Okay so I will be sharing the family favorite recipe for a Bengali chicken curry (Kosha Murgi). Every family has their own version, and ours is pretty loved by guests, so it is a winner :)

Get a skinned chicken jointed into medium sized pieces (not too big). Since Indian chickens are quite scraggy, often cutting one into 12 pieces is enough, but for American chickens you need to make more pieces. Quarter medium sized potatoes.

Okay, now on to the curry paste. Blitz together (onions, ginger, garlic) and mix with natural yogurt, cumin powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, red chilly powder (or paprika if you don't like it hot) and slather the chicken in it. Coat the potatoes in salt, red chilly powder and turmeric powder and just a tiny pinch of sugar (to help with caramelization). We usually cook with mustard oil, but vegetable oil would be fine too. If using olive oil, don't use extra virgin. :) Fry the potatoes until golden on the outside but still not cooked through.

Time for the action. make sure you have enough oil (like 3 tbsps if using 1 kg of chicken), and add in 2 dried bay leaves to splutter. When it has done its job, tip in the chicken in its marinade, season with salt and turn the heat right up. Don't add water now. The chicken should reach a boiling point and cook for a sufficient amount of time, until the curry paste is looking lovely and brown, and has released oil. At this point, add in some storebought spice-mix you want to add (eg: garam masala; you could also used powdered clove-cassia-cardamom instead). Add the potatoes, and hot water to just cover everything. Check seasoning, cover and cook until everything is tender.

Lastly, sprinkle chopped cilantro and serve over rice. The gravy could be made more oozy or dry, it is your wish :)

My favorite dinner would be rice, lentils and some vegetables. And it would usually take somewhere between 45 mins to an hour. But I guess that is because rice takes some time to cook. Contrary to popular belief, Indian meals are not always labor-intensive or slow cooked.

We have some easy stir fried vegetables with a tempering of spices that hardly take 10 minutes, that I love. Lentil soup (not pureed) with spices is always a favorite, with regional variations around the country. One of the most comforting Bengali dinners I can think of is pretty straight forward and easy to make. The time needed for the cooking is not proportional to the work you have to do, and the results are fabulous.

Cook rice to your liking. Add halved potatoes into the same pot to cook simultaneously. Sometimes the lentils (red or moong) are also packed into a little metal container and added to the same pot to cook through, but nowadays we just boil it separately in another pot. When lentils are mushy (yep mushy), just whisk them well to make the soup creamy. In a separate pan, add oil and temper with a dried bay leaf, tomatoes, cumin seeds and tomatoes. Add turmeric powder and salt to the lentils and throw in the tempering. Add loads of chopped cilantro. The boiled potatoes must now be ready to be peeled. Mash them and mix with onions and a dried red chilli crispened up in oil, and crushed with salt.

Enjoy your Dal (lentils), bhaat (rice), and alu seddo (mashed potatoes). God, it is comfort food at it's best.

I loved your ideas, especially the burrito bowls and the lentils with greens. Food in bowls is always the best, don't have to worry too much about how you hog down on it. :D

Btw, I am from India and that's not how Dum Aloo is made. You should probably swap in the coconut milk with some natural yogurt instead, and then you could call it that. :) Also I am surprised it has no cumin or coriander powders, that's unusual. The spices you've mentioned are the warmer ones used in little amounts, but cumin and coriander are staples and used more lavishly. :)