Bengali Style Mashed Potatoes

Every Bengali kid grew up with this version of mashed potatoes. For most of us the taste and flavor is  linked to our childhood - mid-day lunches during the school holidays. For my husband, this dish reminds him of his grandmother. One memory I have is my mother boiling the potatoes with the rice. After straining the rice, she  delicately removed the potatoes from the rice and peeled them while they were still steaming hot! I remember being very young, may be only three-four years old, when one small hot potato fell on my feet and gave me a burn. But instead of crying, I wanted to play with it as if it was a little dough to mash.

This morning I boiled a potato for another dish and thought, why not make the good old favorite. For memories sake.....

Mashed Potatoes, Bengali Style

Ingredients
Potato
Green chili, thinly sliced
Red onion, minced
Salt
Mustard Oil

Preparation

1. Cut and boil the potato. You can also pressure cook them if you are making a lot. Peel the potatoes. It is much easier to peel the potatoes after they are boiled!
2. Mash the potato with your hand, add the minced red onions and green chilies, salt, and couple dashes of mustard oil.
3. Make them into balls, golf-ball size. Serve!

If you do not have mustard oil, you can substitute with Ghee. Using Mustard Oil is a very Bengali thing to do. We LOVE mustard and use it liberally in almost every dish. My grandmother's generation cooked mostly with mustard oil. Hence all their masterpieces - fish, meat, vegetables - were all cooked with mustard oil. From my mother's generation there was a trend to use vegetable / corn oils; a trend fanned by now disproved health scares. And my generation has moved on to non-fat sprays. But we do miss out on the intense flavor of mustard oil and many our childhood memories of food are linked to that distinct aroma and flavor.

I am very happy to see that mustard oil is making a comeback. I find it in most grocery stores these days. It is also nice to see that the West is discovering the flavor!