Hilsa curry with eggplant ( বেগুন দিয়ে ইলিশ ঝোল )

 Ingredients:

Hilsa - 500 g (buy ~650 g - which should become ~500 g after cleaning)

Eggplant - 200 g (1 medium)
Potatoes - 2 medium (optional)

Green chili - 3 (slit longitudinally)

Nigella seeds - 1 teaspoonful

Turmeric powder - 1.5 teaspoonful

Red chili powder - 1 teaspoonful (or less if you want it less spicy)

Salt - according to taste

Hilsa is considered the King of Fishes in terms of taste. It takes minimal effort to cook but maximum effort to eat. Its flesh is very soft, has a lot of oil and a special strong smell which is considered so delicious that whatever way it is cooked, it tastes great. Actually, the only strong spice that goes with Hilsa is mustard, anything else will kill the special flavour of the fish itself. It is also one of the few fishes that do not always need to be fried before cooking.
But one must be very careful when eating Hilsa. It is said that every kilogram of Hilsa has 10,000 bones. The bones (especially in flesh around the spine) are vey small, so you can start chewing the fish and separate the bones in your mouth by feeling them and moving them between your teeth  slowly with your tongue. The bones in the belly meat are bigger and are better separated with fingers.

Procedure:

1. Marinate the fish with 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 1/2 teaspoonful of turmeric, 1 teaspoonful of red chili powder for 15 minutes.
2. Chop the eggplant into ~3" long, ~1.5" wide and ~1" thick pieces. If it is a big one, first cut it crosswise into 3" long parts. Then take each part and have it lengthwise. Then make parallel 1" thick cuts lengthwise.
3. If adding potatoes, chop them into long thick pieces [ 1 crosswise cut, three parallel lengthwise cuts ( ||| ) and another two lengthwise cuts perpendicular to these three (=)] or about the same size as the eggplant.
4. Marinate the eggplant pieces with 1/2 teaspoonful of tureric powder and 1/2 teaspoonful of salt and 1 tablespoonful of oil. It tends to  absorb the oil fast. So mix these quickly (or add more oil) and evenly to give the eggplant pieces an even quote of the spices.
5. Lightly stir fry the eggplant pieces.
6. If using potatoes, lightly stir fry them too.
7. In whatever oil is left over (1 tablespoonful should be enough), add the nigella seeds as phoron. Within 10-20 seconds, add the slit green chilis. 
8. Add water after ~20-30 seconds. 
9. If you are using potatoes add them now and let cook until they are almost cooked. Then add the eggplant pieces and the marinated fish. Otherwise, add the eggplant pieces and the fish right away.
10. Cook until the fish is done (another 10 minutes in medium/low flame with cover) .
11. You may garnish it with chopped coriander leaves and serve.

Jhaal jhinge (Hot ridge-gourd)

Ingredients:
Ridge gourd - 300 g
Onion (medium) - 1  (long thick slices)
Green chili - 5-10 (whole or slit into two longitudinally)
Cumin powder - 1/2 teaspoonful
Coriander powder - 1/2 teaspoonful
Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoonful
Oil - 1/4 cup
Salt - according to taste
Any hard drink (according to taste) with >= 45% alcohol v/v - 350 ml or more

Procedure:

1. Remove the outer hard part of the skin of the ridge gourd. Chop it into 2" long and 1/2" thick pieces (should come to the shape and size of the green chilies after cooking).
2. Heat the oil in a deep pan.
3. Add the onion and fry until soft.
4. Add the chilies.
5. When the chilies start to lose colour, add the ridge gourd.
6. Keep tossing and mixing with a spatula until the ridge gourd softens and loses colour.
7. The ridge gourd should release a lot of water. You can add 1/2 a cup of water if required. Add turmeric powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and salt. Mix well.
8. Cover and cook for 10-15 minutes (until the ridge gourd is completely done)
   . The end result should have little gravy, but not completely dry either.
9. Serve the alcohol to your subject first.
10. Once you are convinced that the chap is drunk, serve the "jhaal jhinge" (preferably with some white rice).
11. The subject will get all shaken up (especially when chewing a green chili - which is now indiscernible from the gourd) and appreciate the food, while struggling to figure out if they are selling hot ridge gourd in the market these days. Keep ample ample amount of drinking water and/or sugar handy.
12. If the subject is bigger than you, make sure you have a life-insurance before starting any of this.
13. If you are not using alcohol, reduce the amount of chili to 1-2.

