Bengali Vs Punjabi food

After my marriage into a Bengali family, my whole grocery list changed. The first course of a Bengali meal is bitter, which is usually in the form of Shukto.

1. Raw banana or cooking banana
2. Drumsticks: tak
3. Pumpkin; tak; jhal
4. Beigun or Brinjal: sukto; sarsoin; jhol
5. Bari; charchari
6. Kerala or Bitter Gourd: sarsoin; fry; charchari; sukto
7. Potol or pointed gourd
8. Pepe i.e. Raw papaya: dal; jhol
9. Aloo
10. Rang Aloo
11. Mustard Paste
12. Chichange
13. Sim: tarkari; ga makha makha sarsoin
14. Saag: palak; pui saag; lal saag; mooli saag

All the vegetables are cut in long.

The ingredients needed for Tok are:

1. Mustard seeds or Paanch Phoron
2. Tamarind
3. Bari
4. Drum sticks
5. Mooli
6. prawns

Sukto: drum sticks; aloo; raw papaya; begun; raw banana, bitter gourd, drum sticks, kerala: cut all vegetables long, add panch foron, fry all the vegetable, add water, mustard paste and at the end ghee and milk.

How to make halka jhol:

You will need raw banana, pepe, aloo.
All veggies will be cut long.

First add some mustard oil, paanch phoron or kalo jeera, dry red chilli, fry the vegetables little, then add some water.Wait for the boil, then add turmeric, salt, red chilli and at the end jeera(it is a must).

You can follow the same recipe with Aloo, Kochu, baigun, bari and seem with or without mach.

In Bengali cuisine, nothing is wasted. Each and every part of the vegetables or plat is used. So, bengali do use flower for cooking, before marriage, I only knew about the gobi phool and after entering into a bengali household I came to know about other edible flowers like Bauk phook(Agastaya Flower); Kumro phool; Banana blossom; Sajana danta phool(drum stick flowers);Jukti phool also known as sneeze wort or green milkweed climber or green wax flower.