BangaliRecipe.com

Most of my reader will probably not know what is swai fish. Actually, I don’t even know what sort of fish it is. But yesterday, I was shopping for some shrimp. When I was picking up four packs of shrimp, near it I found a package of swai fish. There were 5 fillet in this package for price of just 6 USD. The amount of fish for the price was way too good for me pass up. So I got a pack not knowing what this will taste like. I figured worse comes to worse, I can throw it away.

Once I was, I busted out my large frying pan and doused it with olive oil and cranked up the heat. Meanwhile, I thawed and dried the swai fish sandwich and sprinkled with grilling mix and I fried two fillets until they were cooked. I sat down with a plate of rice to taste it. Blagh. It wasn’t good at all.

I really didn’t want to throw away the cooked fish. So I figured, I’d make my brother a sandwich. I took two pieces of white bread. Cut out a piece of fish the size of the bread, slapped on a piece of American cheese and microwaved for 15 seconds so the cheese was melting. Then I added a few pieces of cilantro and topped it with another piece of bread. I gave it to my brother. After taking a few bites, he was raging and raving about it.

This made me curious and I made myself a sandwich. Good heaven. It was tasty beyond description. So here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

Swai fish fillet – 1 count

Grilling mix – 1 teaspoon

Olive oil – 1 tablespoon

American cheese – a slice

Cilantro – 6 leaves

White bread – 2 slices

Direction(s): Thaw and dry the fillet and sprinkle on the grilling mix. Then on a hot pan, cook the fillets until done. Make sure to use the olive oil so nothing sticks. Once cooked cut a piece of fish the size of bread, layer it with the slice of cheese. Microwave or wait for the cheese to melt a little bit. Sprinkle on the cilantro and top it with another slice of break. Enjoy warm. This is much more delicious than it sounds. Thank me later.

Living in America, I came to revel in something called crab cake. It’s made with crab meat and bread and spices. As much as people enjoy crab cake, most of the crab cake are made with more bread (the cake part) and less crab. So what you end up with is a flattened ball of bread with some crab. Hardly a crab cake. Nobody eats crabs in my family except me; so, we didn’t have any crab in the house the other night. I had some shrimp. I thought why wouldn’t shrimp work instead of crab. I got to work. And it went something like this:

Ingredient(s):

Shrimp – Two large cups.

Shallot/Onion – Two large ones.

Cilantro – A small bunch.

Pancake mix – 1 cup.

Salt, pepper flakes, garlic powder – As needed.

Oil – As needed.

Direction(s): First peel the shrimps and chop them. Don’t chop them too finely. Squeeze out the water but not too much. Then chop the shallot or onion. Use shallot if you can. And chop the cilantro.  Mix all the chopped items and salt, pepper, and garlic flake. Add as much pancake mix as needed to dry out the mixture, making sure that you’re making shrimp cake not cake shrimp. Heat up a skillet on medium heat and using a teaspoon ladle in one spoon of that mixture. Don’t crowd out the pan. Gently push the ball on shrimp mix to somewhat flatten it. Don’t worry. These cakes will plump up. After about a minute on the first side, flip the cake over and cook for another minute.

I sort of like mine not fully cooked. But how much you cook depends on how you like it. If you were careful with pancake mix, you’ll come out with some delicious shrimp cakes. Serve hot with rice. Enjoy.

This is not a very traditional Bangladeshi style shrimp cake, known in Bangla as iccar borah. That is quite delicious also and I’ll post up the recipe sometimes in future.

Another versatile dish from my mother’s cookbook that she stores only in her head. For this you will need:

Ingredient(s):

Fresh spinach – a large bag

Cumin power – 0.25 teaspoon

Coriander power – 0.25 teaspoon

Salt – As needed

Olive oil – 2 tablespoon

Onion –  half, cut into thin strips

Garlic – 6 cloves, chopped

Directions: On a non-stick fry-pan, fry the garlic and onion with the olive oil until onions are translucent.  Add the remaining ingredient except the spinach. Stir for few seconds and then add the spinach. Stir until spinach wilts and softens. Reduce heat so that the spinach cooks slowly for 10 minutes. Cook longer to reduce all the water that comes out of the spinach. That’s it. You’re done. Serve this simple Bangladeshi recipe with white rice or as side dish to a larger meal.

If you are already not familiar with rooti, it is basically an unleavened flat bread eaten throughout South Asia and elsewhere. Most rootis are plain jane. Here’s a quick Bangali way to jazz it up a bit. For this you’ll need:

Ingredient(s):

Green onion/scallion – 1 bunch or about 10 straws

Salt – half teaspoon or as needed

Flour – 1.5 cups

Water  – 1 cup

Direction(s): On a sauce pot, bring 1 cup of water to boil and add the salt. Wait until the salt dissolves and then add the flour. Take off from heat and stir until dough forms. Add water or flour as needed to get a good ball of dough. Roll into a disk. Don’t worry about shape or thickness. You’ll roll it again.

Chop the green onion as finely as possible. Sprinkle them on the dough. Kneed the dough until the green piyaz has been distributed thoroughly and evenly into he dough.

Roll the dough into a log and cut into 8 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a flat bread. The diameter should be at least five inches. Then on a nonstick pan, cook each bread until slightly crispy or to your desired doneness. Serve warm with some dipping sauce. Wasn’t that easy breezy! And that’s how you make Bangali piyaz/onion rooti/bread. Enjoy.