Peyaj Posto - Onions cooked with white poppy seed paste

Now that I have written about our travel in my earlier post...I would like to take off my traveling boots as of now and change into the home-slippers, and perhaps start cooking food for us.

Posto or white poppy seed paste is an integral part of traditional Bengali cooking.This can be included in many stir/fry vegetable recipes and fish recipes as well.There is this chicken recipe – posto bata diye murgi , and also a notey shaak with posto bata..........

Today it’s peyaj posto for you all. The recipe is simple with white poppy seeds to make posto bata/poppy seed paste, well almost and of course onion. I would say please use purple onions not the white ones. As they do give nice sweetish taste to the over-all dish.

After, I thought of putting up this recipe, I gave Google a turn, yeah I always do, so that I can recommend some other recipes .Most of the recipes that are written in the net about peyaj posto, do not talk about tempering/phoron part of this stir/fry. I am amazed and puzzled, as a general rule one always does the phoron/tadka/tempering and then add vegetables in a stir/fry recipe. I called back my Ma just to confirm my doubt and asked if I am doing it any wrong way these past years. So, she told me tempering should be done either by adding Panch-phoron or Kalo jeerey as this is what she always had been doing in past. I sighed that I am not the only person who believes in tempering and phoron for this stir/fry recipe.

But likewise, any recipe is totally dependent on the cook, even after many attempts one can not reproduce a delicious and simple stir/fry recipe again and again, what ever they might have eaten somewhere, and sometimes all it takes is a single attempt, and it hits the “Bulls eye”….Bang there!!

Peyaj posto ( Onions with white poppy seed paste)

Recipe requirements

3-4 medium size onions

3-4 green chilies

1 tsp of nigella seeds/kalo jeerey/kalaunji

¾ tsp of salt or as per taste

3-4  heaped tbs of white poppy seeds or 50 gms of white poppy seeds.

2-3 whole cashews

4-5 tbs of mustard oil

¼ tsp of turmeric powder (optional)

½ tsp of red pepper powder

Method

Soak white poppy seeds and cashews in water for about 2-3 hrs roughly. Now wet grind those in grinder with water and green chilies.Add in salt as per taste also. Add water in batches, just enough to rotate the grinder blades. We will adjust water later on while stir/frying the onions.

Now heat up a saucepan, add in cooking oil. Now add in nigella seeds/kalaunji/kalo jeerey.

Add in chopped onion juliennes. Add in salt as per taste. Onions shrink while frying so; keep an eye on the content of salt. Start from adding less salt and then taste, if required add more. And also the poppy seed paste already has salt in it. Keep on stir/fry the onions for 5-7 mints or till they shrink in size.

Now add in posto bata/poppy seed paste to the above stir/fried onions. If required splash little bit of water. Keep on stir/fry this paste with onions, till the paste starts to dry up and starts sticking to the onions. It will take little patience to do stir/fry at medium heat, but it’s worth it.

Take it off from the heat; posto peyaj is ready to be served. Now have it with warm cooked rice.

Happy Cooking Friends