Monalisa Baruah's Masor Tenga Anchors a North Eastern Dream in Goa

At Goya, celebrating home cooks and recipes have always been at the heart of our work. Through our series, #1000Kitchens, we document recipes from kitchens across the country, building a living library of heirloom recipes that have been in the family for 3 generations or more. In this edition, Monalisa Baruah shares a recipe for masor tenga, an Assamese fish curry that contains within it memories of her home, and her family, and is the anchor to her North Eastern restaurant in Goa. This season’s stories are produced in partnership with the Samagata Foundation—a non-profit that champions meaningful projects.

From the fourth-floor kitchen of Monalisa Baruah’s beautiful home, where paintings dot the walls, and artefacts from Assam overlook Panaji, the aroma of masor tenga, a tangy Assamese fish curry, wafts down to the street below. Monalisa moves with ease in the kitchen, checking on pots and pans simmering on the stove. Assamese music plays gently in the background as she prepares a dish that carries her deepest memories. Masor tenga is more than a family recipe; to Monalisa, it is memories of childhood, family, and home. It is this dish that has shaped her journey of bringing North Eastern cuisine to Goa through their restaurant, Soul Chef: Feasts From The North East.

“My childhood memories are woven with masor tenga,” she smiles. In the summer, her mother would prepare the curry with fresh rohu, tomatoes, ginger and an Assamese lemon variety known as kazi nemu. It was paired with Joha rice. Joha rice is a famously aromatic rice variety from Assam, known for its natural fragrance, delicate texture, and slight sweet taste — it is considered one of the finest indigenous rice varietals of the region. “When we’d come home on vacation, playing outdoors, we’d know lunch was ready when the fragrance of Joha rice filled the neighbourhood!”

Her grandmother was meticulous about recipes: fish must not be over-fried; once placed in the curry, it must not be stirred; the tomatoes must be allowed to soften slowly; the ginger must release its flavours adequately; and the lemon must have time to soften its sourness into the curry. “Every household’s masor tenga tastes different.”

For Saurav, the dish is equally sacred. “In Assam, no meal is complete without masor tenga. Even if there are ten other dishes, we end with masor tenga. When I’d return home from hostel, I would call my mother and ask her to make masor tenga for me. Every home’s version tastes different, and your mother’s will always be the best.”

“Food has always been important in my family”, says Monalisa. Her lineage is steeped in culinary traditions. Her parents ran a restaurant 35 years ago; her grandmother had her own food stall; her aunt ran a cafe long before cafes were fashionable. “My grandma was known for her breads,” she smiles. “I grew up in this background, just like how my daughter is growing up in a restaurant now.”

Planning meals was a ritual for the couple. “Saurav and I would plan the menu a month in advance if someone was visiting us,” she laughs. “We both love cooking. We even fight about who gets to cook.”

When the couple first moved to Goa over a decade ago, they stumbled upon a space that felt perfect. But at the time, they had no capital. “I told the owner I had no money. He said, ‘I have the money. Let’s be partners.’ And so, the foundation of Soul Chef was laid in 2015.”

As they began building Soul Chef, they quickly realised that Goa was not familiar with North Eastern cuisine. “People did not know our food,” Monalisa explains. “I used to call it flavours from an unexplored paradise.” Their first menu was a single page of North Eastern dishes. Many tourists would peek in, search for dal makhani or paneer, and walk out. So, they succumbed to a multi-cuisine menu with North Eastern dishes tucked into a corner, hoping some diners might be willing to explore new flavours. Saurav thinks back, “What startled us was that in any restaurant you go, you'll find Punjabi, Gujarati, South India, Chinese, even Thai food on the menu, but nothing from the North East. We wanted to change that.”

They also found themselves correcting misconceptions. “People would sell momos and call that Northeastern food. But that’s hardly the whole picture,” Monalisa laughs. Their work soon grew to include educating customers about the diversity and range of North Eastern cuisine through Soul Chef and how the region's cuisine features a range of wild greens, fresh water fish, mutton and duck.

