Chp 770. Dinner by Pi Zosangi

Imagine you are so single that the "Pune Mizo Mothers Association" keeps inviting you to one of their exclusive mothers-only dinners?

Yeah, that is me. Infamous across our Pune Mizo community now as the most single guy in town, just because I suck at talking or interacting with the opposite sex. I have become the butt of all jokes about being forever alone.

But hey, at least, I get to enjoy all the dinners they cook for me :)

The dinner that night was sooo yummy. It was at Pi Zosangi's house, and I have included some of her awesome recipes in this post.

The Mizo mothers were practicing for a song they were planning to sing at Church later this month. You can see Zodini below leading the choir.

My friend Teresa picked me up on the way and since we were a bit late, the below pic looks as if she was being punished by Zodini for being late :D

It's like when the Principal of your school tells you to sit at the corner of the room in silence and not take part in the ongoing classroom activity as a punishment :D

More practicing...

Teresa finally made herself useful by at least taking care of all the children and preparing their dinner.

Kids dinner time!

Some of the husbands present that night whose sole job was to babysit all the kids while the wives practiced their song.

Yumm, the kids love the dinner!

And of course this awesome dinner prepared by Pi Zosangi wouldn't have been possible without the help of HK-a who was there the whole day helping with the preparations.

While the children and husbands and HK-a ate, the wives were still busy with their song practice...

Finally, their rehearsal was over... Photography time! Lawmi quickly transformed from her song practice mode to her super-model mode :D

It was time for the mothers to spring into action and prepare the main dinner!

Yummieeezzz!

Oh Yeah. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

Pi Zosangi told me that the way she made the above Chicken was super simple. Just wash the raw Chicken (with skin) thoroughly and then dry it. Place it in a bowl and boil it with water. Once it is almost boiled, add other condiments like spring onions, dhania, salt, a packet of Knorr seasoning packet and that's it.

Lolz, the way she described it was so simple, and yet it tasted sooo good!

Next up we have the awesome Pork dish.

This was definitely the highlight of the dinner. Here's how Pi Zosangi made it:

Buy 3 KGs of pork, cut them into medium pieces and wash them.

Marinate the pork for around 12 hours with 4 tbsp of "Bolt Masala" (that she bought from Mission veng, Aizawl) and 2 tbsp of "Barah (12) Masala" (also from Mizoram). Add chilli powder (amount depends on how spicy you want it to be) for the marination.

Pi Zosangi explicitly mentioned that she doesn't use "Garam Masala" to marinate the meat as that gives it a very heavy masala taste that is not accustomed to our Mizo taste buds.

After the meat is marinated for 12 hours, heat oil in a pan and add chopped onions, ginger and garlic. Again add "Bolt Masala" once the onions and all are fried up (she also said that you can use Maggi chicken seasoning instead if there is no bolt masala).

Finally add a lit bit of coconut milk to the pan to thicken the mixture, along with 2-3 curry leaves. The pan is ready.

Add the marinated pork into the pan and occasionally stir at medium flame. Now and then add a little bit of water and keep doing this until the awesome dish is cooked.

Thanks a lot for this recipe, Pi Zosang, will try it out this weekend.

Here are the rest of the awesome dishes that night.

Eating in action! Yum yummm we all ate so much!

My wonderful plate :)

Pudding time.

Lawmi too ate a lot that night. This was her "I am so full" after-dinner dance ritual.

Relaxation time.

Me and the wives. Maybe one day, if fortune smiles on me, I'll have a photo that I can caption "Me and the wife".

And so, after a tummy-filled fantabulous dinner, it was time to leave. It was raining but that did not deter the brave husbands from going home :)

Overall, this was a memorable night, and thanks to Pi Zosangi and her warm hospitality, we will all remember this moment for a long time. Until my next blog post then, cheers everyone, and have a great weekend.

Chp 769. Lunch by Melody

In today's edition of my series of Food updates, I'm introducing you to the lovely Ms Melody, a beautiful nurse and an even more amazing cook!

She's taken though, so all you guys calm your hormones down :D Her boyfriend's the luckiest guy in the world.

What makes this particular post a bit different from the others is that, firstly, this was a Sunday afternoon lunch invitation unlike all the others earlier which were dinner invitations. Secondly, apart from just food images, I have put up some other glamorous photos in the end as well, with permission from Melody of course. After our awesome home-cooked Sunday lunch, we went to Hyatt to watch our two friends Evon and Valtea perform, so we clicked a couple of pics here and there.

So coming back to that awesome Sunday lunch, here are the dishes Melody cooked that day, along with instructions on how to make them, as dictated by her to me.

First up, Vawksa rep leh dawlrep bai.

Smoked pork and dried arum stew.

 

First, wash the smoked pork in hot water.

Put them in a pressure cooker and pour water just enough to cover the pieces. Close the cooker and cook it. Let the cooker whistle for around 3 times and then switch it off.

Wait for the cooker to cool down and depressurize, and then open it.

Meanwhile, wash the preserved dried dawl (arum) and cut them into medium pieces.

