Finding flavour in fish innards
Buttery, textural and umami-rich fish innards, or macher tel, are integral to the practice of nose-to-tail cooking in Bengal
In Bengali, macher tel literally translates to fish oil. Sometimes it also refers to the skin of the fish. But it usually means innards, which consist of some fat, liver, intestines and gallbladder of the fish. Entrails if you may call it, or say, offal. Some might say it is “ugly delicious”. Large-sized freshwater carps such as rohu and catla are packed with the best fish fat.
Macher tel is loved for its complex depth of flavour. It is buttery, textural and all kinds of umami. But it does not enjoy the same status as that of a chingri malaikari or kosha mangsho. It is neither cooked on special occasions, nor does it feature on any restaurant menus. Is it because eating rejected organs of a fish is not commonly associated with a cuisine often celebrated for its abundance?
It is deeply cultural given the prevalence of nose-to-tail eating practice in Bengal, where a generation of home cooks continue to demonstrate an uncanny knack for cooking with kitchen discards. My mother can effortlessly put peels of bottle gourd, potato skins and cauliflower stalks, fish heads and innards to precise use. Macher tel is no different. She cooks it with brinjals and potatoes in a greasy chorchori (a mishmash of sorts), or as crisp fritters (bora), that we relish with steaming hot rice coated with lashings of the oil they are fried in. Recipes such as these are rarely documented, and passed down from one family to another. Maa learned to repurpose innards from her mother, and tells me she has never encountered a recipe in traditional cookbooks.
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I don’t have a clear memory of eating fish fat for the first time. But I remember the times when I’d rush home hungry after school to find it on the lunch menu. I knew I could make a meal out of it with a mountain of rice, and skip the mundane dal. When I moved to Delhi for college, I missed everything Maa cooked, especially the everyday food that I had come to take for granted. The heart craved for familiar flavours in a city that was far too distant to call home. And therefore, almost like telepathy, it was always macher teler chorchori that she’d cook for lunch on the day I returned home for vacations.
Macher tel is also a tricky subject in my family. On days my father returns home from the fish market feeling rather triumphant about his prized catch, only to realise he forgot to ask for the tel, can tick off my mother. Being offal, many vendors don’t pack it along with the fish, unless instructed, and often sell it separately.
I started cooking it after my big move to Mumbai more than a decade ago. Married life meant taking over the kitchen, and somehow cooking became the perfect escape from the humdrum of a hectic city life. Since I did not learn to cook standing next to Maa (as I was rarely allowed in the kitchen and left home after finishing school), I picked up all the wizardry over repeated phone calls to her. Before I could realise it, I was at the Andheri Four Bungalows fish market, patiently waiting for my turn to instruct the vendor to pack some macher tel along with my regular purchase of rohu or catla. The fella I came to trust always obliges me under the watchful eyes of the ‘probashi Bangali’ men gathered around his giant bonti (a traditional knife fixed to a wooden board). Over the years the act has made me own my cultural identity, and most importantly, value a practice that celebrates the ingenuity of kitchen waste.
A few years ago, I posted a picture of macher teler chorchori on Instagram. Anticipating some backlash, I was pleasantly surprised to discover a community of individuals typically from North-east India that relished fish innards. While Mumbai-based Assamese food chronicler Gitika Saikia told me about masor petu bhoja, which she cooks like a fried rice with onions, garlic and green chillies, my Naga friend Maongka Longchar shared her stir fry recipe with dried bamboo shoot, smoked chillies along with other aromatics. To be able to connect through our shared culinary heritage provided a sense of belonging.
Recipe for Macher Teler Chorchori
Ingredients
200 gms macher tel (fish innards or fish fat from any big carp)
1 medium brinjal, diced in small cubes
1 big potato, diced in small cubes
2 onions, finely chopped
5-6 garlic pods, crushed
2 tbsp mustard oil
A pinch of turmeric
2-3 green chillies
Salt as per taste
Method
Clean and wash the macher tel thoroughly. Marinate it with salt and turmeric. Heat the oil and fry the potatoes first. Keep them aside once half cooked. Now fry the brinjal until it acquires a golden brown colour. Keep it aside. In the same oil, add the garlic followed by the onions. Fry for a few minutes, and then tip in the macher tel. Cook this for a few minutes. Now add the potatoes and brinjal, and bring everything together. Add the green chillies too. Continue to cook on low heat. Season the mixture, and check if the potatoes are cooked. Serve it with hot rice.
Tip: You may find the mixture oily at the end of the cook. It is actually the fat that dissolves due to heat. With your ladle, collect the entire mixture in one corner of the kadai (wok) to drain off the excess. You can use this oil to make fish curry.
Rituparna Roy is a Mumbai-based independent features writer.
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First Published:13 May 2024, 03:00 PM IST
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