Crispy Fried Small Bengali Fish – Tengra Biran with Aubergine and Pepper Bazi

We eat many small fish in Bangladesh as they do in Thailand and Cambodia. Different types come in different sizes. The smallest being Khesri, which is only between 1 and 2 cm long. And by small I mean small. Haven’t a clue what it’s called in any other language. They are just 1 cm long and you eat them in a fish curry with thousands of them. I guess these are impossible to de-gut but I’ll ask my mum tomorrow.

There are many different types anything from 1cm to 10cm long. You can buy them in London in frozen blocks in the Bangladeshi groceries all over the East End.

Here’s a delicious and easy way to prepare these mini crunchy starter snacks of Bengali cuisine.

The Tengra Mas before and after….! And the Aubergine Pepper Bazi.Heavenly or what!! 🙂

Fried Fish with Roasted Peanut & Ma’om Sauce

This was my first discovery of this wonderful Cambodian herb, Ma’om last yer. It has such a strong and pleasant taste. So aromatic and adds an exciting new taste to the dish. The citrusy flavour with a hint of black pepper I thought. Nothing like any herb I’d tasted before. And even though this dish is full of  the lovely aromatic flavours of lime leaves, lemongrass and galangal, the ma’om compliments all of these whilst adding it’s own intriguing taste that I won’t forget and am drawn to since!!

Ma’om – Herb from Cambodia

Trey Chien Lamiet – Khmer Fried Fish with Turmeric

So I’ve finally gotten round to posting the recipes from my last two posts. Here’s the first. It’s actually from taste very similar to the Bengali fried fish recipes that I’ve already posted! Fish sauce and lemongrass is not used for cooking in Bangladesh.

For this dish I tried ‘Trey Saw’  (white fish) for the first time. I picked them up at the largest market here in Siem Reap – ‘Psar Leu’ which is an amazement in itself!! I’ll do a post or two on the markets here in the future. (Just to make you foodies mouth water at all the fantastic food and cooking ingredients available here!!) I also used trey krung (‘khoi maas’ in Bengali) which I’ve done a post about in the past.

Trey Saw (White Fish)

Trey Krung (Khmoi Maas in Bengali and I have no idea in English

Fried Small Fish-Tengra Biran-Another Bengali Fried Fish Dish!! ‘Trey Ka’choh’

It’s funny how so many fish types I know from Bangladesh are also found here in Cambodia-I also noticed many in Thailand. This small fish is a delicacy in Bangladesh. To me it tastes the same as many other small fish. The bones are a pain because they are small and you can either crunch through them if they’ve been deep fried (most bengalis have been practicing this art since they were kids) or you can peel off the flesh and take out the back-bone (is that what you call it in a fish??)

Anyway, I made this dish over 2 months ago now. That’s how behind I am with posting my recipes. But the method is similar for most Bengali fried fish dishes-the ingredients can differ slightly sometimes but the basics are the same. The most important ingredients are garlic, turmeric and of course salt and chilli.

The fish is called ‘Tengra’ in Bengali and ‘Trey Ka’choh’ in Khmer!!

Cambodian Snakehead Fish Soup with Baby Water Melon

This is one of the first Cambodian dishes I’ve  cooked since I’m here. Almost authentic because I made one slight change to the recipe. You may think that I’m living in Cambodia and it’s taken this long to cook Cambodian. Truth is I didn’t have a kitchen for such a long time (16 months to be exact) during this trip that I could only eat local food where ever I was. Sometimes good and sometimes a downright disaster. Anyone who knows me in Europe will know what a pain in the ass I can be when it comes to eating out.  I can easily walk for  2 hours (on an already empty starving stomach) in a ridiculously foul mood because I refuse to pay money (no matter how little) for crap food. Unfortunately for me most food places in Berlin have substandard food quality. Since travelling I had to give up my high and mighty food standards for eating out. I would’ve starved to death. And the food isn’t all fantastic here like I thought. Whether eating out in Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore ,  Thailand or here in Cambodia, the good places have to be found (and I usually refuse to pay western prices to eat out in Asia). Amazing from the zillions of hawker stalls and street food available how much is to my liking. Too oily, little taste, tough meat, not spiced well or made with misery. I believe that food absorbs the energy of the cook and kitchen. If the kitchen is filthy in the nooks and crannies, I won’t be eating from that kitchen for long. And miserable cooks make me miserable when I eat their food. The same goes for anger. I don’t need angry cooks feeding me their anger as I have enough of my own to deal with.

The difference is of course if one get’s invited into a family for a meal. In Bangladesh I ate exclusively with my extended family and occasionally here in Cambodia I was lucky enough to eat with a family. Only then does one eat real food made with love that can be tasted and felt. The difference is amazing. This is the reason I cook. To make food with love and passion….and as healthy as possible so I can dance a jig immediately after dinner. This is how I measure the standard of my cooking. Food should taste and feel good during and after eating.

Anyway, since I live in Cambodia I can eat Cambodian dishes everyday (and did so for months on end), so it wasn’t on my priority list for cooking.

Cambodian snake head fish – you get the same fish in Bangladesh. How on Earth they swam the freshwater distance is beyond me…??

Baby water melon…..?

Fried Cambodian Fish Bengali Style

At the moment I’m cooking faster than can I process the pictures and write it all up.  So I’ve got a backlog of recipes from the past week.

Here’s a classical Bengali fish dish that we often have at my mum’s. It’s called “mas biran”, which basically means fried fish. The dish is actually a starter in Bengali cuisine. I’ve made it here as a main dish though as it’s more than adequate to be one. The fish is one of my all time favourites. It’s a freshwater fish that has a very distinct flavour that I only know in this particular kind of fish. It’s called “Khoi or Koi” in Bengali. In Khmer it’s called “Trey Krung”. The downside of this fish is that it has a lot of bones. But that’s not a problem for us coming from Bangladesh as we eat with our right hand and can pick the bones individually with our fingers.

I’ve been scouring the internet for hours now looking for the English name but without success. Also when I bought the fish it looked like this: