Shukto

On a proper Bengali plate, shukto is the first thing you eat, before the dal and long before anything spicy. It is mildly bitter on purpose. The bitterness wakes the mouth up so that everything after it tastes better, which is an idea worth borrowing. Grandmothers made it on hot afternoons out of whatever the vegetable seller had that morning: raw banana, potato, papaya, drumstick, a few dal bori fried till golden. Every family will tell you theirs is the real version.

Shukto is delicate, so it does not want the sharpest oil in the house. Wooden cold pressed yellow mustard oil is right here. It is pressed slowly in a wooden ghaani like the black, but it is naturally gentler on the tongue, so the milk and the coconut still come through instead of being flattened. At the very end, off the heat, a spoon of Gir Cow's A2 Ghee goes in and the whole pot changes smell.

The one thing that saves shukto is the bitter gourd. Fry the korola slices separately until the edges brown, keep them on a different plate, and add them only near the end. Let them simmer in the gravy from the start and the bitterness leaks into everything, and gentle turns into harsh.

How to make it

1. Cut all the vegetables into even fingers about 5 cm long, so they cook at the same speed. Keep the bitter gourd separate from the rest.
2. Heat the mustard oil in a kadhai until it thins and a light smoke rises, then lower the flame. Fry the bori until golden, about a minute, and lift them out. Fry the bitter gourd slices until the edges brown, and set aside on a separate plate. Fry the raw banana until pale gold and set aside with the bori.
3. Put the potato, papaya, drumstick and beans in a pot with 600 ml water and 1/2 tsp salt. Cover and simmer 12 to 15 minutes, until a knife goes into the potato with slight resistance. Drain, and keep every drop of that cooking water.
4. In the same kadhai with the leftover oil, add the bay leaves and panch phoron. Wait 15 seconds for them to pop. Add the ginger paste and fry on low for a minute.
5. Add the mustard and poppy paste. Fry on low for 2 minutes, splashing in a little of the reserved water whenever the pan looks dry, until the raw smell goes and the paste looks glossy.
6. Add the parboiled vegetables, the fried banana and bori, the coconut, salt and sugar. Pour in 250 ml of the reserved water. Simmer gently for 5 minutes, turning with a light hand so nothing breaks.
7. Add the fried bitter gourd. Pour in the milk and maida mixture. Keep the flame low and simmer 4 to 5 minutes until the gravy thickens slightly. Do not let it come to a rolling boil.
8. Switch off the flame. Crush the radhuni between your fingers and sprinkle it over. Add the ghee, cover, and leave it alone for 2 minutes. Serve warm, at the start of the meal, with plain rice.

Tips

• Radhuni is hard to find. It is a wild celery seed and we do not sell it. The closest honest swap is a pinch of ordinary celery seed (ajmod), crushed. Some home cooks use a pinch of ground yellow mustard instead. Both work, and both smell a little different from the real thing, so say what you used.
• No bori? Leave them out, or fry a handful of broken cashews instead. Bori add chew rather than flavour, and the shukto is still shukto without them.
• Milk splitting is the commonest failure. It happens when the pot is boiling hard when the milk goes in. Drop the flame to its lowest first, stir the maida into the milk so it holds, and never boil after.
• Eat it the same day. Overnight, the bitter gourd releases more bitterness into the gravy and the milk turns thin. If you must make ahead, cook everything except the bitter gourd and milk, then finish just before eating.