Although my brother and I were not typical picky eaters, my mother would experiment with new dishes. Some were heirloom recipes from her paternal grandmother, some were from our Didu (our maternal grandmother), a few were from her colleagues, and some more were collected from neighbourhood kakimas (aunts). A lot of actions happened in our home kitchen during the weekends, – a plum cake was baked solely for tiffin box purposes, coconuts were grated and stored for the upcoming week, packets of milk would be perpetually simmered or curdled for multivariational dessert purposes, and then there would be the grand preparation of ‘Bhaja Moshla’ or dry roasted and ground spices.

For the uninitiated, ‘Bhaja Moshla’ is a must-have in Bengali homes because it is used as a flavouring agent in completely vegetarian dishes like Alur Dom, Sada Motor er Ghugni, Fuchkas, and Churmurs. But there’s more to it, a dash of ‘Bhaja Moshla’ can magically turn any bland vegetable curries such as pepe-er Torkari (raw papaya curry), potol-alu-kumror rosha, or yogurt-based doi-begun or doi-potol when you can’t use mustard seed paste for making a lighter curry for dinner.

Usually, Bhaja Moshla is a customizable spice blend. There is no fixed recipe for this. Each Bengali kitchen has its own unique variety. Widely, the roasted spice blend is made with equal proportions of cumin seeds (jeera), coriander seeds (dhaniya), fennel seeds (mouri or saunf), black pepper (kali mirch or gol morich). Some people add different whole spices like cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, dry red chillies and mace with the mix of cumin-coriander-fennel-pepper, but that’s completely optional. In my home, my mother roasted a few more whole spices and pulsed it in the grinder to fill a medium-sized glass jar, ready to be used for a fortnight or so.

The ‘Bhaja Moshla’ making ritual generally took place on Saturday evenings when Maa would be cooking shukno shukno alur dom (dum aloo with almost dry gravy) and porotas (it was never a parantha for us, it was flour kneaded porota with generous amounts of ghee). Baba, as we called my father, used to be her Man Friday in the kitchen, helping her around with a broad smile. Maa didn’t quite like Baba’s help when she cooked; she might get conscious about ‘what people would tell’ if they found out that Baba also cooked in the kitchen. It was the 90s then, and the world fiercely defined patriarchal gender roles. Baba’s enthusiasm was never extinguished; he would keep doing his bit in the food preparation to help Maa finish up the cooking fast.

With Maa’s guidance, Baba would measure out the proportions of the whole spices, heat the iron tawa and dry roast the spices till a magical aroma filled up our home. While my brother was busy with his studies, Baba would wave me towards him and ask me to smell the roasted spices. I still remember the smell. The tides of time could not diffuse it up from my memory, though the home and the kitchen are not ours anymore.

In Maa’s customized Bhaja Moshla, she would add the following, – bay Leaves (Tej Pata), dry red chillies, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, black pepper, fennel, wild celery seeds (radhuni), green cardamom, cloves, cinnamon, and a handful of gobindobhog atop rice; in equal proportions. The whole spice mix was roasted till a beautiful aroma started effusing about. The roasted mix would be put in a grinding jar. After it cooled down, the roasted whole spices were blitzed to a fine dark brown powder.

The Bhaja Moshla spice mix was pretty ubiquitous in our home. For a quick tiffin box Alu Kabli, in went the garnishing of the roasted spices with cucumber and maybe tomatoes. When a lonely raw papaya settled in the cold veg rack of the fridge wanted freedom, the bhaja moshla rooted for it in the curry along with boiled chanas. When we wanted chowmein for tiffinbox in monsoons, when winter veggies were scarcely available, Maa substituted the taste with a dash of the magic Bhaja Moshla.

On the week days, especially on Tuesdays and Saturdays, when we had strictly vegetarian meals, Maa would garnish her curries with just a little dash of this Bhaja Moshla I described above and a teaspoon of ghee and cover it till she called us to set the table. You might believe it or not, the curries completely changed their avatars with the added flavour of the roasted whole spices. The curries tasted warm, umami with the right balance of pungency, sourness and sweetness. The handful of rice that was blended with the rest of the whole spices helped to add an instant thickness and substance to the otherwise commonplace summer vegetables. The bland summer vegetables like potol (pointed gourd), sweet pumpkin, long beans, potatoes, released out a wholesome flavour profile that smelled like home, our sweet home.