Drumstick flower and a recipe

We were on our way back from Navadarshanam after a three day vacation. The "official" reason was to attend the Sunday satsang organised by Anantu and Deepa .... the whole stay, however, turned out to be perfect satsang to us ....sat-people, sat-food and sat-environment made our short vacation a blissful one.  Sunday was fully packed.... led by Deepa we together sang Kabir, Meera and Bulle Shah and listened to Anantu..... at the end of the day we were tired but filled to the brim. While returning our new friend Shibani was very kind to offer a ride and we happily accepted that. It was a beautiful drive with the romantic bluish-grey sky, wet wind with that after the rain smell and those profound lyrics resonating in our heart. To top up Anantu was in our car with his fountain of energy ..... infecting everyone surrounding him with his cheerfulness. After reaching Bangalore Shibani  invited us to their villa in Whitefield for a cup of tea which we readily accepted to continue that joyful journey together  for some more time. While making tea Shibani mentioned that once she tasted drumstick flower in her friend's house and loved it! That was enough to remind me how much I love that very earthy taste and smell of sajne phul (drumstick flower in Bengali) and how I badly miss it these days in Bangalore. Here we readily get the drumsticks and the leaves but flowers... I have never seen the fresh flowers in market. Then Shibani revealed the top secret! They have a drumstick tree in the backyard which is currently in bloom! The two of us ran there and started collecting flowers from the wet grass...almost felt like a little girl collecting shiuli-phul from the still-wet grass on an autumn morning before the Durgapuja.

We returned home with a handful of fresh drumstick flowers..... Thank you Shibani!

Now come to the recipe. Here I have cooked the flowers in a typical Bengali style using mustard oil and Kasundi (bengali style mustard sauce). The earthy flavor of drumstick flowers mingled very well with the pungent aroma of mustard. 

Sajne Phul-er Torkari (Bengali Style Dry Drumstick flower Curry)

 (Serves 2-3)

Ingredients:
Drumstick flower - 1 cup or more
Potato - 1 medium (peeled and cubed)
Geen peas - 1/4 cup or less
Panchforon - 1/2 teaspoon (see note)
Dry red chili - 1
Green chilies - 2
Mustard oil - 2 tablespoon + extra for drizzling
Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon
Kasundi - 1 tablespoon (optional) (see note)
Salt and sugar - as per taste
badi (sun dried lentil dumplings) - 5-6 pieces (optional)

Method:

• Heat the mustard oil in a small wok to almost smoking point.
• Break the badi in small pieces and fry till golden brown (at low heat). Keep aside.
• In the same oil add half teaspoon of panchphoron and one dry red chili. Keep the heat on high and wait for few seconds till the wonderful aroma of panchphoron hits your nose. 
• Add the potatoes. Add 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric and little salt and cook on high heat for a couple of minutes.
• Add the green peas and green chilies. Stir and add around 3/4 cup hot water. Mix well, cover and lower the heat to medium. cook till the veggies are almost done. 
  
• Now add the flowers and the fried badi. Cook on high heat for a few minutes.
• Sprinkle little sugar (optional). Add the kasundi and give everything a good stir. Taste and adjust the salt if needed. The dish will have a dryish  consistency.
• Finally drizzle with little mustard oil, switch off the gas and cover immediately to retain the raw flavor of the oil.
• Serve as a side dish with hot steamed rice.

The final dish was a wonderful mix of bitter-sweet taste of drumstick flowers, pungency of mustard oil/ kasundi with the very unique earthy flavor of Panchphoron.

Notes:
Here I have used 1 cup of drumstick flower (what we could manage to collect) but you can definitely add more... it will taste better!
Fresh flowers take very little time to get cooked so add it when the other veggie are almost cooked with little water left. Flowers will loose texture if cooked for longer time.
Panch Phoron literally means “five spices.”  It is a spice blend consists of the following seeds:  Cumin, Mustard, Fenugreek, Nigella and Fennel that adds a wonderful depth and flavor to many Bengali dishes. Mix 1 teaspoon each of Cumin, Mustard, Nigella, fennel and 1/2 teaspoon of fenugreek together to get your own Panchphoron mix.
Kasundi is a sauce made by fermenting mustard seeds that has a very unique strong pungent flavor of mustard. Bangalees use it as a condiment with sauteed greens or snack items.
If you don't get kasundi in hand use 2 tablespoon of mustard paste instead.
In case you are interested, got a nice write-up over kasundi here.
Using Badi is purely optional .... I like the little crunch it gives in a otherwise soft textured dish. ( I have used plain Urad daal badi here).