Bengali Five-Spice Blend - Panch Phoron

 Panch phoron is a spice blend used in Eastern India, in Bengali, Assamese, and Oriya cuisine and also in Bangladesh and Nepal. It is a blend of black mustard, nigella, fennel, fenugreek and brown cumin seeds and, really, it couldn’t be easier to make!

 

According from which region the blend is made, the five spices can be added in equal quantities or vary slightly. I make mine with equal quantities of mustard, fennel, cumin, and nigella seeds and half the amount of fenugreek seeds, which have a bitterness that can be a bit overwhelming for some people, although I love it. Panch phoron is typically fried in hot oil, which causes the spices to start popping to release the flavours and temper the oil.

 

This spice blend is worth having to hand when you are in a bit of a hurry and want something that tastes good, but without putting in too much effort. Make a simple dal or vegetable dish, by frying the usual garlic, ginger and diced green chilli together, with a chopped onion, if you want. Then add the dal/vegetables and cook to your taste. You can then fry a tsp of panch phoron in some oil and add this tempering to the dal or vegetable dish before serving.

 

Makes about 3 tablespoons

 

Ingredients

 

2 tsp cumin seeds

2 tsp fennel seeds

2 tsp black mustard seeds

2 tsp nigella seeds

1 tsp fenugreek seeds

 

 Combine the whole spices and store in an airtight container.

 

Breakfast avocado

Smashed avocado on toast is a very popular breakfast/brunch/snack.  This is really a variation on it that I dreamt up while trying to create an acceptable substitute for scrambled eggs.  There isn't one, in my opinion, although I've achieved a passable result using peanuts, but this avocado recipe is very good in its own right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can't tolerate rubbery, dried out scrambled eggs, but as this is how they are generally served, I assume that other people think differently.  To be fair, it is very difficult to keep scramblers in that lovely, soft, curdy state, because they carry on cooking in their own heat, so have to be put on a plate the moment they're ready.  The advantage of this avocado 'substitute' is that the avocado doesn't soften with heating: the drawback is that the avocado has to be at the perfect stage of ripeness for the recipe to work and it won't work if the avocado is too firm, nor if it has started to go stringy.  I am lucky to live somewhere where I can buy avocados very cheaply, so it isn't a disaster if I cut one open and it's the wrong stage of ripeness.  However, if that happens, you can always resort to smashed avocado on toast, after all.

 

 Ingredients

 

1 ripe avocado

olive oil

1/4 tsp garlic granules or 1 finely minced clove of garlic

2 tbsp water/yoghurt/cream

1/8 tsp chilli flakes - optional

salt and pepper

Method:

• Cut the avocado in half, remove the stone and peel it.  If the peel is very stiff, as it so often is with Hass avocado, cut the fruit into quarters; it should then be easy to peel.
  
• Carefully chop the avocado into chunks. 
• Heat a little olive oil in a small saucepan;  move it carefully around in the pan until it starts to get warm.
• Now add the water/yoghurt/cream and garlic.  Turn down the heat and stir the avocado very gently so that some of it gets mixed into, and thickens the liquid.  You don't want to mash it into a purée.  
• Season with salt and pepper and some chilli flakes if you like them.  Gently stir them in.
  
• While the avocado is heating, slice a couple of pieces of bread and toast it.  Put it onto a warmed plate and tip the avocado mix over it.  Serve hot.

Notes:

• The avocado needs to be properly ripe - a firm one won't produce the desired effect.
• Instead of, or as well as, the olive oil, you might like to add chilli oil.  In this case, omit the chilli flakes.