Kumro-r chhakkaa (Dry pumpkin curry)

Ingredients:
Pumpkin - 300 g
Sprouted gram - 50 g
Dried red chili -  2
Tejpatta - 2
Paanch phoron - 2 teaspoonfuls
Green chili - 1 (chopped)
Turmeric powder - 1 teaspoonful
Cumin powder - 1/2 teaspoonful
Coriander powder - 1/2 teaspoonful
Onion - 2  medium (chopped into long thin slices)
Sugar - 1 pinch
Oil - 1/2 cup

Procedure:

1. Wash the red gourd, remove seeds and peel it. Cut it into 1" cubes.
2. Mix 1/2 teaspoonful salt and 1/2 teaspoonful turmeric powder with the pumpkin pieces.
3. Chop the onions into thin long slices.
4. Chop the green chilies.
5. Heat the oil in a pan.
6. Add the paanch phoron, red chilies and tejpatta.
7. After the spices get brown (20-30 seconds), add the green chili and the onion.
8. When the onion becomes soft, add the sprouted grams. Cook for 5 minutes at medium heat.
9. Add the pumpkin. Sprinkle the turmeric, coriander and cumin powder and a pinch of sugar. Stir and mix well.
10. Cover and cook under low heat for ~15 minutes (until the pumpkin pieces are well done). If the pumpkin is too dry, it may tend to get stuck at the bottom of the pan. Dash a little water to avoid this.

Murgi-r maangso (Chicken curry)

Same ingredients and process as mutton curry. Only use chicken meat in stead of goat. This takes much less time to cook. So change timings accordingly.
Also, chicken meat has a much milder taste and flavour than mutton. So you may want to tone down the spices a bit.

Paanthaa-r maangso (Mutton curry)

Ingredients:

Goat meat - 500 g (neck and rib portions are the best)

Curd – 100 g (or 1 whole lemon or 2 teaspoons of vinegar)

Tarmeric powder – 3 teaspoonfuls (not heaped).

Cumin powder – 3 teaspoonfuls (not heaped).

Coriander powder – 2 teaspoonfuls (not heaped).

Red chilly powder – 1 teaspoonful (or according to taste).

Salt – 5 teaspoonfuls (not heaped, or according to taste).

Green cardamom – 5 pods

Cinnamon stick – 2 inches

Clove – 5 pieces

Tejpatta(Malabathrum) – 2

Cooking oil – 8 tablespoons

Onion – 250 g

Ginger paste – 50 g

Garlic – 5 pods

Green chilly – 2 (or more according to taste)

Optional Ingredients:

Potatoes - 2 medium sized

Asafoetida – according to taste

Cashew nuts – 10 pieces

Raisins – 5 pieces

Dried red chilly – 2 (or more according to taste).

Sugar – 1/4 teaspoon.

Procedure:

1. Clean the meat with water. Drain all the water.
2. Add 2 teaspoonfuls of tarmeric powder, all the red chilly powder, 1 teaspoonful of coriander powder, 2 teaspoonfuls of cumin powder, 3 teaspoonfuls of salt to the meat.
3. Pour 2 tablespoonfuls of oil on it and mix with your hand(which may be painful due to the chilly powder, but most effective) or a spatula. The longer you mix it the better.
4. Add the curd or the vinegar or squeeze out the juice from the lemon and continue mixing. Curd will produce a thicker gravy.
5. Once all the meat pieces are covered with the spice mixture, leave it for at least half an hour. Again, the longer you can marinate, the better. You can even leave it in the fridge overnight.
6. If you want potatoes in the meat, cut them into quarters and stir-fry them until golden brown and slightly softer.
7. Heat oil, add 1 inch of cinnamon stick, 2 tejpattas, 2 cardamom pods, 3 cloves and 2 green chillies (slit into two or chopped into smaller pieces). You may add a pinch of sugar (1/4 teaspoon or less) to get a dark red colour of the gravy.
8. Once the tejpattas start getting dark (~15-20 s), add the cashews and the raisins (if at all) and then add the ginger paste and the smashed garlic. Stir for 20-30 s (until the garlic paste changes colour).
9. Add the onion (chopped into ~2 mm thick long slices). Keep tossing andturning the spices with a spatula until the onion becomes golden brown. If it gets stuck at the bottom, add a teaspoonful of oil and keep scraping it off with the spatula.
10. Add the marinated meat. Keep turning it around. A lot of water and melted fat will come out of it. Mix well with the spices.
11. Add the cumin powder and the coriander powder.
12. You can reduce the heat and cook it without adding any water and without covering the pot, making it relatively dry. This is called “kashaa”. No potatoes go into mutton kashaa. On the other hand, you can add water to drown the meat completely and cover the pot and cook in medium/low flame until the meat is almost cooked. If you want to add potatoes, add them at this stage. Both the meat and the potatoes should get done simultaneously. Add 1 teaspoonful of tarmeric powder and 2 teaspoonfuls of salt (or according to taste).
13. When the meat is cooked, you can slit the rest of the green chillies and put them into the dish. This will add the flavour of green chilly without actually making it too spicy.
14. Just before serving, smash two cardamom pods, 2 cloves, 1 inch cinnamon stick and sprinkle it into the dish. Mix it well with the meat. You can also add asafoetida at this stage. The dish can be garnished with fresh coriander leaves.

