Mocha-Chingri r Kofta

My husband bought a huge mocha (banana flower) from the local Indian store. It was way too large for our small family. After making mochar ghonto, I still had a lot left. So I chopped them up and along with shrimps made some kofta and gravy.

Mocha is very fibrous and because of that the kofta’s had a very unique texture. Give this a try, I hope you’d really enjoy this.

Ingredients For Kofta

• 2 cups mocha chopped
• 20 medium sized prawns cleaned and deveined
• 1/2 cup motor dal soaked for 3hours (Yellow split pea)
• 1/4 cup chopped onion
• 1” ginger chopped
• 2 green chilies finely minced
• 1 tsp. roasted cumin seeds ground into a powder 
• 1 tsp. Bengali garam masala powder
• Oil for deep frying 
• Salt

Ingredients For Curry

• 5 small potatoes cut into halves
• 1/2 medium sized onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 large tomato chopped
• 2 green chilies chopped
• 1 tbsp. Kashmiri chili powder
• 1 tsp. turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp. Bengali garam masala powder
• 1 tsp. sugar
• Salt to taste
• Oil
• Whole garam masala
  • 1”cinnamon
  • 2 cloves
  • 2 green cardamoms
  • 2 bay leaves

Procedure

Drain soaked dal and make a paste of it in a grinder with minimum water. Remove and keep aside.

Boil mocha with turmeric and in a pressure cooker for a whistle or two on high heat.  Let the pressure drop on its own. Now drain the excess water from boiled mocha.

Take 10 cleaned prawn in a grinder and give a quick pulse to crush them.

In a mixing bowl take dal paste, boiled mocha, crushed prawns and one by one add chopped onion, ginger, green chilies to it. Season it with roasted cumin powder, garam masala powder and salt. Mix well and make lime sized balls out of it.

Heat oil for deep frying in a pan. Deep fry the balls on medium heat till they turn crispy and brown. remove and drain them on a paper towel.

Fry potato halves on medium heat till they turn yellow. Remove and keep aside.

Smear the rest of the prawns with turmeric and salt. Fry them till they turn pink. Remove and keep them handy.

Remove excess oil from the pan and temper it with bay leaves and whole garam masala. When they stop sputtering add onion and garlic paste to it. Keep frying till you see oil seeps out from the edge.

Add chopped tomato along with salt and sugar. Keep frying on low hit till tomatoes become mushy. Sprinkle turmeric and chili powder to it.

Throw in fried potatoes and mix well so they are well coated with spices. Pour a cup of water and cook covered till potatoes are almost done. Now add fried prawns and koftas to it. Let it simmer for 2 more minutes.

Sprinkle garam masala powder before you take it off from heat.

Serve with rice, pulao, chapathi or parantha.