Fish & Centella Chutney | Assamese Recipe

Last night, when I looked out of my window, to my surprise I found the farm surrounding our house well lit, inspite of not having electricity for almost a week. The leaves had this beautiful glow on them and  they looked surreal, straight out of some storybook. 

When I looked up at the night sky, the moon was huge and bright, it looked as if it was drawn closer somehow. A very pretty sight. 

No wonder they are part of so many folklores and even important decisions are made based on them.

For instance, I am in the process of constructing a small wooden cabin in my farm and for the wood, I had to cut down a tree. During my interaction with a traditional house builder, who is building the cabin for us, I learnt that the tree has to be cut when the moon is in the growth phase and not when its waning. Apparently, the wood last longer, termites don't attack much and the home buit with such a wood is peaceful and prosperous. 

The moment I heard this from him, I got reminded of a strikingly similar conversation I had with a researcher in southern India many many years ago.

The research scholar was working on studies concerning Kanni tribals of Western Ghats, one among the last hunter-gathering tribes of India. The Kanni people are adept hunter gatherers, surviving exclusively on food that they can gather from the forest. 

The jackfruit trees play a huge part in their life, they use the latex from the tree to trap birds, and even to make medicine, they know different kinds of jackfruit and their fruiting seasons, did you  know that there are some jackfruit trees that fruit even in october? 

Even the home they stay in is buit of jackfruit wood. They too cut the tree to build house only during the growth phase of the moon, and before doing so, ask for the forgivence of the tree spirit, not to torment them for cutting it down. 

The similarities in belief between tribes separated by thousands of kilometers one agragarian and the other hunter-gatherer, one mongoloid and the other dravidian, with no interaction whatsoeven, yet so similar, it baffles me.

Well, coming back to the recipe, I am going to show you how to cook a simple fish dish or rather a chutney, which I have had many times at my favorite restaurant known as machilenkha in a small town known as Boko in Assam. 

I love this chutney, but I am giving a bit of my own twist to it.

So, to make the dish, you need to catch some fish first. (laugh)

My neighbour wanted to catch some cat fish from our fishing pond for himself, and this is how it works here -  if you catch fish from someones elses pond, then you give half your catch to the owner and keep the other half for yourself. 

So, I got some of the fish that he caught. These fish are considered very tasty and the streams, rivers and the ponds are full of them. On any given day, you'd see little kids and even elders fishing for them the streams. These are probably the last of wild food that is available. 

To quickly kill them for processing, just pour hot water on them, the death is almost instant

Once the fish are dead, scale the fish and get rid of the fins and then gut them.

They are very very slippery but once you scale them they are easier to handle.

Give them a good wash and marinate the fish in turmeric and salt. You can even add lemon juice, but it is optional.

After about 20 minutes of marination, deep fry the fish, till they are crisp.

meanwhile, I am going to roast a ghost chilie, you can use regular chili if it is too much for you to handle.

Crush the crip fried fish, chopped onion, centella and the ghost chili along with some salt.

Crush till everything is finely mixed, if you want you can drizzle a bit of raw mustard oil, adjust the seasoning and there you go, a delicious fish chutney is ready. 

Music credits:

www.bensound.com

Photos and Video Credit: 

www.pexels.com


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