Chitol Machher Muithya—Bengali Chitol Fish Dumplings

Bong Eats
October 13, 2021

Description :

Chitol (Indian featherback) is a prized fish in Bengal and Assam. Chitol machh’er muithya is essentially a dumpling made from the flesh scraped out of the extremely bony dorsal side (called “gaada” in Bengali) of the fish. Chitol’er muithya has a very meat-like, springy, squeaky texture—almost like a good German wurst. This is very much a Bangal (East Bengali immigrants to India) delicacy made on special occasions.

The preparation requires some patience, but it is not technically difficult. If you practice scraping the flesh out of the gaada once, you will get a sense of how the bones are laid out, and how to gently get the meat out without upsetting the layout of the bones. If you scrape indiscriminately, or apply too much pressure in the beginning, the bones will go in every direction, making it very difficult to separate the bones out later from the mince. In short, it really is not as hard as it looks. Just takes a bit of time.

We hope you give this a try.

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RECIPE WITH INGREDIENT LIST
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