This is Bengal and Assam’s favourite dish Murighonto. Murighonto is the curry made of river fish head and lentils or rice. There are so many varieties of murigbonto. I am sharing today my style of making murighonto which I learnt from my mother.I used the head of rahu fish

What is rahu fish

The rohu is a large, silver-colored fish found in rivers in South Asia. It is most commonly eaten by our region.We make a lot of variety of dish with rahu fish.You can use other variety of fish head also.

Recipe

Preparation time: 2+1/2 an hour

Cooking time: 40 min

Difficulty level: Easy

Ingredients

• 1 cup  yellow Moong Dal(split yellow lentil)
• 1  Rahu fish head(I use head of a 3kg size Rahu fish)
• 2  big Onion chopped
• 1 tablespoon  Ginger-Garlic paste
• 1 teaspoon  Panchfuran (a bengali whole spice mix)
• 1 tablespoon  ready-made tomato puree or puree of 2 fresh tomatoes
• 1  Bay leaf
• 1 teaspoon  Turmeric powder
• 2 teaspoon  Kashmiri red chilli powder
• 2 teaspoon  Coriander-Cumin powder(2 tsp coriander+1tsp cumin)
• 2  Whole dry Red chilli
• 2  Green chilli
• 3-4 tablespoon  Mustard oil

Steps

Dry roast moong daal into a pan until light golden brown.

Let the daal cool and soak in water for 2 hour.

Clean and cut the fish head in small pieces as possible.

Add 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt and rub to the pieces.

Heat 1and 1/2 tablespoon of mustard oil in a pan and add the fish head pieces.Fry them in medium heat until light golden brown. Keep aside.

Pressure cook soaked daal with salt and 2 cups of water until just soft.

Heat 2 tablespoon of mustard oil in a saucepan and temper bay leaf, red chilli and paachfuran.

After few seconds add chopped onion and saute until onions become translucent. Also add ginger-garlic paste and saute for few seconds.

Now add tomato puree, turmeric powder, chilli powder and coriander-cumin powder.

Saute in medium heat and add 1/2 cup of water.Let the spices cook well in medium heat for few minutes.

When spices and tomatoes cooks well and oil starts separating from gravy add in the fried fish head.

Stir to coat spices to fish head,add salt and couple of tablespoon of water, cover and cook in low heat for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes remove the cover, fry in spices again for 3-4 minutes. This frying will enhance the flavour of murighonto.

Next add in cooked daal and mix well with a spatula.

Add sufficient hot water to make the curry thin, check seasoning and add if necessary.

Cook in medium heat until murighonto starts boiling and then add some slitted green chillies.

Further cook in medium low heat for 10 minutes or until gravy comes to your desired consistency. I like the gravy little thin, you can make them thick as well.

Transfer to a serving bowl and serve with steaming hot rice. Happy eating!