Panta Ilish
A dish of fermented rice with fried hilsa, associated with Pohela Boishakh (Bengali New Year), though the pairing itself is honestly a modern invented tradition, not an ancient one: panta bhat (leftover rice soaked in water to cool and mildly ferment) is a genuinely old, humble rural food, but sourcing traces its specific pairing with hilsa as a symbolic New Year dish to 1983, proposed by journalist Borhan Ahmed and a circle of writers and academics as a new shared breakfast custom, later popularized and commercialized by restaurants. Some Bangladeshi food writers have criticized that commercialization as disconnected from the dish's originally humble, poverty-linked roots, worth keeping in mind rather than presenting it as timeless ritual.
⚠ Contains: Fish, Mustard. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
Ingredients
- 3 cups cooked rice, day-old
- Water, for soaking
- 4 hilsa (ilish) steaks (or shad or mackerel)
- 1 tsp turmeric
- Salt
- Mustard oil
- 1 onion, sliced
- Green chiles
Steps
- Soak the cooked rice fully submerged in water overnight at room temperature until lightly tangy.
- Rub the fish steaks with turmeric and salt.
- Shallow-fry the fish in mustard oil until crisp-edged.
- Serve the soaked rice with the fried fish, sliced onion, whole green chiles, and a drizzle of raw mustard oil.