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| Ilish maach bhaaja bhaat |
How lessons from my mother and grandmother, both born in Dhaka, featured in our lunch in Mumbai today.
“Girls these days make ilish using mustard paste and so much more in TV shows,” said didu, my nonagenarian maternal grandmom, to me on the phone one evening a couple of years back. “When I was a child in Dhaka, there was an abundance of ilish (hilsa). My mom, grandmom and aunts would smear slices of fresh ilish in the rains with a hint of turmeric and salt and lightly stir them on a pan of mustard oil and serve. This is called shatlano. You would put more spices only when the fish was not fresh.”
I remembered her words when I called in for fish from Poonam at Khar market today. This included a one kilo ilish (Rs 1,200 a kilo). “Howrah ilish,” she said. Which could mean anything, perhaps the Irrawady and not the Ganges. My mom always says that you should fry some fish and eat it when you bring it home from the market and I followed her advice today. She would keep the gaada (bony back) pieces for the bhaaja when we were growing up and used the peti for curries. We now get the ilish cut it in the restaurant-like gaada peti pieces so that both K and I get the peti (belly) piece which has less bones.
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| Bhaat with tel (oil) |
The ilish was smeared with turmeric, salt and red chilli powder and shallow fried in mustard oil. I boiled some short grained kolam rice to have with it and on which I poured a bit of cow’s milk ghee and the mustard oil remaining in the pan. I took my first bite, and sang ‘aha ki ananda’ like Goopy in Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne. Oh, and did I tell you that the fish had maccher deem (roe) and was fairly tender and juicy to eat?
To make things perfect, the boys let us eat undisturbed. They did hang with me when I wrote earlier.
Thank you so much Amitabh