Culinary Chronicles
By Yasmin Rahul Bakshi
Each time I play with fish, a particular flavour echoes that I am unable to replicate.
Going down memory lane, sometime in 1979 when I was around four years old, piscine savours charmed my palate at Whispering Windows in Mussoorie. A restaurant of good old classic charm!
The memory of a mammoth has its own pros and cons. Incidents, events, people and conversations held decades ago appear recent.
Invited by the late Mrs DP Singh, a prominent figure of the hills and owner of this property, for high tea, I held the fingers of my parents and walked in as a guest in the most fashionable manner. Drawing all the attention and getting a pseudo feel of not being less than a celebrity.
Reluctantly on the insistence of my grand uncle – Uncle Puri, another aristocrat of the town, I ate a morsel of something that was crisply fried and soft at the same time with luscious flavours. It was whole fish, crumbed and fried, not bigger than the size of a palm. Indelible taste!
“Are you aware of Aunty Ritu’s recipe of whole fried fish and what variety of fish she used in it?” I asked her daughter, Aruna lately, with a lingering unquenchable curiosity for decades.
”As talented a mom and a great cook she was, the authentic recipes remained and went with her as a treasure. The small fish I remember was pomfret and, if it was in pieces, then it was mostly sole from Noor in Dehradun,” she replied.
Some people go away leaving behind priceless eternal chronicles.
Ingredients:
- Fish fillets – 500 gms
- Boiled potatoes – 150 gms
- Breadcrumbs – 2 cups
- Salt – according to taste
- Green chilies – 3 to 4 (finely chopped)
- Onion – ¼ cup (finely chopped)
- Parsley – 1 Tbsp (finely chopped)
- Garlic cloves – 6 (crushed)
- Black pepper powder – ¼ tsp
- Oil – for deep frying
- Eggs – 2
- Milk – 2 Tbsp
- Refined flour – for dusting
Steps:
- Clean and wash the fish fillets. Ensure there are no bones.
- Boil the fish fillets in an open pot until tender. Strain out the water and gently flake the fish with a fork.
- Mash the boiled potatoes and mix with salt, black pepper powder, chopped onion, parsley, green chilies, crushed garlic cloves and ½ cup breadcrumbs.
- Now add in the flaked fish and mix gently and evenly.
- Divide the mixture into 15 equal portions and shape them either in drop shape or cylinders.
- Beat the eggs lightly with milk.
- Dust the croquettes with flour on all sides.
- Dip each croquette in the beaten egg mixture and coat evenly with the rest of the bread crumb.
- Refrigerate for an hour.
- Heat oil in a frying pan. Deep fry the croquettes until golden brown.
- Serve immediately.
(Yasmin Rahul Bakshi is a food historian and an accomplished consultant Chef. A widely travelled Army wife from the Mussoorie hills with exposure to international cuisines & preserving recipes with the medium of food photography and digital content creation in the form of stories.)
