Discovering Bengali cuisine: A culinary immersion with international students

The goal was to introduce them to authentic Bengali cuisine and show them how the “Indian” food served abroad — often cooked by Bangladeshi chefs — is vastly different from any regional cuisine in India.

The evening was spent in helping them understand spices they might never have seen, why different regions across India — a far smaller country than America, geographically — use such diverse ingredients, why we use certain cooking mediums like mustard oil or cow milk ghee in Bengal, why we temper our oil with wild celery seeds or Bengali five-spice, and why poppy seed is such a delicacy.

We also discussed how we eat our meals course-by-course in Bengal, and don’t dump our dal onto our chicken curry, because each dish has a different flavour profile. The reactions were priceless — their delight as they sniffed freshly ground garam masala, their appreciation for the fragrant Gobindobhog rice, which is nothing like the Basmati rice served in Indian restaurants abroad, and how unimpressed they were with the dal bori which Bengalis think is manna from heaven.

The evening was spent in helping them understand spices they might never have seen. (Photo: Freepik)

What stood out most was their openness—these students, from across the world but currently based in the United States of America, had no preconceived (and incorrect) notions about Bengali food. They didn’t assume it was all non-vegetarian, overly “fishy,” or drenched in mustard oil. Instead, they were eager to learn, taste, cook, and experience the cuisine with all their senses.

They embraced every part of the experience––eating with their hands, squeezing gondhoraj lebu (a fragrant lime) between their fingers before mixing it into their food, cooking dishes like alu posto (potatoes with poppy seeds), prawn malai curry, and betki paturi (steamed mustard-marinated fish), and wrapping banana leaf parcels, fully immersing themselves in the process.

I loved that they were open to information and a sensory experience alien to them. It was wonderful to see their enthusiasm, their willingness to get their hands messy, and their genuine excitement in discovering a new cuisine. They all left with little jars of panch phoron, which I hope they’ll be putting to good use.

I also hope they left with a deeper understanding of what is essentially a micro-cuisine from one of India’s many regions. This was a great way to understand a region they might never get to visit but can now connect with through its cuisine. Food, after all, is as much a window into the history and culture of a region or a people as art, craft, and textiles.

Here are the recipes of the three dishes I cooked with them – betki paturi, alu posto, and prawn malai curry. Do try them.

PRAWN MALAIKARI

• 1 kg tiger or freshwater prawns
• 2 tbsp mustard oil
• 4 onions, pureed
• 2 tbsp ginger paste
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
• 6 green chillies, slit
• 500 ml coconut milk
• Salt to taste
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 tbsp freshly ground Bengali garam masala
• 2 sticks cinnamon
• 4 green cardamom, bruised
• 8 cloves
• 1 bayleaf

METHOD

1. Coat prawns with 1 tsp salt and the turmeric powder, and set aside.
2. In a grinder jar, add onions and blitz them to a fine paste.
3. Heat mustard oil in a pan.
4. Temper with green chilis, bay leaf, cardamom, cloves, and cinnamon.
5. Add onion paste along with sugar, and fry until the onions are light brown.
6. Add ginger paste and fry for another 3–4 minutes, after which add the Kashmiri red chilli powder.
7. Keep stirring so that the spices don’t stick to the bottom of the pan.
8. Now add the prawns and saute till they change colour.
9. Add the coconut milk and stir and allow to come to a boil, then lower the flame.
10. Allow the prawns to cook in the curry, covered, for no more than 5-7 minutes.
11. Stir in the garam masala powder and take off the flame.

ALU POSTO – POTATO WITH POPPY SEEDS

• 2 tbsp mustard oil
• ½ tbsp nigella seeds
• 6 dried red chillies
• 2 onions – sliced
• 500 gm potatoes
• 50 gm poppy seeds
• Salt to taste
• 1 tbsp sugar

METHOD

1. Soak the poppy seeds in water for two hours. Strain and add to a grinder jar along with 4-5 tbsps of water. Grind to a coarse paste. Set aside.
2. Peel and cut the potatoes into small cubes.
3. Boil the potatoes till they are cooked.
4. Heat mustard oil in a pan. Once smoking lightly and pale yellow, add the onions. Fry until lightly coloured (about a minute).
5. Add the dried red chillies and nigella seeds. Add the potatoes. Fry for about 5 minutes.
6. Add the poppy-seed paste, along with salt and sugar. Cook on low heat until the raw smell of poppy paste goes away. This should take about 4 minutes.
7. Continue cooking on low heat, with lid on until the potatoes are soft. Once in a while, when the pan dries out, you may have to add a splash of hot water to ensure the potatoes don’t stick to the pan.
8. Finish with a drizzle of mustard oil.

BETKI PATURI

• 1 kg fish fillet – betki or tilapia
• Banana leaves

Basic mustard paste

• 100g mustard seeds
• 5-6 green chillies
• Salt
• 1 tbsp turmeric
• 5 tbsp hung curd
• 2 tbsp mustard oil
• 10 slit green chillies

METHOD

Making the marinade

1. Soak mustard seeds (we have used 50% brown and 50% yellow mustard) in room temperature water.
2. Try to keep the water in the marinade as low as possible. It should be more like paste and less like a batter for best results.
3. Grind together the mustard, salt, green chilis, turmeric with water. Then stir in the mustard oil and the yoghurt.

Making the banana leaf parcels

4. Coat the fish fillets with the marinade.
5. Wash and cut the banana leaves into rectangular sheets into 6 X 8 inches. Gently toast them on a pan set on medium heat. This makes the banana leaves softer and ensures that they don’t crack when folded. Remove from heat and set aside.
6. Take a banana-leaf sheet in front of you. Spoon some mustard marinade paste in the centre of one of the sheets. Set one piece of the fish fillet on it. Top off with some more of the paste. Place a slit green chillion top and drizzle with raw mustard oil.
7. Carefully wrap the fish with the banana leaf making sure that it is fully covered. If you find that your leaf is torn, wrap another layer of leaf around it. Tie this parcel up securely with a cotton string/twine.
8. Heat the water in your steamer and steam the parcels in a single layer for ten minutes.

Next week, I’ll be writing on the king of streetfoods and who does it best – Calcutta with its phuchka, Bombay and its Panipuri or Delhi and its Golgappa.