Slowly, through word of mouth, people began coming in specifically for those dishes on the menu. Goans in particular, embraced it, and North Eastern flavours slowly began finding a place on Goa’s food scene.

Over the years, Monalisa and Saurav noticed growing awareness and acceptance. “There was a time when someone asked me if North Eastern people needed a visa to come to Goa,” she recalls. “Today, people know more. Social media has changed the narrative to a large extent. Their daughter is affectionately recognised at school as ‘the Assamese girl who speaks Konkani’.”

To them, the region’s food mirrors its culture: simple, slow-cooked, unhurried. Just as Goa lives by susegaad, Assam lives by lahe lahe (take it slow). “Our food uses no heavy masalas. It relies on slow cooking, fresh ingredients and letting the flavours do their magic,” she says.

For years, they sourced ingredients directly from Assam, despite the high cost. Today, an emerging Northeastern community in Goa makes sourcing easier. And through it all, masor tenga continues to be the reliable thread holding the narrative together. A dish that travelled from Assam’s kitchens to a small restaurant’s menu in Goa, carrying with it heritage, nostalgia, and a taste of home.

Monalisa learnt masor tenga from watching her mother, and later perfected it under her mother-in-law's guidance. One misconception they often confront is that Assamese food is that it is very spicy. “It isn't,” they chime in. “We just used one chilli for flavour. Coriander and ginger are quintessential in any Assamese kitchen, and they make masor tenga what it is.”

Monalisa serves her masor tenga with warm rice, alu pitika (mashed potatoes mixed with chopped onions, chilli and coriander leaves, with a generous drizzle of mustard oil), and a potato-and-carrot stir-fry. The fish, first fried in mustard oil and then cooked in the tangy sauce, absorbs a subtle sourness that seeps into each piece. The dish is simple in its ingredients and cooking method, yet complex in its layers of flavour — the sourness of cooked tomatoes, the tanginess of lemon squeezed in at the end, the gentle heat of julienned ginger, and the sweet earthiness of the freshwater rohu fish, which they had sourced from a nearby supermarket as freshwater fish is not easily available in Panjim city.

Saurav teases her: “It’s not like my mother’s.” But she responds, “Our daughter loves it. And that’s enough.”

RECIPE FOR MASOR TENGA

Ingredients

For frying the fish
4-6 pieces of fish (Rohu/CatIa/any freshwater fish)
1 - 2 tsp turmeric powder
2-3 tbsp mustard oil
A pinch of red chilli powder
Salt, to taste

For the curry
2 chopped tomatoes
1 lemon (or 6-7 pieces of ou tenga or 2-3 pieces of thekera according to availability)
2-3 green chillies
1 tsp turmeric powder
1-2 tsp mustard seeds fenugreek seeds
1-1.5 cups water
Handful of chopped coriander leaves
Ginger, a few pieces, julienned
Salt, to taste

Method
Wash the fish and marinate with a pinch of chilli powder, salt and turmeric.
Heat mustard oil until it smokes slightly. Fry the fish lightly until golden on both sides. Keep aside.
In the same oil, add mustard seeds & fenugreek seeds.
Add chopped tomatoes, and cook until tomatoes become soft.
Add turmeric and salt.
Pour water and bring it to a boil.
Add the souring agent: choose between lemon juice (add at the end), ou tenga (add while boiling) or thekera tenga (to be soaked in warm water and added while boiling).
Let it simmer for 3-4 minutes.
Gently place fried fish pieces into the curry. Cook on low flame for 5-7 minutes so the fish absorbs the tangy flavour
Add the chopped coriander and ginger julienne.
If adding lemon juice, add it just before turning off the heat.
Garnish with coriander leaves (optional).
Serve hot with steamed Joha rice.

Words by Shruti Tharayil. Images by Daniel D’souza. Art by Hayaan Naim.
Special thanks to our partners.