sure there are no lumps in the mashed potato.
• Now heat oil in a pan. Add chopped onion, ginger garlic, green chilies and fry till it becomes light golden.
• Add turmeric powder, cumin powder and garam masala powder to the pan and sprinkle some water to prevent the spices getting burn. Add salt to taste.
• Fry for few seconds, add the mashed potato and mix with the masala mixture well. Fry the mixture for 5-7 minutes, stirring constantly.
• Turn off the heat. Add chopped coriander and let the mixture completely cool down to room temperature.

Prepare the batter:

• Take all the ingredients mentioned under the heading of Batter in a bowl and mix well. Add little water, like 1 tablespoon at a time to make a smooth batter. It should be smooth but thick like pancake batter.

Making the Devils:

• Cut each hard boiled egg lengthwise into half.
• Take each half egg, cover it with the potato mixture and shape it to a full egg. Make rest of the devils just like this and set them aside for 5 minutes.
• Take All-Purpose Flour on a clean plate, and the breadcrumbs on another plate.
• Take each devil shaped egg, first roll on the All-Purpose Flour, shake the excess flour, and then dip into the batter, and finally roll into the breadcrumbs. Make rest of the devils in this same way.
• Heat enough oil in a deep-frying pan. Once the oil is smoking hot, place the devil in the oil one by one.
• Over a medium flame fry till golden brown. Take them out of the oil and place on a paper towel.
• Sprinkle some black salt on the “Dimer Devil” and serve hot with ketchup and kasundi (Bengali mustard sauce) with some chopped cucumber and onion alongside.

Image Source: https://in.pinterest.com/pin/24418022964795681/