Ghol Bhujna, a Pathare Prabhu Stew that Reveres Fish Bones

A seafood stew from the Pathare Prabhu community made with ghol, a delicate fish that is the uncrowned monarch of their unusual cuisine.

According to legend, the Pathare Prabhu community traces its lineage to the sons of Ram — Luv and Kush. A more plausible explanation however, traces the roots of this community to a place called Patan.

There is no documentary evidence about the native place of the Pathare Prabhus. However, distinct culinary influences of North Gujarat and Rajasthan are evident from certain dishes which share similarities with dishes like the Gujarati undhiyu and sweets like ghevar and churma ladoo. Similarly, some PP families eat boiled yam (suran) the same way that Kayasth and Kshatriya families in Eastern UP and Nepal do.

Legend has it that we migrated from the hills of Nepal to the plains, moved to Rajasthan and finally, to Mumbai via Gujarat. Over time, we adopted the Marathi language as our own, imitated the Marathi way of dressing (the traditional nauvari sari) and adopted many other cultural traditions.

When it comes to the food however, the community’s preferences are quite unlike the Marathi cuisine. Our diet is primarily non-vegetarian, with seafood and meat playing key roles. Seafood has been the soul of our cuisine for the past few centuries, and among all the varieties of marine life consumed, the ghol fish (also known as the Jewfish, part of the grouper family) remains the uncrowned monarch of the community. The community has been eating this fish from nose-to-tail for at least a century before the philosophy came into vogue.

Boneless chunks of ghol are a staple. They are fried, pickled, stewed and curried. However, what we really look forward to is the bony spine from a large ghol. This style of cutting fish is unique to Mumbai and specifically mastered by our native Kolis. The ghol head or bagad is also bought and cooked separately. The kata (central spine), pisara (tail bones) and bagad (head) are highly revered parts, treated with a great deal of respect.

The traditional bhujna recipe is tweaked slightly when cooking these special bits. Ginger is added to the cold mix of crushed raw onions, garlic, chillies, coriander and oil when cooking kata or bagad. The bony bits lend a very unique gelatinous texture to the resulting curry; completely unlike the version with boneless ghol chunks.

The recipe I’m sharing here is known as Bhujane, a simple seafood stew and classic PP comfort food. Ready in a jiffy this one is outright delicious! The list of ingredients is minimal and readily available in almost every Indian home. Any firm-fleshed white fish (like pomfret) works as well as ghol in this recipe.

RECIPE: PATHARE PRABHU GHOL BHUJNA

(serves 4)

Ingredients
500 g ghol or any other firm-fleshed white fish
Bones and head, rinsed and cleaned
2 small onions, chopped fine
2 tbsp freshly crushed garlic paste (if using the bones, include equal amount of ginger paste)
2 spicy dark green chilies, chopped fine
2 tbsp coriander leaves, chopped fine
½ tsp turmeric powder
2 tsp Kashmiri red chilli powder
4 tbsp oil (peanut or any neutral oil)
Salt to taste and water as required

Method
Chop 2 small onions as fine as you can and add it to a flat pan (traditionally a flat brass vessel called, ‘langdi’), in which to stew the fish.
To the chopped onions, add freshly pounded garlic paste, salt to taste, green chilli, coriander, haldi, and oil (to the cold pan).
Crush these together with your fingertips in the pan till the entire mix is homogeneous and almost pasty. This is critical, as if you don’t mix the ingredients together sufficiently, the resultant curry will be a runny mess rather than the perfectly held texture it ought to be.
Once the masala is crushed and mixed, add the bones and coat with masala.
Now slide in your Ghol fish pieces and coat them in the masala Add just enough cold water to cover the fish pieces (around 1/2 cup) and bring this to boil on a medium flame.
As soon as it starts bubbling, turn the heat down low, cover and cook on a low flame for about 4-5 minutes (or about 7 minutes if you’re using the bones, to get a nice gelatinous texture).
Remove the lid and, without stirring, tilt and turn the vessel so that the oil and the rest of the mix comes together. This is critical, as any stirring could break the delicate pieces of fish.
At this point, switch off the flame and let the curry cool down a bit.
Serve warm with steaming hot white rice.

Soumitra Velkar documents Pathare Prabhu recipes on his blog. You can follow his work here.

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