Curries & Stories: Bengali fish curry

Day 77 of Lockdown 5.0 and Day 9 of Unlock 1.0

The weather has turned very monsoony. I know that is not a genuine word, but when you see these lovely rain laden clouds float by your balcony, you don't feel like sticking by any grammar rules. Your heart just kind of gets into a romantic mood.

The vista in front of my home is getting surreal by the day. Though officially monsoon is stated to enter Maharashtra by weekend, the sky feels like monsoon is already here. See the below images and you will know what I am talking about. I am one of those still fortunate to have this view from my balcony even after living in the city, or I may say fringes of the city. So it may be a bit far away form the heart of Pune, but each day when I used to come back home from office before lockdown I used to feel like this view is every bit worth the travel time.

I wake up to birds chirping outside my window. I hear the breeze blowing through the mango grooves below. I can see the clouds making different formations all the time. And yeah on a clear full moon night I stand in the balcony for hours admiring the play of the moon and the clouds. I cant tell you how surreal it feels at that moment. You need to be here to witness and experience it, only then you might get an idea of what I am talking about.

The base recipe is that of my mom's. She used to make this all the time with prawns. And believe me when you make this with prawns or any freshly caught fish, the aromatics in this simple dish elevates the flavor of the fish by hundred times. When you read the recipe you will know why I am calling this a simple dish. Practically there is no ginger, garlic any of those stuffs which we often use to enhance a good spicy curry. But still whenever mom makes this, I feel it is just out of the world yummy. The trick is in how patiently you fry the onions, to give it a nice color and flavor.

After a long long time I had chanced upon some pumpkin in my neighborhood market and I was too eager to add it to my curry. So I thought why not combine the base recipe and pumpkins. I faintly remembered mom also made this combination recipe, so I was confident on the outcome.

This is the first time I was cooking Aar fish by myself. So as they say whenever you try a new fish, make it with spicy gravy so that even if the fish tastes not so good, the curry will save the day. I got the Aar fish from Fresh To Home. FTH has been such a great savior in this lockdown, and i think I am going to stick with it even in the long term because the products they give are really fresh and awesome.

Though this was the first time I was about to work with Aar, it being from the catfish family made me at easy. I am practically a pro with anything to do with the regular magur or catfish curry. It is one of my favorite foods and I love it to the core. When you put magur in any dish you barely need to do any heavy lifting in the curry. The freshness and flavor of Magur itself changes the entire dynamics of the dish.

This recipe goes well with any fish - Magur, Aar, Shoal, Rohu, Catla even prawns and other sea fishes.

Marination Time : 30 minutes

Preparation Time : 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Serving : 3-4 people

Ingredients :

Aar Mach - 500 gm (5-6 pieces)
Onion - 2 medium, sliced thinly
Green Chilli - 3-4
Pumpkin - 100 gm, diced (optional)
Coriander powder - 1 1/2 tbsp
Red chilli powder (Kashmiri lal mirch)- 1 1/2 tsp
Turmeric - 1 tsp
Cardamom - 1
Cinnamon - 1 inch
Jeera (Cumin) - 1 tsp
Bay Leaf - 1
Salt and sugar to taste
Mustard Oil

Procedure:

1. First of all wash and clean the fish. Sprinkle salt,turmeric and 1 tsp of mustard oil and coat them well. Let it marinate for about 30 minutes.

Tip: Add oil to the marinade when marinating catfish family of fish. They have a tendency to splutter a lot otherwise while frying. This will reduce the spluttering to a great extent

2. Take mustard oil in a wok. When oil is steaming, fry the fish pieces in batches till they are lightly browned on the sides. Take them out and keep it aside.

3. In the same oil saute the diced pumpkins. Please note this is completely an optional step. But since I love having regular catfish with pumpkins I decided to add some in this gravy as well. Slightly brown the edges of the pumpkin and take them out.

4. Check the oil level in the wok, if it is less add extra mustard oil and let it heat up. Add enough oil to fry two onions. When the oil is hot, temper it with a bruised cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf and jeera.

