Another one of my mother’s famous dishes!! I am so grateful to her for ensuring we had exposure to the best food during our childhood. The Scolt house was frequented by many of our friends, who were pampered with a large appetizing spread.
Macher chop (as it’s known in Bengal) is a fish cutlet, which is a staple snack in any Bengali family. Back at home, we would have this for dinner with bread rolls and salad.
If you are a seafood enthusiast, then you must try this Bengali fish recipe. I was amazed at the simplicity of this dish and I’m definitely going to make this with multiple different fillings for us, as evening snacks. My husband who is a huge fish lover, said that the fish chops I made for our dinner last night tasted the same as my mother's chops! (brownie points for him for sure)
Fish cooks very fast and thus it’s not time consuming if you have all your ingredients organised and lined up for the cooking process. You can freeze the chops that you wish to eat the next day and simply take them out and fry them when you’re ready to eat it.
Ingredients:
3 potatoes
1 medium onion chopped into small pieces
1 tbsp ginger/ garlic paste
2 fillets of fish (I used white Nile). I got about 11 chops out of this, so you can judge if you want more or less.
1 tsp cumin powder
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chili powder
1 tsp garam masala powder
1 tsp ground pepper
2 eggs
1 lime
A bowl of flour
A bowl of breadcrumbs
Coriander leaves
Salt to taste
Recipe for macher chops:
Step 1: Clean the fish. Rub turmeric and salt on it. Boil the fish and flake it once cooled.
Step 2: Boil and mash the potatoes.
Step 3: Heat oil in a pan and sauté the onions till they turn translucent. Add ginger garlic paste and fry. Then add all the spices and cook.
Step 4: Add in the flaked fish and give it a good mix for a minute before adding in the mashed potatoes. Add salt to taste, lime juice and coriander leaves.
Step 5: Once the mixture has cooled down, make round balls and flatten them slightly.
Step 6: Add a pinch of salt and pepper to the bowls of flour, egg and breadcrumbs.
Step 7: Dip the flattened balls in flour, then in the egg and finally in the bread crumbs. Repeat this for all the pieces. Refrigerate them till you’re ready to eat. Usually 2 hours is good enough (refer to my pictures above to see how I laid out three bowls to make the "assembly line" for my chop making process).
Step 8: Heat oil in a pan and deep fry. Make sure to drain out all the oil before serving.
Plate up!!
You can serve fish chops with salad (cucumber and onions) and chili sauce. It tastes great with bread rolls or even slices of toast and butter.
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