There are certain things like a well cooked mutton or a chicken curry or for that matter Ilish recipes – the ingredients of which are minimalist in nature, but when cooked to perfection, their taste lingers on and on and on. And it must have been an uncountable number of times that happened to me (and I am sure that it must have happened to almost everyone) while I am seated in an adda and discussing about food and then we retrace our days and then recollect “sei Chicken er jhol ta ekhono mukh e lege ache” (I can still taste that Chicken curry which I had more than 10 years back at such and such place) . And then there are times when we try to prepare something like that, but that never really happens.
Whereas the recipe below depicts how to perfect the art of preparing the ever tasty Ilish Bhapey, but it is more of the application of a concept – the concept of how to ensure that your dish tastes like the way you want it to be.
This year, with Hilsa more affordable than the previous years, I cooked the Ilish Bhapey a number of times and every time it was a classic.Cooking a Bhapey is the easiest of all the Hilsa dishes – all you need is a Hilsa of the best category.
Process:
- Mix all the ingredients together
- Seal the mixture in a container
- Cook it over a bed of boiling water for 35 mins.
- Remove the sealing only when serving the food.
- Pour some water on a deep walled pan.
- Let the bhapey container rest on the water.
- Turn the gas to low and let it cook for 35-40 mins.
- Remove the container from the heat after 40 mins.
