Experience with Fish

Well! Today for the first time in my life, I went to buy fish from the fish section in Spencer's. I have lived in Kolkata for the past 20 years and have never been to buy fish myself. In fact I have never cooked fish. What an amazing experience it has been to buy fish, to cook fish, and to enjoy it with some rice.

I had wanted to buy fish that would have big bones. This would be useful for my son who eats with a fork and a spoon. Keeping this in mind I had enquired and was told that Rohu or Katla would be the fish I should buy. Once in the fish section at Spencer's, with a big smile I enquired if they had any katla fish. My question was a giveaway to the fact that I was a first time buyer. I was told that it is better to buy a portion from a huge Rohu. There was another buyer who knew how to buy fish. She confidently told me that the bigger Rohu would taste good. To start with I thought that it was a good idea to buy only a kilogram of the fish.

I had no idea about the cooking process. I will have to go find out the recipe, cooking time, and then try  cooking the fish. Well my consultant was kind enough to repeat the recipe and the entire cooking process twice for me. With this information I started my trial and error method of making Rohu for dinner. Wash the fish properly and then marinate the fish was the starting point of my exciting day. To marinate the fish I used some turmeric, salt, lemon juice, ginger paste, and garlic paste. After marinating the fish for half an hour it was time to fry the fish.

To fry the fish I thought it would be nice to use some rice bran oil. Rice bran oil can give the fish a unique flavor. Then I shallow fried all the fish. The fish would splutter at times and I had some oil on my arm. However the enthusiasm to continue with the fish remained. Then I fried grated onions, ginger, garlic, and chopped tomatoes. As rice bran oil had taken my fancy for the day,  I continued to use the same. On other days I would have used olive oil. Once the onion, ginger, garlic, and tomato paste was well fried, I added some water into this. In went some cloves, cardamoms, and some cumin powder. Then the fish was put into the gravy and the kadai covered with a lid, for the gravy to enter into the fish making it soft. Yepee in some 40 minutes the fish gravy was done. My son was very excited to try out mummy's fish in gravy with some rice.

This has been a wonderful and different evening!