5. Toss in the thinly sliced onions. Add a pinch of salt to the onions to cook it faster. Give it a good toss and let the onion cook

6. Meanwhile in a bowl, take about half a cup of warm water. Add all the dry powdered spices to create a spice mix - turmeric, coriander, red chilli powder. Give it a good stir and let it sit till the onions are done

7. Onions should get cooked and slightly browned along the edges. Add the spice mixture and give it all a good stir. Keep the flame at medium-high. Add the salt and sugar at this stage.

Tip: I like this particular gravy a little sweet and spicy. So the amount of sugar is more than other fish gravies, like i almost added 2 and 1/2 tsp of sugar to this. But if you don't like a sweeter curry then adjust the taste accordingly.

Also, pumpkin gravies go well with a little sweetness, so that's another reason for adding sugar.

7. When it starts to release oil, add about two cups of warm water and fold in. Add the fried fish pieces and slitted green chillis.

8. Let it cook for about 5 minutes with lid on. Then add the fried pumpkins and cook for 5 more minutes giving it a slight stir.

The quick and easy fish curry is ready in a jiffy. Serve it with white rice and enjoy!

Do try this out and tag me (@curriesnstories07) on Instagram on your photos whenever you try the recipe and I will give a shout out to you.

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Day 52 of Lock Down

Well I have kind of lost track of the number of days now. Tomorrow lockdown 3.0 ends and lockdown 4.0 beings in Maharashtra. Officially it says 52 days, but I have been holed up in my home since the first week of March. Back then I had decided to work from home just as a safety measure, because employees around my cubicle were either coughing or sneezing. Who knew the work form home would spill into May or even June and no idea how much more.

As I jot this down, it started to pour outside. Like literally it is stormy weather outside and coming down as cats and dogs. From past two days, right from the morning it is cloudy. And then post afternoon we are getting light or heavy spells of rain. I think we are already getting the pre-monsoons. Somehow I don't even know where the summer went this year. we are inching into June when the monsoons are about to start. We lost a complete season to the virus, something we might have never anticipated. But the good part is, nature transformed. Getting Kalbaishakhi in Pune was something unexpected. We also transformed. We learnt to do everything a bit differently and then improvised as well. Had not it been for the lockdown, I barely got time to invest in the blog. But now I am once again investing time in things I had put on backburner even after day's office work. It feels great. Cooking, writing, photography, painting and reading all sorts of interesting stuff on the net, plus making new friends and acquaintances in food forums. There is definitely a fear looming on us about the situation around, especially when we are stepping out of the home to make essential errands. But still we are learning to live with it and adapt. The journey has been interesting so far with a few hiccups as well.

I had joined a few food groups in facebook much before the lockdown started. But I hardly spent time to check them out on a daily basis. When lockdown started, initially the time spent in looking at all I could find in facebook increased considerably. And I realized I was part of a food group names as Pune Food Group which had some amazing recipes published on a daily basis by its patrons. Watching all the amazing creations over there I felt inspired in true sense. Once the lockdown phase stabilized a bit, when we again started getting food essentials properly, I started investing a little more time in cooking dishes which I never tried before. Some of them were traditional Bengali recipes, some fusion, and some totally based on the ingredients available at any given day.

For the longest period in time I was missing getting fish. Being a Bengali its pretty unimaginable that I didn't eat any fish for over a month back then. Previously I used to get my fish supplies from local fishmongers and mostly it would be either Rohu, Catla or Magur. Because that's all I would get in my area which was aligned to my Bengali palate. Rest all were mostly the fishes which Maharashtrians preferred. Not many Bengalis live in this part of the town hence no Bengal specific fishes would come, apart from Hilsa which I would get at the nearby Big Bazar. But with the lockdown, there was absolutely no option of leaving this area, since all roads were blocked. One day to my utter joy I found a neighborhood fish store open. I wrote about the experience in my Sorshe Diye Macher Jhal blog. But then again when the soul is Bengali it can not thrive long on the Bangda and Kolambi selections alone.

So it happened that when I started posting about a few of my dishes in this FB group, I met a few folks with whom i built a good camaraderie and shared the usual fun banter. During one such instance I met Sinchita and we got talking over things including sourcing good fish in these times. That's when I got to know about Fresh to Home from her. Previously there was this one time I had bought fish online because I was not getting Catla locally and I need it for preparing curry for some guests coming over. But when it had arrived, I was utterly disappointed. Right form the packing to the contents everything was dismal. The fish was probably dead a month back and in freezer till then. The fish tasted like cardboard and I swore never to order fish online again.