Common steps in Bengali cooking

1. Marination (often skipped for vegetables): oil, salt and turmeric powder is the common marinade for all vegetables, fish and meat. Red chilly powder is often added to it. For meat, some acidic item (curd/lemon juice/vinegar) is also commonly added to the marinade.
2. Phoron: In the second stage, oil is heated up in a hemispherical pot (kadaai) and spices are added and cooked. Each spice gives out its best flavour at a particular temperature of the oil and should be cooked for only around a certain duration. Hence, the sequence of adding spices is considered important.
   1. Heating the oil: First heat the pot until any water drops on it evaporate completely. Then add the oil.
   2. If there are any bubbles in the oil, they will vanish when the oil is sufficiently hot. Also, when vapour starts emanating from the top of the oil, it is time to start adding the spices.
   3. Items to be added to the oil first are called phoron (things that burst). These are usually dry spices. Most common is panch phoron, but may vary depending on the dish.

Start your kitchen exhaust at full speed in this stage as the strong smell of the chemicals coming out of the spices mixed with oil vapour is bound to make you and your neighbours cough and sneeze. Let this go on for about 20 seconds (until the seeds are done with bursting, becoming darker in colour).

3. Pasted and chopped spices: Second you can add the semi-dry spices and pastes. These will cool the oil down and prevent the phoron from getting charred. Ginger and garlic (paste or crushed) can be added in this stage. Add onion (chopped or paste) last in this stage. Keep mixing the spices and scraping the bottom of the pot with a spatula to prevent anything from sticking. If the spices still tend to stick to the pot, adding a little more oil will help. You may want to reduce the heat after adding all the spices. Keep cooking until the mixture of spices is golden.
4. Vegetables: Now add tomatoes, potatoes or other vegetables that go into the dish. If it is a meat dish, this the time to add the meat, too. Keep mixing the spices with the vegetables (or meat) until everything is evenly distributed. In case of meat, water will come out and you can reduce the heat and cover the pot and let it cook until completely/almost done (this is called kashaa – which is a dish by itself if completely done, or you can add water midway and cook the meat in the gravy to make jhol).
5. Boiling: Add water (amount varying according to the nature of the dish). When the water starts boiling, add cumin, coriander, turmeric paste/powder. Leave at low/medium heat until vegetables are completely cooked.

If you are cooking fish, add it last(when vegetables are almost done) and let it cook in the gravy for 5-10 minutes (usually the marinated fish is semi-fried in oil beforehand).

6. Finishing: For some dishes, additional dry spices are (roasted and) powdered and sprinkled on/mixed with the food just before serving. For example, “garam mashla” (cardamom, cinnamon and cloves freshly smashed without roasting) is added to most spicy meat-dishes. Cumin seeds are freshly roasted and coarsely ground and mixed with fish/daal/vegetables to add fragrance. Coriander leaves, curry leaves or mint are also usually added at the end to retain the freshness of the flavour.

Important spices

Paanch phoron:

A combination of five spices: fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds, nigella seeds, cumin seeds and wild celery in equal amounts. Celery or black mustard can be used in stead of wild celery.

This combination is very special to Bengali, Assamese and Oriya cuisine. It is often the first spice to be added into heated oil (along with dried red chilly and tej pata [bay leaf]) and other spices are added after these seeds stop bursting.

