Rohu Mango Curry - Rui Macher Aam Jhol

I have this strange habit of forgetting things. Sometimes half way through a conversation I lose the trail and stare blankly trying to recollect what exactly I was talking about, feeling embarrassed. Sometimes upon bumping into people known to me, I find myself unable to recollect their names and with a huge ear to ear grin talking rather animatedly than ever I try covering that up, lamely. Many a time in a fit of excitement of sharing a story with peers, I forget about the name of things addressing sofa, pavement, refrigerator and almost everything under the sun as 'thing'. But it never happened that I am baking a cake and I forget to add the most important ingredient of all - butter.

 

Yesterday I don't know which world I was in, I forgot, for the first time in life, to add butter to the gorgeous pack of cherry muffins I was enthusiastically baking. My one hour of hard work went down the drain because of that one slip up. At the first mouthful, I felt the coarse desiccation in the texture of the muffins striking hard on my taste bud. It is really bad when your muffins are dehydrated. Worst is I made the muffins in huge bulk to last us through the entire week on breakfast. What's more pathetic is to see my husband now dipping the muffins into a bowl of melted butter before putting into his mouth. Gross!!

Anyway, those of you wondering why I am talking about my futile attempts at baking muffins when my title implies a recipe on rofu fish to be covered, I just want to say, at times the frustration over callous goof-ups feels a lot more lighter when the pain is shared.

 

I have to confess, before trying the following dish out, I was a bit skeptic about the turnout. I have cooked Hilsa with Mango but never attempted the same on Rohu fish. Once in Kolkata when I didn't have much wisdom about cooking, in order to find out why Cabbage is cooked with rohu head only, I embarked on an experimental venture by trying out the same with bhetki head and hilsa head, and the turnout was awful, to say the least. After the two failed attempts, I came to the logical inference - cabbage combines well with rohu head only. Period.

Ingredients:                                                               Cooking head:30 minutes ü  6 pieces of Rohu fish ü  1 medium size green mango (chopped) ü  1 tsp ginger paste ü  1 tsp turmeric powder ü  2 tsp cumin powder ü  1 tsp garam masala powder ü  Salt to taste ü  2 tsp sugar ü  4-5 green chillies (split in half) ü  1 tsp cumin seeds ü  2 dry red chillies ü  Mustard oil for cooking Method: 1) Rub salt and turmeric powder on the fish pieces and then brown them in smoking hot mustard oil on medium heat. (Don't fry the fishes on high flame for frying on high heat will blacken the oil and the curry cooked in that oil would taste bitter. So the trick is fry the fishes on medium to low flame so that the oil remains opaque.) 2) Into the same oil, add cumin seeds and dry red chillies. Allow them to crackle. 3) Next toss in the chopped green mango and cook for 2 minutes. Add turmeric powder, ginger paste and cumin powder. Add 3 tbsp of water and sauté the mixture for 2-3 minutes. (This step is important for it makes the base of the curry, any slip-up here would lead to a compromised taste.) 4) Add 1 cup of water and cook covered till mangoes soften. Add salt and sugar. Slide in the fried fishes and sprinkle garam masala powder on top. Cook covered for 2 minutes. 5) Garnish with green chillies. Serve hot with rice.