Kechki Maach er Charchari | Small fish like Minnow or white bait cooked with potatoes and eggplant Kechki, Kachki or Kaski is a tiny, shimmering like silver fish that is very commonly found in freshwater ponds, streams and rivers of rural Bengal. They are really tiny, even smaller than the mourala fish.  These small fishes have such soft bones that they are cooked and eaten whole.

Chirer Pulao | Poha the Bengali wayBengali Chirer Pulao or Chirar Polao is largely similar to a Poha, with small differences like the former does not usually have kari patta, is sweeter and is overall Bong. Made with flattened rice, called chire or poha, the Bengali version is studded with vegetables like potatoes, cauliflower, carrots and sweet peas in winter. Garnished with fried peanuts or

Though we get each and every vegetable around the year and at all times, every season I tend to gravitate towards those vegetables which were specific to that season  while growing up. Well, I make an exception when it comes to three of my favorite vegetables -- tomatoes, cauliflower and coriander leaves. These were very much winter vegetables in my childhood and even while waxing

Potol er Dolma | Potoler Dorma | Stuffed Pointed Gourd The word Dolma, from the Turkish verb Dolmak, means to be filled and refers to all kinds of stuffed food in the Ottoman cuisine, the most popular being stuffed grape leaves. The Persians call it Dolmeh. The Bengalis call it Dolma or even Dorma. Potoler Dolma or Dorma is a very popular Bengali dish made with the summer

Ilish Tauk | Ilish Machher Tok/Ambol | Hilsa Fish ChutneyChutney, Ambol and Tok are the three different varieties of sour dishes in Bengal, the difference being in the sourness and thickness of the gravy in the dish. While Chutneys are the sweetest with a thick, sticky base, the ambol and tauk/tok are more sour and have a thinner gravy. Of all this, the Tauk(or Tok) is supposed to be the most

This Salsa Egg Curry saga goes way back to pre-Independence India, when my grandmother was a young girl who tended wild hens in her backyard while making fresh salsa that a Mexican traveler had taught her! Those wild country hens laid some delicious brown eggs and the Mexican traveler had brought her some of his country's fresh hot jalapenos. Actually that was his way of proposing marriage but

Peper Shukto | Raw Green Papaya ShuktoShukto, in Bengali cuisine holds a very important place as a palate cleansing starter to a gourmet meal. Dating back in origin to the medieval period (as mentioned in Mangal-Kavya, shukto recipes might vary over time and region but a bitter vegetable is always the mainstay. The more common Bengali shukto is cooked with a mélange of vegetables. This

Maachher Dim er Bora | Bengali Fish Roe FrittersFor fish loving Bengalis, the fish roe or macher dim is a delicacy that they hanker for. Nope we are not talking of caviar! While Ilish maach er dim(Hilsa Fish roe) is the star, the Rui Maach er dim comes a strong second when it is made into fritters or bora. Mostly available during the monsoon season, the fish roe of sweet water fish like Rui or

Some days you wake up in the morning on a weekend and your life is so mundane that you sit down with a cup of chai and a foot long bottlegourd. No, you do not do anything new with the bottlegourd, you just chop it! You might also be watching something on your iPad while all the mundane chopping. Something like Bridgerton, which I had been resisting for a while and then finally gave in. Your life

Chhana Bhapa | Bhapa Paneer | Steamed Paneer in Mustard sauceChana Bhaape or Steamed Paneer is a very popular Bengali Dish where fresh home-made chhana (ricotta cheese) is steamed in a a sauce of mustard and coconut. It is a very quick and simple recipe. Traditionally steamed in a pot or pressure cooker but I do it in the microwave. This recipe for Chhana Bhapa tells you both methods.Jump To

Gondhoraj FishThe first time I had Gondhoraj Bhetki was about seven or eight years back at Oh! Calcutta. Even at that time, Bengali restaurants serving Bengali food in a great ambience was rare and Oh!Calcutta was kind of a trail blazer. I had found the food good enough but the restaurant too expensive. Two things had caught my fancy. One was their Nolen Gur er Ice Cream, I had never had that one

Komola Salmon|Salmon cooked with Oranges and spices Kamola Katla is a fish dish cooked with fragrant oranges made very popular by the Bengali movie Maacher Jhol. My Kamala Salmon has no relation to our Madame VP and is Salmon cooked with 🍊 oranges in a tangy, spicy Indian Curry It's been a while since I wrote here. A lot has happened since my