But dire situations demand dire actions. So I thought I will give it a go again, especially since many members of the group were all praises for their service. Problem was that it was still the phase of lockdown 2.0 and my area came under one of the many containment zones of Pune. So whenever I was looking at the app it showed all empty. After trying for a couple of days I finally concluded that they were not servicing in this area at all. When I told this to Sinchita, she went out of her way and informed me when they were available. And I was able to place the first order. So just as a precautionary measure I ordered something else initially to gauge their quality. The delivery guy was dot on time and he was wearing all safety gears. I saw him sanitizing his hands before he touched the bag of products. The product is vacuum sealed and then put inside another packet and then the delivery guy puts it into a brown paper bag and hands it over to you. I pretty much liked what I saw. This is not a sponsored post or anything. I liked the services of Fresh to home and hence I wanted to mention it in here, so that if someone would just stumble upon my blog they might find this information useful.

After the successful attempt now I was ready to order my first fish from them. This week while just gazing the application I saw a fish that looked like Shol. I looked at it twice because Shol is something I never thought I would see anywhere outside Bengal. At least in the last decade in Maharashtra I never saw it, not even in Mumbai. When I was kind of convinced I thought its still better to double check with my mom, because the prices looked a bit steep. Immediately send a picture of it to mom who was as surprised as me and confirmed it was indeed Shol. My joys knew no bound as I ordered them. and they got delivered just on time the next day.

Shol is a fresh water fish with a firm flesh. They also known as shoal fish, channa striata, shoul fish, snakehead fish etc. Its a very popular fish in the eastern part of India, especially Bengal, Assam and Bangladesh. My first memories of this fish gravy was that prepared by my grandma when we used to visit her in vacations. She would make small pieces of the fish and that was my only gripe. I always wondered why she used to only make this particular fish into such small pieces. No way to know that now because she is no more. My best guess can be because of its firm texture, smaller pieces means better absorption of seasonings. Whenever I visit Kolkata, at least once mom would prepare this. I never realized I liked this fish this much until I saw it in the app and ordered even at Rs 200 extra per Kg than what it is in Kolkata.

The fish looked firm and pink and when I cooked it today , a day later it was still super fresh. I could tell it clearly by the way they looked when I fried them. Traditionally I prefer it with red pumpkins just the way my mom prepares. But during this lockdown I am not getting them. So next best option was lauki or lau. This is also a classic combination. Mainly this combination of fish with Vegetables might sound a bit weird to many, but its very common in the east, especially in the Bangal cuisine. A very simple and light gravy which has the goodness of both vegetables and fish making it a wholesome meal in one with rice.

Preparation Time : 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Shol Fish - 500 gm
Lau/lauki (Bottle Gourd_ - 1/2 Kg
Bay Leaf (Tej Patta)- 1
Radhuni - 1/2 tsp
Jeera (Cumin) - 1/2 tsp
Green Chillies - 2-3
Turmeric - 1 tsp + 1 tsp
Sugar - 2 tsp
Salt as required
Mustard oil

Procedure:

1. Clean the fish and marinate with salt and turmeric. Drizzle it with a little oil, it helps in coating the fishes with the spices better.

2. Fry the fish in mustard oil and keep aside

Tip: For frying fish Bengalis always prefer Mustard oil, because it cuts through the fishy smell better than refined oil

3. Peel off the skin from a Lau. Cut the lau into half rounds.

Tip: You can preserve the lau skin and make it into a nice bharta. Will share the recipe sometime.

4. Take some water in the pressure cooker like 2 cup and transfer the lau into it. Add a spoon of sugar to it. Now put the lid on and cook it for 1 whistle.

Tip: Sugar helps retain the green color of the lau even when pressure cooked.

5. Immediately remove the pressure cooker and let it stand under the tap water for a few seconds before the pressure dies and open the lid. Drain the hot water and run the lau once under normal tap water to stop further cooking process due to heat. Preserve the water separately. It will be used for the gravy base.

Tip: If you immediately open the lid of the cooker then it also helps in retaining the color. The longer it sits in the hot water, the sooner it looses the color

6. Take a wok, and heat Mustard oil. When oil is hot throw in a spoonful of jeera. Fry it for 30 seconds and take them out with a spoon into some plate. Let them cool down while you do the rest of the cooking.

