Food from riverine Assam

Assamese cuisine has been garnering much interest as it's healthy, light but definitely not bland, writes Ranjita Biswas

Rice and fish Tenga

Khar

The fertile Brahmaputra valley of Assam is home to many kinds of vegetables, fruits and herbs with varied medicinal properties. These are widely used in Assamese traditional cuisine. The use of oil or masala in the cuisine is minimal. This often leads to the impression in other parts of India that Assamese food is bland, which it is not. Today, with emphasis on healthy eating, Assamese cuisine is evoking a new interest.

Traditionally, Assamese food is/was cooked over a firewood stove. Some vegetables and small fish are roasted, steamed or boiled — alu pitika (mashed potato
with a dash of mustard oil and chopped green chilli, which is a favourite. Of course, there are fried dishes too (bhaja), chopped and cooked in individual styles
but again, lightly spiced and not dripping with oil. Green chilli is preferred to red chilli in most dishes.

Being a riverine landscape, fish is a part of everyday meal. It can be done as a light curry, Chorchori with ground mustard seeds or as Tenga, the signature sour curry of Assam. Rice is the staple food around which dishes are built. There is a certain protocol of courses that follow each other. For example, for lunch, the alkaline-based Khar is taken as a first course, followed by saag (greens) bhaja, dal, vegetables and lastly Tenga (with fish or without). Curries of mutton or chicken, dal and vegetables are more common for dinner. Curd is often a part of the meal during the daytime but the sour variety is preferred to the over-sweet ones now available in sweetmeat shops.

With Assam being a neighbour to the South-East Asian countries, some of their food influences have percolated into Assamese style of cooking too. Bamboo shoot is widely used to make pickle (kharisa) and also added to curries. Seasonal items like Boga Pitha, rolls made with ground sticky rice Bora variety and stuffed with toasted and ground black sesame seed and jaggery is a must for the traditional Bihu festival Rongali Bihu in Spring and Magh Bihu in winter celebrated as the harvest festival. Rice stuffed into bamboo tree hollows and slow-cooked in a firewood stove is a delicacy (sunga pitha) too. Obviously, townsfolk cannot make it at home these days but in villages, it is still very popular. After breaking open the bamboo ‘pipe’ the rice is taken out and mixed with milk and jaggery.

Khar

Ingredients

One medium-sized raw papaya

2/3 inch ginger thinly sliced

2 bay leaves

4-5 garlic pods coarsely ground

Green chillies 2-3 slit

2 tbsp whole Bengal gram dal soaked overnight
(optional)

½ tsp soda-bi-carb

2 tbsp mustard oil

Salt to taste

Method

Cut the papaya into cubes. In a kadai heat the oil. When smoking, add the bay leaves, garlic and ginger and then the papaya and drained gram dal. Add salt, mix and cover the kadai and lower the heat. After five to six minutes, make a dent in the middle and add the soda bi-carb (traditionally burnt banana pith kalakhar was used). Add enough water to cook the vegetable and the slit green chillies. Simmer. When ready it should look slightly pulpy. Serve with boiled rice as a first
course.

(Note: Non-vegetarians can add lightly fried fish
pieces or fish head, roughly broken into pieces to mix well with the papaya.)

Tenga

Ingredients

2 ripe tomatoes chopped

½ cup bottle gourd finely chopped

2 whole green chillies

1 tbsp chopped coriander leaves

1 tbsp mustard oil

½ tsp fenugreek seed

½ tsp turmeric powder

Salt to taste

Method

Heat the oil in a kadai. When hot, add the fenugreek seeds; when sputtering add the vegetable, mix and simmer in a covered pan. Add salt and turmeric. When the vegetable is cooked sufficiently, add the chillies and water to make the curry. The curry should not be too thick. (Add the fish, if preferred). Before taking off add the coriander leaves. Serve as the last course. Tenga has a cooling effect and should not be taken hot, rather at room temperature. An alternative to bottle gourd could be ridge gourd. The same process but add lemon juice just before taking off to get the sour taste.
(Note: Non-vegetarians can add a few pieces of Rohu or any sweet water fish lightly fried.)