Let’s throw some light on the unobvious. For all those who don’t know, Bengali cuisine can be largely dissected in to two broad categories; cuisine from East Bengal (now Bangladesh) and that from the west (now West Bengal). Of course, one can also notice a lot of recipes that are produced by the intersection of the east and the west.“Ilish Paturi” or Hilsa smoked in banana leaf is a typical East Bengali cuisine that tastes just as good as looks!
Ingredients:
- 500 gms Hilsa steak
- ½ tsp turmeric powder
- 3 tbsp of black mustard
- 3 tbsp of yellow mustard
- 2tsp poppy seeds (posto)
- 4 tbsp mustard oil
- Banana leaves
- Salt
Procedure:
- Given that the process involves a fair amount of marinating thefish, I’d advice you to tackle the mustard paste at first. Mix the black mustard seeds, the yellow ones, poppy seeds, salt and sugar to prepare the paste.
- Add mustard oil and tumeric powder to the paste.
- Slice the hilsa into six steak pieces.
- Smoothly spread the paste across the fish pieces. Marinate preparation for an hour.
- Cut the banana leaves into neat rectangular pieces.
- Wrap each fish steak in the banana leave cut-outs and tie up the same with a string.
- Cook the enveloped steaks in a pre-heated oven (180 degree C) for 15 to 20 minutes. Alternately you can also cool the steaks on low heat in a greased tava.