Tip: Don't use iron wok for cooking Lau, it will strip off the green color and darken the dish

7. Temper the same oil with Bay leaf, slitter green chillies, cumin and radhuni.

Note: If you do not have radhuni, only jeera should also be fine.

8. Add the boiled lau and add turmeric and salt.

9. Add the Lau stock to it about 1 and a 1/2 cups. Fold every thing in.

Tip: Add the water as per your liking. Lau curries don't work with too much of gravy. It tastes best when the gravy is less.

10. Add the sugar. Now this is an essential step in a lau gravy to balance the taste. You can vary as per liking. If you want to omit it totally that should also be fine, but I feel it tastes much better with some sugar.

Note: Sugar is added only to balance the taste, gravy is not supposed to be sugary sweet.

11. Add the fish pieces now. And stir everything in.

12. Boil it for about 5- 10 minutes till the fishes start releasing their juices into it. If you want to dry off the extra water, do that in this stage.

13. Crush the fried jeera you had kept aside at step 6. No need of fine grinding. Just crush enough so they release the flavours.

14. Once the fish is cooked int he gravy, sprinkle this crushed jeera on it and cover it. Let the aroma of the fried jeera mix with the gravy till its time to serve.

Serve it with steamed rice.

Do try this out and tag me (@curriesnstories07) on Instagram on your photos whenever you try the recipe and I will give a shout out to you.

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Day 38 of lock down in India. The entire lock-down phase has been such a great learning for each and everyone of us. Be it how to utilize whatever resources we have, managing our times, feeding our family and trying to keep our spirits up. I believe we are now more grateful towards everything we have in life. It had really been super busy days, managing work and home has been an uphill task but somewhat now we have started getting used to this new way of life. Focusing less on numbers and concentrating more on our own well-being mentally and physically. If each one of us takes ample care to follow the rules and try to make peace with the situation then probably we can get out of this sooner. On Labor Day (1st May), every year we feel happy to get another holiday, time away from work. This labor Day however it was very different. People are grateful to have a job, to be able to work for essential services, to go out of home to get essential services. I saw the happiness on the face of the lone vegetable vendor sitting by the curb, when people stopped by to buy veggies. The old lady sitting with a few bunch of bananas looked at me gratefully when I bought a few bananas from her. We have all started to appreciate the fact that we have a living. Also it's Maharashtra Day for us. There are still places in my city and country where people are finding it hard to get essentials. I was really lucky to get some fish around my area when I least expected. The rules for shop opening timings are changing in my area on a daily basis almost. Since I am in one of the red zones in Pune, the rules are very stringently imposed by the police over here. Last week the shops were opening by 8 AM, but today when I went out the shops were either half shutter down or fully closed. They informed that now onward it will be from 10 AM to 12 PM strictly. But still I was lucky to get some Bangda. Indian Mackerel or more commonly known as Bangda is very popular in Maharashtra. I was not even aware of this fish when I was in west Bengal, but over here it is widely eaten. Not as pricey as the Pomphret but still I feel this one packs a punch. Many folks, one of them being my mom doesn't really like the strong smell of the fish. But I totally love it. It is very similar in smell to Hilsa. And since in this part of Pune I do not get good Hilsa supply, I usually make do with Bagda whenever I am in mood of having fried fish by the side of the main course. Here in Pune Bangda is popularly had either fried or made into a malwani curry. But making a malwani curry takes a lot of effort and not always we have the time to make such an elaborate preparation. Also amidst lockdown its very unlikely to find all the primary ingredients of a Malwani curry. Especially in my area I am not finding any coconut. Today being an office holiday, decided to make something different with Bagda which was quick and easy. Thus came the thought of creating a fusion of Bengal and Maharashtra. Now this is the first time I was trying to make an unconventional curry with Bangda so I didn't want to risk it too much. The curry had to be something which had bold flavors to neutralize the strong smell of Bangda, just in case. A quick discussion with mom led to a few options which I could try, out of which mom recommended mostly the shorsher jhal. Now the pre-requisite was that I had some big brinjals which were getting spoiled so wanted to use them as well. Yes the lock down has made us follow the no waste strategy religiously. So finally after much discussion decided to go with a sorsher jhal with brinjal and Bangda (Bangda with aubergines in mustard curry), a typical preparation with our favorite Hilsa. The outcome is pretty close in terms of flavors to the Hilsa version. And now I am wondering why I never tried this ever before. One more good day with a lot to be grateful about. #Staysafe #Beathome

