MURI GHANTO ( fish head curry speciality)

Yesterday, I bought a medium size Rohu fish, about 2.5 Kg, and was wondering what to do with the head. I don't eat fish head. If SOMEONE sees the tail in the packet, will obviously ask, where is the head because she is very fond of fish head. If I take it home, it will be like digging my own grave of cleaning and cooking. Anyway I have already dug half of my grave and one foot is already in it, so better dig the rest now. So I did a bit of hypocrisy by thinking " Shame on me if I cant clean a fish head for SOMEONE so dear to me!!

Now what to cook with the fish head, there are mainly 3 recipes in Bong kitchen, Dal with fish head ( you all know the dal without fish head in my blog), the other option is with Cabbage and finally the Muri Ghanto with rice. ( There is an Oriya option " ChhinchDa", but Somoo has to publish that before I try). The Muri Ghanto with rice is a delicacy.

So to find out the recipe I had to rely on my blog circle of Bongs. ( I know few recipes but did not want to tax my brain and needed a fast route.) In our blog circle , we have 5-6 authentic source of Bengali recipes , and I finally found a great recipe at Bong Mom. 

All bengali fish recipies ( barring few) are based on sweet water fish. So I think I should say few lines on this dish cooked with the head of sea fish. ( Most of my foodie friends here eat sea fish)

Few years back, when I was in Korea ( a dream land for me) SOMEONE  was nice enough to join me for few weeks leaving few 'would be mothers' with other docs. We had gone to a restaurant, on the black pebble beach, with other Korean friends. The Restaurant specializes on raw fish dishes. ( cooked dishes are also there) .

One has to go to the big aquarium of the place, chose live  fish. They will take out the fish, slice into small fillet and serve with wasabi and other sauce. ( I dont mind eating it, as it is tasteless, smell less.).  The fish head is not served and destroyed. I told the girl to pack the head for me. The girl was very curious to know what I was going to do with the head. So I quickly explained to her in english what I was going to do with it. She did not understand a single word of English. So I had to explain her in sign language ( and a Korean friend was explaining ) that " I am an Indian Magician and I am going to grow rest of the fish again by using the head and eat again. She was so amused that she jumped on to my back and started showering lot of appreciation into my right ear...and then I heard in my left ear "SOMEONE " whispered  "Enjoying?"

" I wish I could, but my knees are buckling".

So that was the 1st and last time, I had used  a sea fish head in this dish. But I had to improvise the spicing system as Koreans cant eat Indian spice. Instead of Cumin and garam masala , I had to use quite a bit of Cinnamon only. Koreans are familiar with Cinnamon as it is used  in  special drinks and sweets.

THE RECIPE

 Although rice is added to this dish it is not a Pulao rather it is treated as a curry and eaten with normal rice. The main flavor comes from garam masala, onion and ginger with cumin note.

You can use a fresh sea fish head, if you eat it otherwise.

DEVIATION

There is no deviation from Bong Mom's recipe, except an error. I did not notice that Bong Mom had used half the fish head and I put the whole. As a result the dish in the photo looks more : Fish heady" than " Rice-ee" . The taste is superb, at least SOMEONE is very happy. ( May be I will take the risk of loitering tomorrow) 

 For the detailed recipe, ingredients, method etc please visit Bong Mom's MURI GHANTO   

I am giving some photos of the dish I cooked. 

This is how it looked after cleaning

 how it looked after frying

Final Look

And finally the flower for you all