Shada or Pani Khola Maach - Fish Stew

Fish Stew

As you can surmise from this photograph, my kitchen caters to Jack Spratt and his wife. As the nursery rhyme goes,

Jack Spratt could eat no fat

And his wife could eat no lean.

And so betwixt the two of them

They kept the platter clean.

The man in this house is tall and lean and his wife, the opposite. She lives to eat and he eats to live. She loves 'bone-in everything' and he likes a no-fuss meal. That's why this fish stew is made with two cuts of fish. Nice, fatty fish steaks of Swai or Mekong catfish for the wife and fillets of Tilapia for Jack.

I didn't expect too much from such a simple recipe. There are only 5 ingredients to consider but requires killer prep. The most tedious part is to mash slivered onions, salt, green chilies and mustard oil until your hands ache and all the juices from the onions release. This takes a total of at least 15-20 minutes, so I do it in batches. I add salt to the onions and let them sit until they soften and then mash them. When my hands begin aching, I take a break, a sip of coffee, flex my fingers, relax a bit and go back to mashing the onions. In the end, all this effort pays off because not only is the stew light and refreshing, it's also easily digested which suits Jack Spratt to a Tee.

From all the recipes I've perused, this is generally made with hilsa or ilish maach, which I can only dream of because it's difficult to come by in North America. So I've adapted to my environment and learned to live with the scarcity of specialty fish. 

This is best served with steamed long-grain rice.