Preparation Time : 10 minutes

Marination Time: 10 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

Bangda / Mackerel - 4 medium sized, halved
Brinjal (Bharta Baigan) - 1 medium
Garlic cloves - 6-7
Curd - 1/4th cup
Green chilli - 2-3
Kalonji - 1/2 tsp
Turmeric
Mustard powder - 1 tsp
Mustard Oil
Salt & Sugar as per taste

Procedure:

1. If you are using medium sized Bangda then halve it in center or else if you are using small Bangda then just a few slits across the center would be good. Clean fish and marinate with turmeric and salt for 20 mins

Tip: You can use any other fish also in this preparation like Rohu or Katla. I am recommending this because one of my friends tried my recipe with Katla and her feedback is that it came out great.

2. Take a wok and add mustard oil. Heat it till its steaming. Fry the fishes and keep aside.

3. Blend in the curd, turmeric and mustard powder. Let it rest for minimum 10-15 minutes. The reason for this is mustard is pungent so to neutralize the bitterness a bit resting it in water or curd helps.

4. Now take a trainer and sieve this mixture to get a uniform texture. This will prevent having lumps in the gravy. Keep this aside.

5. Cut brinjal into thick cubes and fry it in the same oil. Keep it aside.

Note: Here you can use the small or any other variants of Brinjal too. I even had a few ridge gourd which I added to the curry. Though its not the authentic way but it tasted great. Since the texture of ridge gourd aligns with brinjal hence they didn't clash.

6. Heat oil. Temper it with kalonji, slitted green chilli and coarsely ground garlic. Fry till fragrant

7. Add half cup water, add salt and sugar as per taste. Add the fishes and let it simmer for 3 to 4 mins

8. Add the curd-mustard paste to it. Make sure flame is low so that curd doesn't curdle.

9. Cover it and let it simmer for about 5 to 7 minutes

Serve it with steamed rice and enjoy!

Do try this out and tag me (@curriesnstories07) on Instagram on your photos whenever you try the recipe and I will give a shout out to you.

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This Friday me and some of my team mates went for the Global Testing Retreat being held in O Hotel in Koregaon Park. This was one of the largest testing conference being held in the city. Software professionals from around the globe attended the meet and presented their papers. While the seminar was good, I was rather interested in the fact that German Bakery was situated bang opposite to the O hotel. I have heard so much about the German Bakery from the time I came to Pune that I had made a plan that somehow I need to hop in there while we were at the seminar. And I easily got two partners in crime among my team mates. So as soon as the tea break was announced, as all the delegates lined up for the tea and biscuits we three stealthily slipped off and went to the German Bakery.

The German Bakery is located near to the famous Osho Ashram. You would see many disciples of Osho roaming around the street here in their maroon dresses. This eatery offers mostly European kind of dishes and is a popular hangout of the foreigners and Indians alike. The place came to the headlines of news when in 2010 a fatal terrorist attack ripped this place apart. After that it was renovated and restarted for its connoisseurs. Its a very small joint almost inconspicuous by its presence. However after the attacks they have a metal detector at the entry and your bag is combed thoroughly before you are allowed to enter its premises.

We found the place lovely and colorful, with the adept usage of blue, orange, yellow and green. We hardly had 30 minutes at our disposal hence whatever could be prepared in 10 minutes was all that we could have. The fancy menu had a lot of options like omelettes, Greek salads, gorgeous sweet dishes and what not. Good enough to confuse a first timer over here. So we stuck to the breakfast menu instead and two of us ordered scrambled eggs with toast and hash brown potato. The other ordered fresh fruit and cream. Surprisingly the scrambled eggs arrived much faster than the fruits. The quick breakfast was quite fulfilling and we returned to the seminar 10 minutes late but happily fed!

It was a happy happy Saturday following the Friday with the mercury coming down quite a few notches and pleasant breeze throughout the day. Huge respite for the parched city from the unforgiving summer heat. I was in a mood to cook good food as it didn't feel like a torture being near to all the heat. So I decided to make Doi maach which I had not prepared in a long time.

