Tok Begun Recipe 

If you notice a dip in today’s picture quality and a change in dishes, that is because today I donned the hat of the wannabe cook (and photographer), not Ms Shortcut Sokhina. And if the pictures are the same as always, that means my skills as a food photographer – nothing to do with my lack of cooking skills.

I joined The Wannabe Cooks because that is exactly what I wanted, I wanted to be a cook. But followers of our content might know that Ms Shortcut Sokhina is doing most of the cooking from Moni Dadi’s diary, I do not make many appearances in the kitchen. I am usually just observing and writing down what she does. But I have been practicing off the diary, mostly on noodles but practice nonetheless. So I thought I’d see how far I have come by trying out another one of Moni dadi’s recipes.

So I picked a simple dish, nothing too complicated. Tok Begun was the recipe I prepared. Why exactly Tok Begun? There are simpler dishes for sure, but it was a rainy day and I had an appetite for Khichuri. Any Bengali knows the blessed feeling of having Khichuri on a rainy day. And Tok Begun looked like a perfect side to have with Khichuri. But Tok Begun would taste amazing with Polao as well, something I realized after having it.

You can try Tok Begun with ruti or bhaat (boiled rice) too. So the dish itself is pretty versatile, you can have it with almost anything, and as any meal of the day – breakfast, lunch, dinner.

Tok Begun (Sour Eggplant or Sour Brinjal) is exactly what the name says it is. It is a Brinjal curry that tastes sour. Though calling it a curry does not do it justice. Because it has a very thick gravy, not typical of what you would expect from a curry. Another name for the dish is Achari Begun. This name also perfectly explains the dish because the sour flavor of the dish is like that of an Achar (pickle). After making the dish, it even smelled like Achar. So this is what you should be expecting from the dish, a brinjal based dish with thick gravy that tastes like Achar.

Now I did something very off character today, I spiced up (literally) the recipe a bit. But I did so under the supervision of my mother so I would not burn down the kitchen or completely ruin the dish. Let’s go through what I changed from the recipe, and how it affects the dish. So you can consider how you want to prepare it.

In the recipe, the chopped eggplants were added to the gravy directly. Whereas I fried the chopped pieces first and then added them to the gravy. The difference it makes is in the taste and texture of the pieces of eggplant. Frying the eggplants first gives them the fried texture, which I absolutely love, and makes sure that they are already cooked. It eliminates the chances of having the eggplants be undercooked as it is added last in the dish. That is a mistake I probably would have made.

For frying the onion and other spices I used Shorishar Tel (mustard oil). If you’re a Bengali you know how that affects the dish. And for anyone else, the smell and flavor of mustard oil is very desirable for spicy dishes like this. It just adds another layer of flavor on the already rich in flavor dish.

Ginger and garlic paste was used instead of chopped pieces. But that is a minor change in terms of spices. One extra spice I added was Panch Phoran. Panch Phoran literally means 5 spices. Typically it is made of fenugreek seed, nigella seed, cumin seed, black mustard seed and fennel seed in equal parts. But the proportions are changeable depending on the cook. This spice provides an earthy, pungent warmth flavor.

The flavor of Panch Phoran is not hot, unlike most spices of the subcontinent. But the flavor it provides helps bind the taste of a dish together. It is a mainstay ingredient in most Achars, so it fits right in Tok Begun. But not using Panch Phoran would not significantly alter the taste of the dish.

And with the changes made, the dish was ready. It tasted great with Khichuri, as expected. Cooking was also a fun experience where I made minimum mistakes, so that is one for the notebooks.