Sorshe ilish in 15 minutes

Sorse Ilish is a classic Bengali fish curry. Hilsa is known to be as “queen of the fish”. It’s a very tasty and rich fish. This is not like other fishes that are available throughout the year. It is only available during monsoon. And this particular season is just celebrating like festivals in every Bengali house.

Though it’s so high in price, but Bengali don’t deprive themselves from eating this fish. It became kind of tradition that Bengali have to eat at least one fish to save their identity.

Ingredients

– 5 pieces of hilsa fish
– 2 tbsp Mustard powder.
– 1/2 tsp Onion seeds or kalo jire or kalonji.
– 2 tsp red chili powder
– 1 tsp turmeric powder
– Salt to taste
– Purti kachi Ghani Mustard oil about 3 tbsp for frying the fish and the gravy.
– 1/2 cup milk
– 3 green chilies, slited

Instructions

First I’m gonna apply 1/2 tsp salt and turmeric powder to the fish pieces. Rub well. Then heat oil in a pan. Once the oil is hot, put the fish pieces one by one. Cook on medium heat for 1 minute each side. Don’t fry the fish steaks for long time. We just want to remove the raw smell. So little bit of frying would help it to do so.

Once done, remove from the heat and keep aside. In the same pan, put onion seeds or kalo jire and green chilies. Make sure the pan is hot enough. Allow the spices to release its essential aroma. Now keep the flame low. I’m gonna put turmeric powder and red chili powder directly in the pan. Give a quick mix. make sure they don’t burn. Add mustard paste, salt and little water. Again mix. Put the milk. You can also put only water instead of milk. I used milk here to enhance richness and creaminess to the dish. Now bring the sauce/ gravy to a good boil.

Once the sauce is ready, put the fried fish pieces. Don’t stir the fishes too much. It could be broken. Now cover for a minute.

After a while, the gravy has come to a right consistency. Not so thin and not so thick like it should be. It’s almost ready. Put some extra green chilies on the top. Keep it covered until served to incorporate the flavor of green chilies in the gravy.

Serve with hot steaming rice.
Serving for 5 person.