Chp 781. Bachelor Bai

Continuing with my series of Bachelor food dishes, this time I will focus on my favorite - Mizo Bai.

In case you have missed the previous post, do read it - Bachelor Potatoes.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I call this the Bachelor food series because:

1) They are easy to make

2) Do not require much culinary skills

3) Very simple ingredients involved

4) Extremely easy cooking instructions

5) And finally, they are so tasty that they can almost substitute the girlfriend you don't have.

So coming back to this topic - Bai.

Bai is one of our most popular Mizo traditional cuisines. Unfortunately, some of my dirty-minded friends like RTPa, Puia Hmar and Chhama Chenkual might interpret the name of this post in a different way because over here, "bai" means maid, and with their dirty-mind working in action, they might comment about a bachelor's desi maid etc. Kindly do ignore them :D

There are many types of Bai in our Mizo community, and as one of my foodie friends rightly said, no two Bai are the same. Even if you are making the same type of Bai, they will taste a bit different from each other because of the number of different ingredients added to the dish.

The type of Bai I make is a mixture of brinjal, potatoes and beans.

I once climbed the highest mountain in Mizoram - Phawngpui, and spent 7 days and 6 nights meditating at the peak without eating or speaking to anyone, until I gained the knowledge of how to make this particular Bai. :P

So this is how I make my signature bachelor bai. You will need -

Potatoes

Brinjals (small variant)

Beans

Green chillies

Soda

Salt

That's all.

First, peel the potatoes and chop them into medium pieces. Boil water and place the potatoes into the pan. Keep the flame at high.

Wait for some time because potatoes take the longest time to cook.

Meanwhile, wash the brinjals. DO NOT chop them yet, because they turn brown due to oxidation.

Once the potatoes are almost cooked, quickly cut off the stalk of the brinjal and slice them into two pieces vertically and then throw them in the pan immediately. Repeat this with the other brinjals.

After all the brinjals are in the pan, add half a tea spoon of soda. Stir immediately as the soda react with the broth.

When the brinjals are almost cooked, throw in the beans. Beans hardly take time to cook.

Add green chillies to the mixture as well, to give it a really spicy taste. Add salt along with them and stir again.

Finally once it is almost ready, add a fistful of dried fermented soybeans.

Make sure there is enough water because the dried fermented soybeans will absorb a lot of it. Also, the mixture will turn more brownish in color because of this.

Thadaaaa, the awesome and yet so simple to make bachelor Bai is ready for consumption. Have them with the Bachelor potatoes I wrote about in my previous post.

It goes great with bachelor Smoked Pork (will write a post about it soon).

Also goes great with bachelor Scrambled Eggs and bamboo shoot pickle.

And even Boiled Potatoes with Fermented Shrimp (Nghapih) paste. Yummm.

So that is my secret to how I make my signature bachelor Bai.

Do try it at home too, and let me know if you like it. Cheers everyone.

Chp 780. Bachelor Potatoes

As the popular saying goes, "Cooking is just like Sex. The more you practice, the better you get at it."

Which is why I suck at cooking.

But nevertheless, there are a few basic dishes that I do cook, and I'm putting them on my blog in this series of updates I call the "Bachelor dish" series.

I call it the Bachelor series because it is the perfect dish to cook if you are living alone by yourself. You can easily make it in a couple of minutes, and it does not require any complex culinary skills nor does it involve an assorted variety of condiments that are difficult to pronounce, as you are not cooking to impress anyone; it is just for you and your lonely soul alone. Hence, bachelor.

First up for this post, is my favorite - Bachelor Potatoes!

Really easy to make, and all my friends love it because of the simplicity.

All you need are just 1-2 onions, 5-6 potatoes, turmeric powder and salt, that's it!

First, peel the onions and potatoes, and slice them into thin pieces.

Heat around 5 tbsp of oil on a frying pan at high flame. Once it is heated, throw in the onions. Stir and wait for it to turn slightly brown. Add 1 tbsp of turmeric powder and stir again.

Finally, throw in the sliced potatoes and make sure you mix them really well, and that they are all covered by the oil.

VERY IMPORTANT: Keep the flame at low/simmer immediately.

Stir for some more time and then cover the entire frying pan with a lid.

Every 3 minutes or so, open the lid to stir. Stir gently in order to not mash them up. And make sure you bring the bottom part above so that they don't get burnt and stick to the pan. Apply salt once it is almost cooked and mix again. Thaadaaa, your "Bachelor potatoes" are ready!