Add the cut pieces into the pressure cooker containing the (almost cooked) smoked pork.

Along with that, take around an OK of lengser rep (sun-dried elsholtzia blanda / vietnamese balm) and add it to the cooker as well.

I said "OK" in the above paragraph because apparently, there is no English translation for what we Mizos refer to as "hmer" which is a unit of measurement we use while buying vegetables. Hmer is the amount of vegetables (leafy-greens) we take by making a circular shape using our thumb and index finger (the OK symbol). The amount of greens that fit within that gap is considered as "hmer khat" (one hmer).

Also add one pinch of anthur rep (sun-dried roselle / sabdariffa / rosemallow).

Grind garlic and add around 1 tbsp of it, along with a little piece of ginger and some salt.

Add some more water and close the cooker, cook it and wait for it to whistle for around 2-3 times. Your awesome dish is ready!

Chingit, bawkbawn leh bekang bai.

Dried pepper leaf shoot with brinjal and fermented soybeans stew.

Slice the brinjal into thumb-size pieces and immerse in water immediately (to prevent it from turning brown due to oxidation).

Boil water in a pan. Once boiled, put the sliced brinjal in it.

Meanwhile, take fresh chingit (Indian pepper plant) and pluck out only the leaves. If the stalk is young, then those can be selected as well. Wash them thoroughly.

Once the brinjal is almost cooked, put the chingit in the pan along with small amount of bekang rep (fermented soybeans), ajinomoto, dhania (coriander) and bahkhawr (culantro).

Take two king chillies and cut them in half, and then add them in the pan as well. Slicing it in half helps distribute the spiciness across the concoction.

Keep stirring for a few minutes until the dish is ready. Yummm!

Vawksa rep curry.

Smoked pork curry.

Wash the smoked pork in hot water and slice them into half each (they already come in medium pieces).

Heat oil in a pan. Add onions and garlic paste along with salt in the pan once the oil is heated. After that, add turmeric powder.

Stir for some time and then add the washed pork.

Meanwhile, chop potatoes into medium piece and boil them.

Once the pork is almost ready, add the boiled potatoes along with chopped tomatoes.

Keep stirring.

Add water and stir at regular interval until the dish is ready. Super dillu!

Egg tomato potato fry.

Simple dish.

Chop potatoes and tomatoes.

Heat oil in a frying pan.

Fry the potatoes first, and once they are almost done, add the tomatoes.

Take eggs, beat them up real good, and then add it to the frying pan once the tomatoes start becoming a bit watery.

Add salt and spice to taste. Stir. Done.

Laphetauh chutney.

Burmese mixture chutney side-dish.

Laphetauh is a popular mixture of nuts and vegetables that we get from Myanmar. You will need this packet to make this dish.

First, chop some cabbages and onions into very thin slices and put them in a bowl.

Add the laphatauh packet to that bowl.

Add a little bit of heated oil to that bowl.

Grind some dried Mizo chillies and add to that bowl as well.

Take nghapih (fermented shrimp paste) in a different bowl, add little bit of water and stir to make it into paste. Add it to the main bowl after that.

No need to add any salt as the laphetauh and nghapih are already salty enough.

Wearing a glove, mix them all together. The chutney is ready!

Zawngtah mu.

Crying monkey seeds. Just kidding. Seeds of stinky beans.

Simple and easy to make. Just peel the skin. Done.

And so this was my awesome plate that afternoon! My mouth still waters as I look at this today.

Yummm indeed!

And so that was it, the food part. I really hope you enjoyed it, and feel free to use the recipes and let me know your feedback.

Once we were done with the awesome lunch, we headed back to my place at KP where I changed and then we headed towards Hyatt to watch our friends Evon and Valtea perform.

Here are some of the photos later that day.

The photo below, I captioned it as "On our way to Church" on my WhatsApp status.

The above pic does look like we were on our way to Church right? And the beauty of it is that, my friends at PMCF who saw my update assumed I was going to the PMPC service, while my friends at PMPC thought I was going to the PMCF service, so nobody asked me why they didn't see me at Church that day. Ah, what a great time to be living in Pune :D :P

Reached Hyatt. Beautiful place. The best thing I like about Hyatt Pune is that, there are so many Mizos working here.

Evon and Valtea in action. They performed really well and thoroughly entertained us.

Evon may be a celebrity here in Pune now, but I've known her since her student days back in Delhi, long before she even started her career as a professional singer. That was a really long time ago, back during the days when she was known as "Muanpuii" and not Evon :D :P

Some cocktail to set the ball rolling :)

It was almost 3 hours since we had that awesome lunch, and so we ordered pizza again while listening to Valtea and Evon's performance :D

Some more pics outside the restaurant (smoking section) before heading back inside to continue with our pizza and cocktails.

And so, that was the event of the day. Amazing home-cooked Mizo lunch by an awesome cook, followed by great times spent with friends at a great place.

Hope you find this post useful, and see you again on my next upcoming food update. Cheers.