Katoya data chorchori

Debjani Chatterjee Alam’s Katoya Data Chorchori cooks the fleshy vegetable she calls Katoya Data with potato, eggplant, snake gourd and pumpkin. Her mother and aunt helped her prepare this Bengali mixed-vegetable side.

The vegetables are washed. Potato and pumpkin are peeled and cubed, eggplant keeps its skin, and the Katoya Data is trimmed of leaves and cut into strips; peeled snake gourd is cut into squares.

The selected optional lentil dumplings fry in part of the mustard oil and are set aside. The remaining oil joins the same pan, where panch phoron and dried red chilli temper it before the potato begins cooking.

Pumpkin, Katoya Data, snake gourd, eggplant and green chilli follow, then turmeric, chilli powder, sugar and salt. The covered vegetables cook in their own moisture, with occasional stirring, until slightly mushy while the Katoya Data remains intact.

The same fried dumplings are folded back through before the heat is turned off. Debjani offers the dish with steamed rice and a bowl of dal.