Doi maach is one of the most traditional preparations in Bengali cuisine. This mildly spiced and delicately sour gravy can be found on the menu of any Bengali household very frequently. Especially when you want an onion based fish gravy minus all the spiciness. I love making it in the summer as the gravy is not too heavy on the stomach.

The best suited fishes for this preparation are - Katla, Rohu, catfish (yes they taste awesome), salmon or any thick meaty fish would also be good.

The recipe that I am going to write about is a bit different from the traditional method and has a twist at the end. My mother used to make it all the time when I was a kid and thats the time I started to love this. So the twist is adding curry leaves in the end. I can already see raised brows on the foreheads of many Bengalis reading this. Curry leaves in Doi Macch? How non-conformist one can be? Well had I heard about it and not tasted it even I would have thought in the same way. But guys let me tell you try this out at least once to know how potent your traditional Doi maach can become just with this simple fine tuning. And no it wouldn't start tasting like a south Indian dish I guarantee you. It will still be the same old Bengali dish with enhanced flavors. Try it and you wont ever regret.

Preparation Time: 15 minutes

Cooking Time: 40 minutes

Serves: 2

Cuisine: Bengali

Ingredients:

Katla fish - 4 medium sized pieces
Curd - 2 + 1 tbsp
Fresh Ginger Paste - 1 tsp
Onion - 2 Medium
Bay Leaf - 1
Cardamom - 3
Cinnamon - 2 inch piece
Sunrise Sahi Garam masala - 1 pinch (optional)
Green Chilli - 2-3
Turmeric Powder - 1 tsp
Curry Leaves - 1 sprig
Mustard Oil - 4 tbsp
Sugar - 1 tbsp
Salt as per taste

Procedure:

1. Clean the fish and pat dry. Rub a little salt and turmeric powder to the fish pieces and set it aside for 30 mins of marination. Take care to select the fleshy parts of the fish.

2. Prepare a fine paste of onions.

3. Whisk the curd into a uniform consistency

4. Take a wok and add mustard oil in it. When the oil is smoking hot add the fish pieces and fry for 3-4 minutes on each side so that they have a uniform golden hue. Take care not to fry the fish crisp. We want a little moisture to be present in the fish pieces when we cook them in gravy. Remove the fish from the oil and keep it aside.

5. In the same oil when it is still hot add the cardamom, cinnamon and bay leaf. You can add some more mustard oil to the wok if less oil is remaining after frying the fish. be slightly generous with the oil as it enhances the taste. Once the spices are fragrant add the onion paste. Add a pinch of salt and sugar. Sugar will help the onion caramelize and salt will help it to cook faster. Keep stirring the paste occasionally to avoid it from sticking to the wok.

6. When the onion paste is lightly golden add the ginger paste. Keep frying this mixture until its rich light golden in color and the oil begins to separate. At this stage add 2 tbsp of whisked curd. Fold in. Keep frying till the curd is uniformly mixed in the onion ginger paste.

7. Add two cups of lukewarm water and the fried fish pieces.

8. Add turmeric powder, salt, sugar and stilted green chillis. On medium flame simmer the gravy till oil floats up and the gravy takes a gorgeous golden yellow hue. The fish should be really tender by now. Add the remaining 1 tbsp of whisked curd and give a few minutes for the curd to mix well into the gravy. If you feel your curd might curdle then take the wok off from flame add the curd when the gravy has cooled down and then put it back on the flame to simmer. But what I have notice now a days that rarely the curd curdles, whether its Amul masti, sphurti, daone or any other brand that I am using.

But since curd is one of the key ingredients of the recipe make sure you use a good brand.

9. At this stage add a pinch of Sunrise sahi garam masala. If you don't have this brand of garam masala you can finely grind cardamom and cinnamon and sprinkle it else you may omit this step altogether but DO NOT add any other brand of garam masala as they contain different ingredients than what is required here and may totally alter the flavor.

10. The last and final step add the magic to this very traditional Bengali recipe. Add a few curry leaves to the gravy and switch off the flame. Cover the wok and let the spicy fragrance of curry leaves intertwine with the subtle flavor of curd. The contrasting aromas will blow away your senses :)

Enjoy it with piping hot steamed rice.