Macher Kochuri / Bengali Style Fish Kachori

Kachori or as we say it, Kochuri is a quintessential part of the Bengali food culture. These stuffed puris have filled Bengali’s tummy for ages.For us, stuffed parathas are not that important but stuffed kachoris are. The most famous being the “Koraisutir Kochuri”, which has become almost synosumous with the Bengalis. But there are lots of other kachori / kochuri, like this Macher Kochuri / Fish Kachori,  in Bengal too. Wait till I present each of them to you in later posts.

And of course, since we are so maddened by fishes, it would have been a wonder if we didn’t invent kachoris with fish stuffing. I mean it s very very inevitable. While Koraisutir Kochuri is a complete breakfast item, macher kochuri is just the opposite. It’s thick, heavy and filled with all the fishy goodness.

I liked macher kochuri because it can be made throughout the year, whereas the matar kachori . koraisutir kochuri is more of a winter speciality. And also, frozen vegetables are not quite popular in Bengal. People there like to wake up in the morning and go to the market with a striped medium size bag, which looks like a mixture of jute and plastic. They buy fresh vegetables and fishes by looking touching and sometimes sniffing. People generally go for fish and vegetable marketing everyday, and although a thing like fridge exists in almost every house, they don’t really believe much in them. They use it for preserving leftovers.

So whenever we had some really oily fish, or mother spotted bhetki in the market, we had Macher kochuri as dinner. As you tear apart the kochuri and the warm vapour escapes from it before hitting your nose with a burst of aroma, you will know you are going to have an wonderful...wonderful meal.

For maacher kochuri / fish kachori, try to take a fish that is rich in taste. Because this recipe is all about fish and it’s only the fish that will make all the differences.

Macher Kochuri

Serves 6-7

Ingredients:

2 cups of all purpose flour

1 tsp salt

¼ tsp yeast / 2 tsp baking powder

1 tbsp oil

Water to knead the dough

1 cup all purpose flour to sprinkle while kneading the dough and rolling the kachori / kochuri

Stuffing:

4 medium  fish fillet of your choice (The best choice should be Bhetki. But you can use any fish that you like. I have used Meru fish. Try to use a rich and oily fish, which will lend a lot of flavour the kachori.)

1 small onion - chopped

1 medium potato

1 small bunch of coriander leaves – chopped

2-3 green chillies – chopped

1 tsp red chilli powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp bhaja mosla (dry roast cumin seeds, coriander seeds, dry red chilli and black peppercorns for 1-2 minutes. Then grind them to a fine powder)

1 tsp garam masala powder

Salt

1 tbsp oil

1 tsp cumin seeds / panch foron (mixture of cumin seeds, mustard seeds, fennel seeds, fenugreek seeds and kalo jeera or nigella seeds)

Oil to deep fry the kachori / kochuri

Method:

Peel and dice the potatoes. Then boil them with some salt, until they are soft and cooked from inside.

Once done, drain the water and put the potatoes in a bowl. Put the bowl inside the fridge for 15 minutes to cool down. It will help to evaporate the moisture from the potatoes.

Chop up the fillets in small pieces.

Heat oil in a kadai / pan and temper it with cumin seeds/ panch foron.

Now add the boiled and cooled down potatoes into it.

Sauté for 2-3 minutes, and add in the fish fillets.

Sprinkle some salt and turmeric powder. Mix and cook, till the fishes are almost done. During the process, do smash the fishes to make them as tiny as possible.

Now add the red chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder and garam masla powder.

Cook till they are done. If the fishes become too dry during the process, add a dash of water to prevent them from burning or sticking to the bottom of the pan.

Once done, transfer the entire fish mixture to a bowl. Let it come to the room temperature.

Then add the chopped onions, chopped green chillies, chopped fresh coriander leaves and bhaja mosla.

Mix and with the help of your palm squish everything to make them completely mashes, as much as possible.

Finally taste and adjust the seasoning. Then keep it aside. Do not put it inside the fridge because then the entire stuffing will stiff up. Or if you keep it, let it come to room temperature before you use.

In a small bowl take the yeast and put a little water and sugar. Wait for 2-3 minutes. If you are using baking powder then skip this step, and mix the baking powder with the flour directly.

In a large bowl take all the ingredients for kneading the dough. Pour the bloomed yeast into it, and mix. Add water as needed and slowly knead. Sprinkle more water and flour as need during the kneading process. Finally you should have fine dough with a smooth velvety texture.

If you are keeping the dough to make the kachori / kochuri later, then do not use yeast because then the dough will become like a pizza dough and will become very soft and bubbles will form inside it. The yeast flavour will be enhanced too. So when using it, use the dough just after you have finished kneading it. However, if you are using baking powder then letting the dough to rest is of no problem.

Create small pieces from the dough, to make kachori / kochuri.

The kachoris should not be thick and large. So make the pieces accordingly.

Take the rest of the flour and dip the small dough into it. Roll it into a puri / luchi size round shape.

Place 1 tbsp size of fish masala stuffing. Gather the sides and wrap the dough firmly and press the edges so that the wrap does not open up. Sprinkle some more flour and very carefully roll with a rolling pin to give it a more flat and round shape. Sprinkling flour is important because that will prevent the kachori to stick to the rolling board and rolling pin. And also this sprinkling of flour will help to make a crisp texture of your kachori / kochuri. You can also do this by firmly pressing with your fingers, while placing the stuffed dough on the palm of your other hand. Just be careful to not press it very hard to ooze out the stuffing from it or loosen up the edges of the wrap underneath.

Follow this process for the rest of the dough.

Do not place the rolled kachoris / kochuri one upon the other because then they will then stick to each other, and separating them will become almost impossible.

Heat enough oil to deep fry the kachoris and then deep fry them one by one, until they are golden and crisp from each of the sides.

Serve hot with any spicy potato curry.