Bengali Dishes

Bengali's are perhaps the greatest food lovers in the Indian subcontinent. Rice and fish are their staple diet. Many of Bengal's famous dishes are fish based items and they consider a meal incomplete without fish. Bengalis have a special seasoning called 'Panchphoran' which includes five spices - mustard, aniseed, fenugreek seed, cumin seed and black cumin seed. The garam masala is made up of cloves, cinnamon, cumin and coriander seeds, mace, nutmeg, and big and small cardamoms. The principal medium of cooking is mustard oil. A typical Bengali lunch or dinner will generally comprise of bhat (rice), dal (lentils), tarkari (vegetables) and macher jhol (fish curry). No description of Bengali food is complete without mentioning the famous Bengali sweets like rasogolla, sandesh, mishti doi (sweet yogurt) etc.