Everybody (well, almost!) has a favorite grandma's recipe – a heirloom most precious, to be passed down through generations. It is a pity that I don't have one. Only iridescent shards of memories – they are my lot!

My grandmother was a woman of many talents. Born in a family of lawyers in Dhaka of undivided Bengal, she was – among other things – a gifted Esraj player and a fine (very fine) cook. Her culinary skills were beyond compare and yet, she cooked so effortlessly! One of my favorites of her many fine dishes (and a very special one, for that matter) was a fiery red catfish (Magur maach in Bengali) curry. Redolent with the delicate aroma of freshly ground cinnamon, it was surprisingly provocative: the fiery blaze of hot chillies, rising almost to a baroque crescendo, made it immeasurably hot and spicy. To those wont to associate the catfish primarily to the insipid restoration diet of the convalescent, the incandescent glory of such piquant stuff is not only unimaginable but also profoundly shocking. But my palate, for instance, never agreed (while others' happily might) to the forced conviviality of the tantalizingly savory catfish and the jejune green banana! My grandfather, a medical practitioner by profession and a litterateur by inclination, told me stories of the riverine Bengal of his boyhood – of his village in Bikrampur – and of the boatmen of the river Padma who, by the dimming amber glow of lanterns cooked their evening meal on the open decks of their boats – a simple meal comprising rice and the spiciest catfish! That catfish, inimitable in its simple flourish, was hardly ever replicated elsewhere. Not even in my grandmother's kitchen; the boatmen alone, held the secret to the mysterious recipe!

And, so it is with the Goalondo Steamer Chicken. There seems to be hardly anyone who knows the recipe as it was originally cooked by the boatmen on the Goalondo-Narayanganj steamer route. For those fortunate enough to have tasted it at least once in their lives, swear by its consummate piquancy – struggling to retrieve from memory the finer ever-elusive nuances of its unique flavor. Like the catfish, the steamer chicken was a triumph of the minimalist's kitchen. No fine-dining stuff, this! Served for dinner to the passengers onboard, the Goalondo Steamer Chicken was prepared by the khalasis (deckhands) of the steamer. The Sylhet-born Bengali literateur, traveller and polyglot, Syed Mujtaba Ali immortalized the fowl curry in his writings. In Ali's imaginative reflection, the dosing passangers, bewitched – as it were – by the aroma of the curry that came wafting along as it cooked over a slow fire, were magically transported into an enchanted realm where the jahaj they were sailing in morphed into a giant rooster that was being cooked inside out!

While the legend of the Goalondo Steamer Chicken lives on, food historians and gourmands continue to be at loggerheads over the 'authenticity' of the recipe. While some swear by the indispensability of dried shrimp paste, others write it off as an expendable addition to what they consider to be a Spartan culinary tradition. To add or not to add potatoes is the next big question and a highly animated ground for debate! Meat curries are usually cooked with potatoes in Bengal but the Steamer Chicken might have been an exception given the particular circumstances of its origin. The boatmen hardly drew from a lavish stock of supplies – making do with those ingredients alone that came handy. This also explains the total absence of cinnamon, clove and cardamon (together called 'garam masala') in the famed fowl curry as those spices were not only expensive but also difficult to procure. The boatmen shopped for basic supplies in the Goalondo haat (village marketplace) and cooked the fowl on board with basic stuffs such as onion, ginger, garlic and (lots of) chillies. Here's a stripped-down recipe of this delicious minimalist fare:

Ingredients

1. 1 kilo chicken on the bone (skinless)

2. 3 medium sized red onions (coarsely chopped)

3. 1 tsp turmeric powder

4. 2 tbsp red chilli paste (soak a few dry red chillies in hot water for about 30 min; grind to a smooth paste afterwards)

5. 1 tsp ginger paste

6. 2 tsp garlic paste

7. Mustard oil for cooking (sumptuous)

8. Salt to taste

Wash thoroughly and pat dry the chicken. Marinate the meat with the turmeric powder, chilli paste, ground ginger & garlic and about 3 tbsp mustard oil. Set aside.

Heat some mustard oil (be generous with this) in a cast iron skillet and fry the onions until transluscent and aromatic. Add the marinated chicken (together with the salt) and cook, stirring continuously for about 20-30 minutes or until the oil separates. Add some hot water and simmer over a slow fire for about 20-30 minutes. Keep the skillet lidded all the while as the chicken cooks. Check for doneness. Serve the hot fowl curry with steamed rice, halved raw onions, green chillies and a couple of lemon wedges.

If one is keen on the dried shrimp paste, it can be sauteed in mustard oil (to kill the raw smell) and added to the marinade. The potatoes (halved and fried), in their turn, may be added along with the hot water. The recipe – as evident from its many delightful avatars – is open to embellishments although the fiery stew has undergone quite a few serious modifications (in certain places & cultures) in order to swim with the tide. But despite such local add-ons, the legend endures.

Dear reader, let the title of this post not confuse you for the boatmen were not Michelin chefs in reality; they were simple men living simple lives on the river. While we continue to fuss over the fair fowl of Goalondo in our way-too-well-stocked urban kitchens, the boatmen – bucolic bare-bodied men in checkered lungis, sweating over large simmering cauldrons – forge ahead in a time and place very different from our own, chuckling genially.

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