Mushrooms - The Desi Way

A Kid can never develop fascination for something which everyone in her family refers to as ‘Byang-er Chata’ since the time she can remember, neither did I. Byang means Frog / Toad and Chata means Umbrella, so a Frog’s Umbrella can never be a Kid’s favorite! You must be wondering what on earth is ‘Byang er Chata’, well, they are AgaricusBisporas !!

Enough of ambiguity, these delicate white little cotton like pretty things are nothing but Mushrooms, Button Mushrooms. I developed a soft spot for these when I started eating Sizzlers at this amazing Continental joint named Yana. They would make this remarkable preparation with chunks of Chicken, Baby Corns, Mushrooms, a lot of Vegetables & serve it with Rice or Noodles and a sauce of your choice. (I am already day dreaming about a meal at Yana!) Ok, Enough! This post is neither about Sizzlers nor any other Continental dish, this is about Mushrooms – the Desi way!

Being an Indian, a Bong on top of that adds a lot of shades to your character. Like the never-ending craving of preparing every dish the Indian way, the Desi way. So here I present my precious Mushrooms-the Desi way recipe. After a lot of assessment, I finalized this as my recipe as this is how the two of us love it. You can savor numerous number of Rotis with this with the wink of an eye. I did make a few mistakes here and there while preparing it the last time. I will mention what went wrong. Please refrain from repeating them after me, thank you. I had once seen a very similar recipe on Showmethecurry. This post is incomplete without mentioning about Hetal & Anuja, the lovely hosts of Showmethecurry.

Ingredients to make Mushrooms – the Desi way :

(This will server 4 people)

1.    Button Mushrooms – (we get 200 gm boxes in the Supermarkets here, I used 2 of them as last time it got over too soon when I used one pack & left us craving for more.) Hence – 400 gms.

2.    Onion – 2 medium – sliced.

3.    Tomatoes – 2 medium – chopped.

4.    Ginger Paste – ½ tsp

5.    Garlic Paste – 1 tsp

6.    Green Chilli Paste – 1 tsp

7.    Turmeric Powder – 1 tsp

8.    Red Chilli Powder – 1 tsp

9.   Cumin Powder – 1 tsp

10.                 Kasuri Methi (dried Fenugreek leaves) – 2 tbsp

11.                 Bay leaf – 2 small

12.                 Cinnamon – 1” stick

13.                 Green Cardamoms – 3-4

14.                 Cloves – 4-5

15.                 Cooking Oil

16.                 Salt to taste

How I made it :

·         Clean the mushrooms thoroughly and pat dry on paper towels. (There is a lot of mud residue on the mushrooms which we do NOT wish to consume, hence they can be boiled for 5 minutes in hot water, drain and dry and then use. Or you can take them to the sink & one by one under the running water rub and wash them using your fingers. In any case make sure they are completely dry as they release enough moisture when cooked, we do not want more).

·         Cut the Mushrooms into quarters, do not worry if they look large at this stage as they reduce in volume when cooked.

·         In a Pan, heat Oil and add the Whole Spices; Bay Leaf, Cinnamon, Green Cardamoms and Cloves and let them sizzle.

·         Add the Turmeric Powder and add the Onions, cook Onions till they start to change color to a nice golden.

·         Add the Ginger-Garlic and Chilli paste (I added this later with the dry spices as I had forgotten about them, please add them at this stage and not later).

·         Once the pastes are cooked add the tomatoes, cover and cook.

·         This will take a while as we want the tomatoes to disintegrate completely.

·         Once done, add the Red Chilli Powder and the Cumin Powder and mix. The mixture should look like a dark reddish paste, when it does add the Mushrooms & mix thoroughly.

Here the color does not look that great as I messed up the Masalas as mentioned earlier, it will look the way I described if you do it right.

·         Give it about 5 minutes and see the Mushrooms reducing in volume.

·         Add desired amount of water, cover and cook till it reaches desired consistency. This preparation is on the drier side so we do not want runny gravy in it.

·         Once done, rub 2 tbsps of Kasuri Methi powder between your palms and add.

·         Mix and Mushrooms-the desi way should be ready to serve.

Serve with homemade Rotis.