You can spice it up a bit by adding Naga King Chillies.

Yummmmm!

You can also add chopped green chillies along with the onions at the beginning.

Ham and Salami also make really good add-on compatriots.

There are various other ways of modifying it, like adding ginger-garlic paste or zeera or dhania etc., but this is the very base. And all my friends especially my colleagues at work love it because it is "something they have never tasted before", simply because it is so simple that nobody actually makes it this way. No additional masala or gravy, just the pure and raw power of a potato :)

BONUS - Here is another potato recipe you can try out, which is also extremely simple to make.

For this, you will need the same ingredients as above, along with tomatoes.

Slice them onions and tomatoes into thin slices and then add the onions to a heated frying pan as above.

Throw in the sliced tomatoes once you add the turmeric powder.

You'll have to cook the tomatoes for a longer time to make it into a paste or gravy like. Make sure you cook it at low flame and with a lid on the frying pan.

You can also add some "tomato puree" to make it more gravy-ish. Finally, add the chopped potatoes. You don't need to slice them into thin pieces, just small pieces will do.

Keep stirring every 3-4 minutes, and thadaa, your potato dish is ready.

And so, these are my wonderful and tasty "Bachelor potatoes". Hope you like them. I will be updating my blog with other bachelor dishes as well, so stay tuned. If you have any comment or feedback, feel free to have your say. Until then, cheers everyone! :)

Chp 779. Russell Peters in Pune

Finally, I did it. I went and saw Russell Peters perform LIVE! :)

Russell Peters has been one of my favourite comedians for a long time now. And so when I heard he was coming to Pune, I immediately decided to be a man, do the right thing, and buy some tickets!.

Christina, Kimi and I bought the "Silver Preferred" seats at ₹ 1750 each, while Teresa and Nitin bought the "Gold" seats at ₹ 3000 each (turns out, they were just a few seats ahead of us, and neither of us could see the stage anyway, as in front of them there were still the "Gold Preferred" section and the "Platinum" section, lolz).

So on the day of the show, I left office early and later Christina and Kimi came over to my house and changed from their office-wear & college-wear to a more appropriate "I'm watching a Russell Peters show" attire.

And then the comedy happened! OMG I'll never ever forget what happened that evening!

According to the program schedule, the show was supposed to start at 8 PM, and the gates to the venue were to be shut by 7:50 PM. We got out from my house at 7 PM. Normally, it would take just 5 minutes by auto or cab to reach the venue from my house as it was in the same locality.

But noooo, that day was the eve of a holiday, the next day being Gandhi Jayanthi. And more than a 1000 people had bought tickets for the show. So the entire North Main road in front of my house was completely packed. Not a single vehicle was moving! I have never seen that much of a traffic jam in Pune in all my 5 years here.

There weren't a single cab or auto to book on Ola and Uber. And none of the running autos were willing to go that side because of the immense traffic jam, even when we offered them 200-300 bucks (normal rate is less than 30 bucks for that distance). We waited in front of my house till 7:30 and finally we said, fuck it, let's walk to the venue.

But since the gates were to be shut at 7:50, we started panicking and decided to run! Lolz, for the first time in my life here in Pune, I actually freaking ran from my house to Royal Palms!!!

Oohhh boy, what a run! :D

And the funniest part was, there were sooo many other people walking on the pavement, and as soon as they saw us running, they too started running! I pointed at them and asked, "Russell Peters?" and they replied with a grin, "Russell Peters!" Lolz, the entire pavement was filled with people on their way to the show.

Somehow it felt good to know that there were a lot of us running late (literally speaking) because of the gigantic traffic jam. We kinda knew that they were not going to close the gates on so many people. Mob mentality FTW. By the way, none of the vehicles that we overtook while running moved at all by the time we reach the venue.

Finally, I was sweating like hell when we reached the venue at around 8:20 PM, 30 minutes after the gates were supposed to be shut, but they were still wide open, with a long queue of people outside.

Some of our friends (Nico and Ruati) were still stuck in the big traffic jam near my house, and we told them to get out of their cab and start running, as they would reach the venue faster.

Even the security check at the venue was lax and they hardly checked us as they were in a hurry to let everybody in.

Yay, almost inside! With Kimi, Christina, Rena and Tluangi.

Inside!

