Boal Maccher Jhol—a classic Bengali fish curry

Bowal is the piscine equivalent of a decadent, fatty cut of meat. In my opinion, it is the most flavourful large fish that Bengalis eat (I said opinion, not fact). It is meaty with a large fat cap on the ventral side.

The fish is a predator, eats other fish—even its own kind. This has led to lores about bowal being a "rakkhosh machh" (monster fish). Bowal is found naturally in rivers and large waterbodies all over Bengal. It can grow up to a metre in length. Being a catfish it is scaleless and has a thick skin.

People often mistake the cheaper, farmed Pangash (Basa) machh for Bowal. It is easy to tell them apart if you look at the tail. Basa has a prominent forked tail like most fish, Bowal does not. Bowal also has a flattened body while Basa is more rounded.

Bowal machh’er jhol, as it is cooked in our family, has a light onion and garlic based sauce, flavoured with nigella seeds and green chillies. My family always adds some cardamom and cinnamon too, because Bowal’s flavour can be strong, but you can skip this if you like.

This jhol would be called machh’er "jhal" in many families, but this is not a term that is used in our East Bengali migrant home. As we had noted in the machh’er kaliya recipe, the addition of garlic and the omission of ginger is what sets this dish apart from kaliya which would have ginger and no garlic. This may seem like a small change but in my perception, this recipe’s onion-garlic combination is more savoury than the onion-ginger pairing in a kaliya.

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