Garam Masala (Garom Mashlaa):

Literally this means “hot spice”. In Bengal the combination of three aromatic spices: green cardamom, cinnamon and cloves is used. However you get packed Garam Masala powder in in the market, that is usually different (dominated by cumin and coriander) from what we use as garam masala. Always ground the whole spices just before use. Otherwise the aroma fades. It is used only in special rich dishes like meat.

Turmeric (Holud):

Traditionally boiled and dried turmeric rhizomes were soaked in water to soften it and then ground to a paste. This maintains the maximum flavour of the spice. But because of the significant effort required in making the paste, powdered turmeric is most popular.

Turmeric powder is almost ubiquitous in Bengali dishes. It is added to fish, meat and vegetables along with salt and red-chilly powder and oil as a common marinade. It is also added for colour and flavour to most dishes (during Boiling)

Cumin (Jeera):

Jeera or cumin seed is the next most common spice. Apart from being a component of “paanch phoron” it is used on its own in various ways.

Cumin seeds are commonly used as “phoron” (stage 2) for fish dishes, where “paanch phoron” is not used. Paste of cumin seed is a common ingredient for “jhol” (added in step Boiling). For a strong flavour, it can be dry roasted and ground and added at the end (Finishing).

Coriander seeds (Dhone/Dhaniya):

Coriander seeds have a strong flavour and can be added to Daal along with paanch phoron (Phoron). Powdered/pasted coriander seed can be used in jhol along with/ in stead of cumin (Boiling). It is also used in tomato chutney for flavour.

Nigela seeds (Kaalo Jeera/ Black Jeera/ Kalonji):

This has a very special flavour and is rather specific to Bengali/east Indian cuisine. Apart from being part of paanch phoron it can be used on its own just like cumin. When used on its own, hardly any other spice needs to be added to that dish. Such dishes are usually very mild in taste. Most fresh water fishes, hilsa and pomphret can be cooked this way.

Asafoetida (Hing):

This has very strong flavour and often avoided(along with onion and garlic) by religious Hindus. On the other hand, foodies love it as it can add a very rich flavour to any food. However one should be economic in its use as any excess may spoil the taste. One common use of asafoetida is in the filling for parathas and kachouris.

Omum seed (Joan/Ajwayan):

This hot-tasting spice is used in parathas. It is also considered a digestive and chewed with a pinch of salt after meals. It can also be used as a phoron in daal.

Fennel seed (Mouri/Saunf):

This is one of the components of paanch phoron. It can be used as a phoron on its own when making chutney.

Fenugreek seed (Methi):

This is a bitter but aromatic spice and one of the components of paanch phoron. If you do not like the bitter taste, use in small amounts (in paanch phoron using 1/4-th the quantity of each of the other components will avoid the bitterness while adding sufficient flavour).

Coconut milk:

Most “malai-curries” (most commonly prawn malai-curry or narkel chingri and chicken malai-curry) are made from coconut milk. It is best to extract it fresh from a mature coconut. But it is also available as packed powder. Grate a fresh coconut. Mix a little warm water (~50 ml) and squeeze out the milk using your hand. If using powder, add 3 tablespoons(~20 g) of the milk solid to 1 cup of warm water (~150 ml).

Cardamom (Elaach / Elaichi):

Cardamom has a strong yet soothing flavour. So it can be used in very spicy meat dishes as well as very mildly flavoured deserts (like paayasam or khir). But unlike Sweden, in Bengal it is considered a very expensive and special spice. So it is used sparingly only in special dishes. Green cardamom is one of the ingredients of Garam Mashala (meaning hot spice).

Cinnamon (Daaruchini / Daalchini):

This has sweet aroma and a strong flavour. This is the major component of Garam Mashala. In meat dishes, keep the proportion of cinnamon high compared to cardamom. In deserts keep the cinnamon low compared to cardamom.

Clove (Lavanga):

This is the other ingredient of Garam Mashala. Clove has even stronger taste and smell than cinnamon. It creates a burning sensation in the tongue when chewed directly. Use it sparingly as it will dominate all other flavours in food and excess may make the taste unpleasantly strong. If you are adding whole cloves, four to six buds are enough for a dish for up to eight people and when ground, three to five buds will do the job.

Malabathrum (Tejpatta):

This is very commonly used as phoron. When using it as phoron, quickly follow it with other (wet) spices as it tends to get charred easily. It goes with almost every dish, from daal to meat to paayes (khir). It adds aroma without changing the taste too much. Usually one or two big leaves are enough in a dish for five people.