DJ Spinbad was rocking the crowd with his wicked music.

We settled down in our seats immediately. There was also an announcement on the mic that the food and drinks counters were closing in 5 minutes. Christina wanted to drink water and so we walked outside to buy a bottle of water, only to see the hugeeee line at the coupons counter (I mean, why do all these event organizers do this? Why can't we just freaking buy what we want in cash?) And so we walked back inside.

A white guy came on stage, doing the "opening act" for Russell Peters for around 20 minutes. He was funny, but most of his humor were very American centric. He didn't evoke much laughter from the crowd because most of us didn't come there to laugh at jokes made on Americans, we came there to laugh at jokes about us :D

And finally, the man RUSSELL PETERS came on stage!

We laughed right from the very moment he stepped on stage. And what I loved the most was that every single joke was fresh. He didn't repeat any of his old materials (and technically, that's what stand-up comics have to do, because unlike musicians who play the same number at all their concerts, they have to constantly come up with something new when they perform).

Like I mentioned in the beginning, those of us sitting in the "Silver Preferred" and "Gold" section were too far away from the stage, and so we watched him on the giant screens kept at the side. I really pity those people sitting in the middle of "Silver Preferred" and "Gold" (not to mention the backbenchers "Silver") who could neither see the stage nor screen.

Russell Peters made a lot of spontaneous jokes as usual, after talking to those who were sitting in the front row ("Platinum" section). By the way, recording was strictly prohibited during the entire show, and the security kept roaming around to make sure nobody was recording!

Finally, after many many rounds of laughter, the show was over.

What a night to remember indeed.

All of us walked back from the venue to my house again, as there was a large traffic jam created by the people, and there was no chance of finding an empty cab or auto. However, the walk was much more relaxing than earlier when we had to run, lolz.

Back at my house, we had the traditional remembrance pic taken of our time with Russell Peters, after which they all headed back home once the traffic died down and autos were available.

A truly memorable night indeed.

Chp 778. AMSC membership 2019-20

What a disappointing night. Stayed up till 2:30 in the morning watching Arsenal vs ManUtd match, only to see it result in a draw.

Now I'm in office, sleepy as hell, but still trying to keep my spirits up because tonight I AM GOING TO RUSSELL PETERS SHOW! :)

As many people rightfully said, it was a match between "No defence" and "No offence". That's how sad our two teams are this season. But we Gunners will prevail!

I have seen every Arsenal ManUtd match so far, and it always makes me nervous when these two teams play because referees always tend to favour the Red Devils, especially at Old Trafford, and more especially during "Fergie Time".

And last night when this happened, a beautiful precision pass to Auba who neatly netted it, and the linesman ruled it offside, I was like, oh no, not again, ManUtd's 12th man is playing again. As you can see below, it was sooooo not offside.

But Arsenal fans have learnt to deal with it. We face this shenanigan every time we play against ManUtd so it was no big deal. We just shrug our shoulders and move on. Life ain't fair. However, this season, there is something new, something ManUtd fans never expected. This season, there is a new Sheriff in town and his name is VAR!

Yes, the Video Assistant Referee! VAR immediately stepped in and ruled the linesman's call invalid and allowed the goal. Whoopeeedooo!

With big brother VAR now over-watching every match, it would be really hard for ManUtd to climb up the Premier League table as referees and linesmen can no longer rule in their favour all the time. And that is why they are currently not even visible in the table :D

Ahhhh…

Anyway, today I finally received my AMSC (Arsenal Mumbai Supporters Club) membership renewal kit! Yayyy.

There was the usual Arsenal official calendar, 2019-20.

There was this amazing and authentic Arsenal cap.

And finally, this beautiful gym bag.

Lolz. I have no idea what I'll do with this. Is AMSC hinting that I should start exercising and hitting the gym? Yeah maybe I should start doing that from next week :)

So cheers everyone. Will update on Russell Peters show tomorrow. Ciao.

Chp 777. Mom's visit - Shopping

Took mom and niece to Dorabjee's on MG Road, and they loved the place!

We were shopping for my sister's bakery stuff, and most of the time we were on video-call as we showed her items on the shelf and she decided if that was what she wanted or not :D

With these new baking equipment, my sister's brownies and other baked stuff are going to be even more delicious. She sells them mostly at the Book Club, and she takes personal orders too.

Looking forward to going home and tasting her famous brownies.

Until my next post then, cheers.