Pabda Mach illustrated

The Final Dish

Steps to Making the Dish. Please refer to my previous post for further directions.

This is a typical selection of Bengali Spices. The one to select for the first step, is Tumeric also known as Haldi. Spices are available in all good supermarkets.

The Haldi is sprinkled around both sides of the Pabda Fish.

The Fish should be lightly fried in hot oil

Then take the fish out and place them on a separate plate.

The selection of spices dissolved in water is then fried by itself. The fried fish is placed back and then water is added then boiled

The gravy is then thickened and the fish is ready to be served with basmati rice.

It is also true that none of my family can resist this simple but delicious fish curry.

Pabda Mach

Defrosting the Fish From The Rivers of Bangladesh

When I was a child, we had wonderful cooks in Bangladesh. We lived in a large mansion designed  much like the old Persian houses. Fish is and has always been a Bengali favourite. I miss the fresh fish we used to get in Bangladesh.

The Pabda fish  was a fresh water fish bought directly from the sea. In the 1940s, the Pabda fish would be rather large. It was very popular with all the family.  This fish was bought home and cooked by our wonderful cook called Bulli Didi. In those days, there wasn't any electric cookers. Clay stoves were used. Wood was used to make the fire for the stove.

The fresh fish would be cut, cleaned and washed. The fish would  then be mixed with salt and tumeric. This would be left for a few minutes before cooking. She would use a Korai - which was an asian version of a frying pan. The spices were all pressed by hand. The oil would be placed in the Karai and heated up. The fish was subsequently fried lightly and taken out of the pan. The old oil would be thrown out and a little bit of new oil placed in the Korai. Black onion seeds [ Kala Jeera] would be placed into this heated new oil. Some water would be added to the dried spices [plus salt] and this mixture was added to the oil. The oil and spices were fried for a few minutes together until it is quite dry and the oil could be seen. A small amount of water is added to this mixture until this was bought to boil. The fish was placed back into the Korai. Some more water was added if required. To this, one or two green chillies. Once the gravy was slightly thicker, it was taken off the fire. Prior to this, some people tended to add Coriander leaves for flavouring. This was usually served with rice.

In England, Pabda fish can be found in most good Indian supermarkets or grocery shops. If you live in the UK, you can visit Bangla Station. The fish is obtained in frozen form and it is reasonably priced. For my recipe for Pabda fish, please visit  http://www.anita-pal.com .