Kathaler Bichi Bhorta

Bangladeshi mashed jackfruit seeds: boiled seeds crushed with raw mustard oil, green chilli, onion, and coriander, and eaten with rice

Origin: Bangladesh

From the journey of Jackfruit.

Bhorta is the Bangladeshi art of the mash: something boiled, roasted, or fried, crushed by hand with raw mustard oil, green chilli, onion, and salt, and eaten with rice at the start of a meal. Almost anything can become a bhorta, and in the jackfruit season the seeds, kathaler bichi, do. Boiled until they are as soft as chestnuts and mashed with the sharp raw oil, they make one of the cheapest and most satisfying. The jackfruit is the national fruit of Bangladesh, kathal or kanthal, and its growers divide it three ways: the firm khaja, the soft and juicy gala, and the dorosa between them. The seeds of all three are used. The fruit has been at home in Bengal since at least the seventh century, when the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang found it 'highly esteemed' in the kingdom of Pundravardhana, whose capital is identified with Mahasthangarh, near Bogra. Its season was marked by more than the markets: Yule and Burnell recorded that in some districts of the Ganges plain the call of the Indian cuckoo, which arrives at that time of year, was heard as kathal pakka, 'the jack is ripe'.

Ingredients

Seeds

  • 250 g jackfruit seeds (about 30), white outer skin removed
  • 0.5 tsp salt, for the boiling water

Bhorta

  • 1 small red onion, very finely chopped
  • 3 green chillies, finely chopped
  • 2 dried red chillies, dry-roasted until dark (optional)
  • 2 tbsp pungent mustard oil, raw
  • 2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped
  • 0.5 tsp salt, or to taste

Method

  1. Boil the seeds in salted water for 25 to 30 minutes, until soft right through. Drain, and when they are cool enough to handle rub off as much of the thin brown inner skin as comes away easily.
  2. Crush the seeds to a coarse paste in a mortar, or with a potato masher.
  3. In a bowl, squeeze the onion, green chillies, crumbled roasted red chillies, and salt together with your fingers until the onion softens and gives up its juice.
  4. Add the mashed seeds, mustard oil, and coriander and knead everything together until evenly mixed. Taste for salt.
  5. Shape into a ball and serve at room temperature with hot rice, as the first thing on the plate.

Notes

Raw mustard oil is the dressing and should be properly pungent; cold-pressed (kachi ghani) oil gives the right bite. Never eat jackfruit seeds raw.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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