The greatest satisfaction in life usually comes from the smallest of things, which brings peace to the soul. Now if we try to develop a consensus of which activity of daily life, brings the most happiness to a person’s life, a good amount of people will say, that it is the time when they eat the food they love. Hence here we are devoted to helping people, prepare the food they love to eat.
The different variety of food recipe discussed so far, have been done keeping in mind the different culture, tradition and culinary habits of people, across this vast Indian subcontinent. According to a famous chef, there are approximately 1.7 million different kinds of food recipes, which are prepared by people across the Indian subcontinent. Some of these are also known as “lost recipe”, because of the rarity of their use in day to day life. Here we are going to discuss, one such dish, which is – How to make Achari Fish?
The main requirement for preparing this delicacy is a requirement of fish, which has very few bones. This may make many believe that sea fish with minimal bones would serve the purpose the best. However, technically that may be true, but the strong smell of sea fish may not be tolerable to all. For those who wish to savor this dish, without much ado about the fishy smell, can try large sized river fishes like –Rohu Fish (Labeo rohita) or Catla Fish (Labeo catla).
1) Rohu Fish – 500 gm, cut into small pieces
2) Mustard oil – 1 cup
3) Water – 1 cup
1) Mustard seed – 50 gm
2) Fennel (Souf) – 10 gm
3) Black Cumin (Kaala jeera) – 2 to 3 gm or 1 to 2 pinch
4) Wild Celery (Ajmod/Radhuni) – 5gm or 1 teaspoon
5) Fenugreek (Methi seed) – 2 to 3 gm
6) Salt – ½ teaspoon
7) Chilli powder – 1/4th teaspoon
8) Dried Mango powder (Amchoor) – ½ teaspoon to 1 teaspoon (according to individual preference)
9) Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon
10) Green Chilli – 2 to 3 in number
1) The Fish is washed thoroughly and later marinated by turmeric powder and ½ teaspoon salt for half an hour.
2) The Fennel, Black cumin, Wild Celery is ground to a powder form.
3) The Mustard seed is soaked in water for half an hour. Then ground to a smooth paste form.
4) The Fenugreek is not ground but left in its raw form.
5) Now in a frying pan, half cup of oil is taken and put on a burner with a medium flame. All the fish pieces are fried in it and then kept aside.
6) In the same way, again, half cup of oil is put on a frying pan on a low flame & it is allowed to get warm. Then Fenugreek seed is put in it. When a typical aroma starts to come from the pan, then previously ground Mustard Paste is added to it and stirred nicely.
7) Once the pungent smell of mustard paste faints, and the preparation assumes a dry form, then ½ teaspoon salt & the mixture powder, obtained from Fennel, black cumin & Wild Celery; is mixed with the previous mixture & stirred again. As soon as a nice aroma is emitted from the preparation, dried mango powder & chili powder is added to it and stirred a bit longer. If required a little amount of water is added to it, to prevent it from getting totally dry.
8) Later the fish pieces are added to the above mixture & boiled for 2 to 3 minutes. The oven is switched off and the pan is covered by a lid. This warm environment will make the fish soft. In an ideal preparation, the fish pieces should be covered with mustard paste & consistency of the gravy should be thick & semisolid. Fried green chili can be sprinkled over the preparation.
9) Once the preparation gets completely cold, then it is served with rice or roti.
Note - One very important thing to remember here is that Achari means pickle-like, so this fish preparation tastes like taking fish, along with pickle. However, extreme heat can cause this pickle taste to be lost. Hence, this dish is served cold. This is ideally done by preparing the dish 3 to 4 hours, before being served. In this interval no further attempt to heat up the preparation should be done.