Khulna: The tastes of the Sundarabans

Its been a while since I wrote here, been  busily creating the website for the cross culture cooks challenges but I also had to travel from work. This time I went to the Sundarbans and the city of Khulna, South-West Bangladesh. We flew by sea plane as the hartals and strikes all over the country rendered road journey mostly unsafe! So off we flew on the MAF planes, that took off from the Dhaka airport's tarmac and landed us, splashing water everywhere into the Rupsha river of Khulna.

My work was with the communities that are living on the fringes of the Sundarbans mangrove forest and building eco-cottages there. We came across some local stuff like the fruit Noyil which turned out to be the "orboroi" or in other words, Phyllanthus Acidus :D

While monitoring the final parts of installing the eco-cottages made with local products like the Nypa palm and bamboo, we would travel out by boat everyday, catching the canopy covered boats from the Mongla port. These eggs were being sold there. The white ones are duck eggs with Koel eggs or cuckoo bird eggs. The bottle had rock salt mixed with some red chilli powder to sprinkle over the boiled eggs and eaten as a wholesome, hygenic, healthy snack!

At the eco-cottage sites of the villages along the Sundarbans, we ate a range of local fruits and vegetables and then this winner of an ingredient made its appearance on our last day, while treating some foreign guests. This is the famous Chui jhal or Piper Chaba. The uniqueness of eating this plant in South-Western Bangladesh mainly lies in the fact that we only use the roots and stems of this plant instead of the leaves. They cut down the stems and roots, peel then and chop them up and cook them ALOT so only meat dishes like beef or mutton go well with this root dish as they can be cooked for hours. tasting like horse radish, this root herb is said to be the remedy to ailments like arthritis.

I thought I know a lot about food or at least foreign ones disguised as our local versions but this one totally duped me clean! The Bosnian roti was being served at our hotel, the City Inn and I wondered how convenient to name something from a remote country that no one can even verify! But then I was told its story.... Apparently this recipe of leavened bread dough with yeast and deep fried, was brought back to Bangladesh by the UN deployed chefs or soldiers working in Bosnia from the UN peace keeping corps.  They learnt this bread from their Pakistani colleagues but when they re-invented it here in Bangladesh, they gave it the name of the country where they had learnt it, hence Bosnian bread :D

And after all that delicious food I ate the famous mishti paan or sweet paan of Khulna. Filled with coconut powder or khopra, cashews, raisins, rose extract and fennel seeds. This paan kind of makes up for any dessert cravings and can be a VERY efficient digester. Too efficient as I later discovered :/

And thus I returned home in one piece with some chui jhal to experiment with and looking forward to my next journey back to Khulna and the Sundarbans :D 

New mail ID for Cross Culture Cooks

Dear all,

Please note that you can now send us queries at

cooks@crossculturecook.com

So ask away! :)

Reema Islam (Bangladesh) 
Miguel Esquirol (Canada-Bolivia)

Miguel's cooking challenge: Fish Paturi from Bangladesh

COOKING CHALLENGE FISH PATURI

Cooking an unknown dish, something that you never tried even in a restaurant, is a particularly interesting challenge. It’s like that kid’s game where you have to walk blindfolded while somebody guides you using only his voice. It can be frustrating and, at the same time, lets you use different senses that you didn’t know you had. You can smell, listen and even feel the floor below your feet. Cooking Fish Paturi is something similar to this, it was like a glimpse in someone else universe.

Groceries

The first challenge for this dish was the gathering of all the ingredients.

• Some of them were fairly straightforward. Finding the fish, Barramundi or Asian Seabass (Lates calcarifer) was out of the question considering availability and freshness. The replacement I decided was a regular Seabass, a regular white fish with good texture.
• Other ingredients were also really basic and easy to find like the lemon, green chiles (jalapenos in this case) and coconut.
• Most of the spices I had it already, Tumeric, white mustard salt and sugar.
• The last ingredients were a little more difficult. Black mustard was something I never used, but I found in a big supermarket.
• I had the chance to find a small Indian store for the last couple of ingredients. They had the Banana Leave and the mustard oil. About this last one, it was the only product that I’ve never even heard about.

Mise en place

If coconut was something I always known, when I started the recipe, I’ve realized that I never actually opened a coconut. After a short youtube video, I got a drill and a hammer among my tools, and I proceed to open my first coconut. Once opened I took out the white flesh with a spoon, and cleaned up from the brown substance under water.
Another new experience was cooking with banana leaves, in spite that I always known the tree, and even I had one in our garden while growing up. I’ve never worked with it before.  I used some scissors to cut up the leave in big squares, and because I felt that I didn’t had enough, I also made some squares in parchment paper.
Finally, the green peppers, I only took the skin, without the seeds, to avoid the dish being too hot.

Marinade

I mixed in a chopper the coconut, the two different mustards, the tumeric, lemon juice some of the green chiles, salt and sugar. I had to add a little bit of water to make a paste. The past was fragrant and with a nice yellow color thanks to the tumeric. The coconut give it a rough texture.  Once the past was done I added the fish in small pieces and I let it in the fridge for about an hour (the time to go to the swimming pool).

Cooking

This was the most difficult part of the process. I put the fish, mustard oil and green pepper on top of the banana leave and I fold it. I used butcher twine to close it in a small envelope. It was a slow process, and some of the leaves cracked, but finally I ended with five banana leaf pouches, and the rest of the fish inside parchment paper.

Steam

I used a simple steamer, with an inch of water, to cook the fish. I piled up all the small envelopes and let it cook for around 10 minutes. The smell was mouth watering.

Serving

I presented individual envelopes on top of some basmati rice with the juices of the fish and coconut/mustard running into it.

Tasting

This dish was one of the most different flavor combinations I ever had. I’ve eaten most of the ingredients separated but the mix, the marinating and the steaming of the fish, turn the dish into something delicate and fragrant, frankly quite unique. The subtle texture of the fish worked with the more fleshy flavor of the coconut. The yellow tinted flesh of the fish was almost spicy with the mustard oil, without being overwhelming.
My only regret was perhaps that the cooking was too long, and the fish and sauce felt a little waterlogged.

Miguel Esquirol Rios

(originally from Bolivia)