Posto bhapa

Ananya Bhattacharya’s selected Posto Bhape, also titled Bhapa Posto, pressure-cooks a poppy-seed paste with onion, green chilli and mustard oil. She describes trying a preparation her mother had mentioned after seeing it on television.

Poppy seeds are dry-roasted on a hot tawa and allowed to cool. They are ground, with water added a little at a time, until the paste is pale and thick rather than watery.

The supplied chopped onion and green chillies are mixed into the same paste with salt and mustard oil. This mixture is transferred to a small steel tiffin box.

Water is added to a pressure cooker and the tiffin box placed inside, with its water level below the rim of the box’s lid. The selected lid is placed for pressure cooking, and pressure is allowed to fall on its own after the whistles.

The box is removed for serving with plain white rice. This is the author’s pressure-cooker method for the preparation she calls baked poppy seeds.