Kochur Loti Chingri

Bengal's taro runners cooked with prawns in mustard oil and turmeric, the stolons cut into lengths and simmered until they give

Origin: The Ganges Delta & Bengal

From the journey of Taro.

Kochu is the Bengali word for taro, and Bengal eats more parts of the plant than almost anywhere else: the corm as kochu bata, mashed with mustard oil and green chilli; the leaf as kochu shaak; and the loti, the long pale runner the plant throws out sideways to make new corms, which is what this dish is built on. Kerala eats the stem and Bengal eats the stolon, and between the two of them the subcontinent leaves very little of the plant unused. The runners look like nothing much and behave unlike any other vegetable. They are firm and slightly fibrous, they take a very long time to soften, and they absorb whatever they are cooked with, which is why they are almost always given something assertive: prawns and mustard oil here, or fish heads, or dried fish. Against a small quantity of prawns a large quantity of loti will taste thoroughly of prawn, which was the point in a delta where fish was plentiful and meat was not. Mustard oil is not a substitution in Bengali cooking but a defining ingredient, and it wants heating to smoking point and then cooling slightly before anything goes in, which takes off the raw pungency and leaves the sharpness. Combined with turmeric and green chilli it is the base of a very large part of the Bengali repertoire, and this dish is a plain example of it. The acid discipline that governs every taro preparation applies here too, and Bengali cooks handle it by cooking the loti hard and long rather than by adding tamarind: the runners are simmered until they are entirely yielding, and a batch that still has any crunch left in it will scratch the throat. It is a home dish rather than a restaurant one, made when the plants are throwing runners in the monsoon, and it belongs to the middle of a Bengali meal, after the bitter course and before the fish.

Ingredients

Main

  • 500 g taro runners (kochur loti), peeled and cut into 4cm lengths
  • 200 g small prawns, shelled and deveined
  • 4 tbsp mustard oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 1 tbsp ginger paste
  • 1 tsp ground turmeric
  • 1 tsp red chilli powder
  • 3 green chillies, slit
  • 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 300 ml water
  • 1 tsp sugar

Tempering

  • 1 tsp black mustard seeds
  • 1 dried red chilli
  • 1 bay leaf

Method

  1. Wear gloves. Taro runners irritate the skin as much as the corms do, and bare hands will itch for hours afterwards.
  2. String the runners as you would rhubarb: snap each one and draw the halves apart, and the tough outer fibres come away with the break. Peel off whatever remains.
  3. Cut them into 4cm lengths and rub them with half a teaspoon of the salt and a pinch of turmeric. Set aside for ten minutes, then rinse.
  4. Heat the mustard oil until it smokes, then take it off the heat for a moment to cool slightly. Raw mustard oil is harsh, and this step is standard in every Bengali kitchen.
  5. Toss the prawns with a pinch of turmeric and salt and fry them for barely a minute, until they turn pink, then lift them out. Overcooked prawns will be rubbery by the end.
  6. In the same oil, crackle the mustard seeds with the dried chilli and bay leaf.
  7. Add the onion and fry for six or seven minutes until soft and golden, then the ginger paste for a further minute.
  8. Stir in the turmeric and chilli powder, then add the runners and turn them through the oil and spices for three or four minutes.
  9. Add the water, remaining salt, sugar, and slit green chillies. Bring to a simmer, cover, and cook for twenty to twenty-five minutes.
  10. Test a piece. The runners must be entirely soft and yielding, with no crunch whatever at the centre; undercooked taro of any kind will scratch the throat sharply.
  11. Uncover and cook off the remaining liquid until the dish is moist rather than wet and the oil is beginning to show at the edges.
  12. Return the prawns for the final minute only, turn everything through, and serve hot with plain rice.

Notes

Kochur loti are sold fresh by Bengali and Bangladeshi grocers in the monsoon months and frozen year round, sometimes labelled taro stolon or taro runner; they are not the same thing as the taro stems used in Kerala thoran or Vietnamese canh chua, being narrower and firmer. Cook them until they are completely soft, which takes longer than looks reasonable, since the calcium oxalate in an undercooked runner causes lasting throat irritation. Wear gloves throughout. Mustard oil is not optional if you want this to taste Bengali; heat it to smoking first. Dried shrimp or a fish head can replace the prawns, and both are traditional.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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