Musings of a Disoriented Punju in Chitto Park

Ok so lets begin at the beginning, which is that I love my meat, chicken, fish and prawns; all tandoori or grilled or in artery choking butter gravy. However, the challenge lies in buying the fish that needs as much discretion as the art of cooking it to perfection. Ab chicken toh chicken hota hai ji, bus tangri ya poora….yeh fish toh ranges from surmai to betkhi to pomfret to singhara and so many more.

Till now I have been relying on the good old Green Chik Chop to deliver fish and to be frank getting freezing stares (all puns intended) at my choice of frozen fish by the Calcutta born and bred mother-in-law. Also not to mention the comments about taste, texture and pricing. So when a Bengali friend volunteered to go “machi” shopping with me I was elated and we headed to Chitto Park. Another friend joined in and to be very frank we felt like virgins in the market that knew its fish and prawns well. Guided suitably we chose to pick up Surmai and Betkhi fillets for a cook off. For obvious reasons we chose fish with “no kaantaa bhaiyaji” oops dada ! We gaped at the rows of fish, fish heads and traversed our way around it. By the way we went to Market No.2 cause our Bengali insider told us that Market No. 1 has snob value and hence the prices are higher.

From the shop next door we also picked up the ready made mustard powder to be able to dish out a perfectly turned in mustard fish. Yum yum. Well if any one of you know a no fail recipe for the same please pass on before the mustard powder expires.

On our way back home a doubt niggled at us, did we buy right? Did we really check the gills? Did we get a good deal? So we called up Green Chik Chop and asked them the price for Surmai which we were told was Rs900 a kilo. Ha ! Ha! And we had managed it at around 560 a kilo. Good deal isn’t it? This sounds almost like a “coming of age” story, but trust me IT IS. Next time, believe it or faint, it will be prawns.
PS:For the equally disoriented Chitto Park is Chitranjan Park in Delhi !