To celebrate Poila Boishakh or Bengali New Year, I plan to cook at least one Bengali dish each day this week. This is what I grew up seeing, Maa continued making mouth-watering stuff for a week after Boishakhi, those things that she didn't usually make everyday. It was not just our family who benefited from this but our neighbors did too. Me and my brother made multiple trips to our neighbors' houses delivering those in stainless steel bowls. One New Year special dish she used to make was rahu or katla fish in fennel-milk gravy. I made this unique dish following Maa's recipe with rahu on Poila Boishakh this year. Here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
- Rahu - 10 pieces
- Grated onion - 1/2 cup
- Ginger paste- 2 tbsps
- Green chilies, slit - 5-6 or according to your taste
- Turmeric - 1&1/2 tsps
- Chili powder - 1 tsp
- Tomato sauce - 1/4 (****you can use 1 medium tomato, grated instead of the sauce like Maa. I didn't have tomatoes at home so used this. Make sure you use a good quality tomato sauce; I used Pomi.*****)
- Hot water - 1 cup
- Whole milk - 1/2 cup
- Salt - 2 tsps
- Fennel, ground - 2 tsps
- Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
- Sugar - 1/2 tsp
- Cream - 1 tbsp
- Ghee - 1 tsp
- Mustard oil - 2 + 3 tbsps
Procedure:
- Sprinkle 1/2 tsp turmeric and 1 tsp salt on the rahu pieces and sub over the fishes nicely. Marinate for 1/2 hour.
- Heat 2 tbsps oil in a non-stick pan and fry the fish pieces till light golden in color. Set aside.
- Now add 3 tbsps of oil to the pan, heat and add the fennel seeds and chilies to temper oil.
- Turn the to medium and to that, add ginger, chili powder and turmeric. Keep stirring until the masala is light golden in color.
- Add tomato sauce, hot water, sugar and the rest of the salt to the masala and give a good stir. Let the gravy boil for 2-3 minutes.
- Turn the flame to medium-low and gradually release the fish pieces into the gravy. Cover and cook for about 3 minutes.
- Open cover, turn the fish pieces and cook uncovered for a minute.
- Sprinkle the ground fennel seeds over the gravy, stir carefully so that the powder gets incorporated.
- Check salt and add if needed. the gravy will be salty with a hint of sweetness.
- Now add the ghee, stir and turn off heat.
- Let it sit for 5 minutes before serving.
- Enjoy with a hot bowl of rice.
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