Mashed Prawns - Chingri Makha

Many of the Bengali cuisines originating from rural east Bengal are simple to make, with the most basic ingredients and absolutely delightful. One such cuisine is the ‘makha’ or ‘bhate’ termed ‘bhorta’ in Bangladesh. There are hundreds of various types of ‘bhorta’ in Bangladesh. In the olden times during our grandmothers’ era, they dedicated their life to the kitchen to keep the family well-fed with whatever little they could manage. Superstores, multi-brand outlets, shopping malls, and Retail stores were all distant possibilities no one could even dream of. I often wonder how efficient cooks they were that the dishes they invented, still keep us drooling.

The cuisine described below is called ‘Chingri Machher Bhorta or Makha’ or to put it simply in English – Mashed Prawn. I can assure you it’ll be fun cooking this dish.

Ingredients:

Prawns – 12 nos. washed cleaned and deveined.

Dry Red Chilli – 3 nos.

Green Chilli – 3 nos. chopped.

Turmeric powder – ½ teaspoon

Salt to taste

Onion – 2 nos. sliced.

Garlic – 6 - 8 pods chopped.

Ginger – ½ in. chopped.

Cilantro – a few sprigs chopped.

Mustard oil – 6 tablespoons.

Instructions:

Mix the Prawns with salt and turmeric powder, and keep it all aside for 15 mins.

Fry the Dry Red chillis in oil and set aside.

Fry the salted Prawns lightly and set aside.

Then fry the sliced Onions, chopped Garlic and chopped Ginger.

Then grind the fried Prawns with fried Red Chillis, fried onions, ginger and garlic coarsely in a blender or a mortar and pestle.

Add the chopped chillis, cilantro and further blend a little.

Now add a spoonful of Mustard oil and knead the mixture into balls.

Serve it with rice.