EID-UL-FITR FEAST 2020

Eid has been a roller coaster for me. I have spent Eid in many various places: Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh both while on vacation and while living there, Japan, and the US. I have always seen my mom prepare various Eid delicacies, the whole process being a festival on it owns. The rush, the heat and the aroma fills the air and warms us up for Eid the following day. But since last year when I moved to Japan all by myself and now in the US with my hubby, it was my turn to follow into my mom's footstep. I wanted to prepare various delicacies but Eid showed up at our door just a week before our move to the new place. Instead I tried something different which is also a famous delicacy in Bangladesh. It is none other than Nehari, I have been dying to make them for a while but couldn't muster up the courage to do so and this was just the start. Often times, people would cook things, that would go well with Nehari for a full meal. Instead I had to go for something completely out of our cuisine, beef pot pies. Interesting combo, don't you think? I know I was surprised too.

NEHARI

First off, I asked my mom for references. As I have mentioned numerous times before, I always circle back to my mom instead of YouTube for recipes. She has the simplest instructions and leaves out a lot of room for my creativity. So I took up a mixing bowl and added in the beef marrow bones to it. I then added my seasonings: salt, red chili powder, turmeric powder, cumin powder, coriander powder, mixed spices, star anise, minced garlic, ginger paste, and sugar. I marinated the beef marrow bones for about 2 hours or so. Next, in a pan smeared with oil, I added in some onions and green chili. Once the onions started to brown, in went my marinated beef marrow bones. One of the reasons I feared cooking this dish, was the long hours of cooking time but could I be any more wrong? It barely took an hour and a half. I always thought this would be very difficult to cook but GOSH! my mom made this so much easier for me and it tasted so good. It goes really well with flat breads, tortilla, bread YUM!

Ingredients:

1 lb beef marrow bone

1 tsp salt

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp red chili powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1.5 tsp sugar

0.5 tsp mixed spices

3 pcs star anise

2 cups onions

3 pcs green chili

BEEF POT PIE

This was actually pretty easy and fun to make. I don't enjoy baking too much (cause I barely can) but once you have the frozen puff pastry sheets, there isn't much to do, to be honest. All I had to do was apply some egg wash on the puff pastry sheets, bake them for 10-12 minutes, remove the top and add in the filling. I had beef seasoned, cooked and prepared beforehand. I just mixed it with a little bit of sweet sauce and chopped up lettuce before adding it to the puff pastries. What I enjoyed the most was the rise of the pastry, how can a frozen pastry of 1-inch height go up to 4 inches? I guess I will never know, cause I can tell how difficult it would be to make it. Just kidding! Maybe in future I will make my own puff pastry sheets.