huh. learn something every day. i’d never seen white bitter melon, only green. looked it up… basically the same thing, different color. thanks
Thank you for this, very much. You were referenced so many times yesterday that I thought our companions were channeling your deep knowledge of Indian subcontinent cuisine.
I thought it was an Audrey II
thank you for the wonderful writeup! My understanding is that pompano can’t be commercially fished and, at least where I fish for them in fl, there’s a 12-inch size requirement…I wonder how they’re able to find such small ones.
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I’ve mostly seen the dark green ones, which are spikier on the outside.
Like this, anywhere from 2.5/3” to twice that.
Small / medium pompano has always been available in Chinatown, so now I’m curious about the 12” restriction. (I like pompano — it’s similar to pomfret, which is a favorite.)
Feel like there is an app opportunity here — put in your condiments and have it tell you the easiest / best things to make (also maybe a pantry ingredient filter for what else one can use up).
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Echoing @Saregama, there is no ‘standardised’ name - the various iterations of the name you mentioned are mainly related to the way it is pronounced in different regional accents. I would think ‘puchka’ with the ‘p’ is incorrect though, the beginning should be an ‘f’ sound. Bangladesh has different regional accents to West Bengal in India, so there are some significant differences in how the same word is pronounced.
Every phuchka-wallah has their own unique style of presenting their wares. In Kolkata, roadside vendors would never present customers with a whole plate of prepared phuchka at once - that’s a no-no as the crispy shells would be in danger of getting soggy. They hand the finished shell including the filling and tamarind water to you one by one into a small bowl made from dried leaves and you need to eat them straightaway in one mouthful, catching any spillages in the leaf bowl. It’s a hugely popular street food which my parents never let me have on the street (the downside of having parents who were a gastroenterologist and microbiologist respectively). For our phuchka fix, we used to get taken to a North Indian sweets and snacks shop where they had table service and pani puri was served on steel plates with the filling and tamarind water served in steel bowls on the side. It wasn’t much fun but my parents were happy that we were at less risk of catching something unpleasant.
What was the whitish grated stuff on top of the Tong fuchkas? I’ve never seen that in India.
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I want to say they are egg whites but not sure. From the nyt article linked above:
“Fuchka, in his eyes, was easy to love: spherical semolina shells, chipped open and filled with savory potato, yellow peas, onion, chili and cilantro, then adorned with shavings of hard-boiled egg, before being splashed with tangy tamarind sauce. It is a close cousin of gol gappa and pani puri, snacks from India whose names had earned some recognition in the United States.”
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Yep. Grated boiled egg.
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I’ve never come across that before. Not sure what to make of it.
Bangladeshi non-veg-ification of puchka.
I like the twist an Israeli restaurant in nyc put on it — the puri was filled with creme fraiche and cured salmon. Tasty turn on dahi puchka!
Then there was one from a Thai place in Toronto stuffed with kheema.
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One of my colleagues from Mumbai loved the street food but after living in the US, lost the ability to digest it. While visiting a client in iselin, we went to an ayce buffet and, to his surprise, they had pani puri on the buffet. I’ve never seen anyone eat so much of one dish at a buffet!
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No they dont bake their own. Last time I looked which was several years ago they had rolls from an italian bakery in CT. May be are buying standard rolls or maybe the bakery cooks to viet specification.
The rolls provide a crispy shell and they do not turn to mush. We have refrigerated and reheated in the oven successfully over 2-3 days which sounds awful but it is not (if veg components are removed before reheat)
What is particularly awful for bahn mi is sourdough bread an affectation in some of our local (non-chinatown) shops
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This would make sense.
Agree, no to sourdough and no to super chewy baguettes too.
(Btw I’ve eaten leftover banh plenty of times too, reheated as you described with the cold items removed>
The Fuji foods store owner called this “fried bean”, tastes like a potato chip, a little greasy, good but imo not worth the attendant damage to my arteries.
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Looks like a fritter made from chana dal (split yellow peas)!
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