Name: Classic Bengali Fish in Broth
Yield: Serves 4 to 5
Cuisine: India
Ingredients: ½ cup diced tomato; 1 to 1½ pounds cod fillets or steaks, or fillets of another firm-fleshed fish; 1 cup cubed Asian eggplant; ¼ to ½ teaspoon cayenne; 1 teaspoon Bengali Five-Spice Mixture or scant ¼ teaspoon each black mustard, nigella, fennel, fenugreek, and cumin seeds; 3 to 4 tablespoons mustard oil; 3 tablespoons vegetable oil; 1 cup cubed zucchini; 1 teaspoon minced ginger or ginger mashed to a paste; 1½ to 2 teaspoons salt; ¼ to ½ cup chopped coriander leaves; 3 cups water; 1½ teaspoons turmeric; 4 or 5 green cayenne chiles, stemmed, seeded, and cut into large pieces; 1 teaspoon ground coriander; 1 teaspoon ground cumin

Preparation info

Serves
4 to 5

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Mangoes & Curry Leaves

By Jeffrey Alford and Naomi Duguid

Published 2005

About

This is a deceptively simple Bengali fish and vegetable stew, called jhol (meaning “simmered,” or “cooked in water”). Jhol is served at the main noon meal in many households in Bengal. There’s a lot of broth, and flavors are delicate, with some heat from fresh green chiles and a little cayenne as well as from mustard oil. This is a West Bengali version of jhol, an adaptation of one that Gita made when we stayed in Kolkata (Calcutta; see Gi