Pitter Patter Rain drops
Pitter Patter rain drops
I am wet through so are you
Brishti pore tapur tupur
nadey elo baan
shib thakurer bie hobe
tin konya daan
ek konya randhe bare
ek konya khan
ek konya raag kore
sasur barhi jaan.
Even this evergreen poem associates rain with some food. The silver drops of rain brings in the silver fishes from the river onto our plate. I still cherish the memory of baba proudly carrying the whole fish from market during this season. Mom used to make several mouth watering dishes with that fish from simple fried to paturi, steamed (bhapa), sarshe ilish and so on.
Every bengali has soft corner for ilish. Like the conflict between Ghoti (West Bengal) and Bangal (East bengal), the debate is still on between Gangar Ilish and Padmar ilish. I guess Padmar Ilish wins the debate though with major votes. As my parental house is just beside Ganges, have been lucky to taste the freshly caught Hilsa from Ganges. Although here we get to taste the frozen Hilsa from Bangladeshi stores, I can hardly compare taste fo fresh hilsa with frozen version of Padmar Ilish. Wish I can taste both side by side and can give better result.
As Hilsa being very pricey fish, I scare to experiment with this fish rather make the old school method of sarshe ilish, bhapa ilish, doi ilish, ilish begun, simple jhol, etc. A few days back I found an interesting recipe of Ilish in a forum in Facebook, and thought of giving it a try. Actually who posted the recipe is very popular in that forum. He (Swapan Bose) is simply superb cook and a good food critique and explorer. Although I have never tasted the food that he cooked but the pictures and his minutely detailed recipe inspire a lot of people like me. This is is adapted from his recipe with a little twist.
Ingredients
1. Hilsa fish 3-4 pieces
2. Mustard seeds 2 tablespoon, soaked and grind to a paste
3. Mustard oil 3 tablespoon
4. Fenugreen seeds 1 teaspoon
5. Tamarind paste 1/2 teaspoon
6. Green chilli 4 (3 slit green chillies and 1 grounded with mustard)
7. Water(desired consistency)
8. Sugar 1 pinch
9. Salt as per taste
Process:
1. Marinate the Hilsa pieces with salt and turmeric powder for 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile make a paste of the mustard seeds with green chillies. I use Mr Coffee Coffee maker/grinder to grind small amount of mustard and poppy seeds. In this grinder I can even add little water. In my previous version of coffee grinder I could not add any water, we had to do only dry grinding. Now this has saved me though. I have soaked the mustard seeds for 30 minutes and then have ground it.
3. If you have fresh tamarind, you can soak and squeeze the juicy pulp out. I have used tamarind concentrate. I have taken 1/2 teaspoon of tamarind concentrate and mixed 2 teaspoons of water to make the pulpy liquid.
4. Mix the tamarind pulp with the mustard-green chillies paste.
5. Take a micro-safe bowl. Put the mustard-green chillies and tamarind paste. Arrange the fish pieces. Add water of desired consistency.
6. Add salt and also just a pinch of sugar for the gravy.
7. Now heat mustard oil 3 tablespoon in a pan. When the smoke comes out reduce the heat and add methi/fenugreek seeds. Fry them until they turn black. Switch off the oven. Discard the methi seeds off the oil.
8. Pour that oil over the fish and mixture in the micro safe bowl. The methi seeds has left the flavor in the oil. You can also add onion seeds or kalo jeere or kalonji too, with it. I have not used this time. Place slit green chillies also.
9. Now cover the micro-safe bowl and cook it in micro-oven for 12-15 minutes.
(Take the bowl out of the oven and check with a fork or spoon whether it is cooked. If not, cook it for some more time)
10. Now serve it hot with steamed rice.
Enjoy!!!
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