We have here my food odyssey; and then there's Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey where he travels to Bangladesh and discovers "bhapa shoshe illish" or steamed hilsa fish (in banana leaves). In recreating the dish back here in the UK, Rick Stein substitutes hilsa fish with cod. I substituted cod with sea bream. I began by making the masala paste, for which I combined onions, garlic, turmeric, chilli powder and tomato puree. The beauty of the dish is to fry these ingredients in mustard oil to get a nice...erm... mustardy kick to the dish. (One can even add ground mustard seeds to enhance the richness of the mustard flavour but when I tried this in my first attempt at the dish --yes, so I did have a first failed attempt-- it tasted not so nice; oh alright, I shan't mince my words (pun intended given that this is a food blog), it was absolutely disgusting and I had to chuck away the masala mix in its entirety.) The next step was to smother the fish steaks with the masala paste, raw onions, green chillies and coriander leaves before wrapping and steaming them in banana leaves.
An alternative was to use foil or grease proof paper but to quote Rick Stein, 'you won't have the same romance' as when using the banana leaves. Indeed he was right, for the emerald coloured parcels looked a right treat, even more so after they were unwrapped to reveal the beautifully moist and juicy steaks of spicy fish which I served with basmati rice and a lovely, fresh picante salad consisting of a mint and basil dressing.
To keep the (green) colours (and my spirits) flowing, Fuzz whisked up a luscious crème de menthe cocktail!
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