Sareng Thongba

Manipur style Catfish cooking - A Special Dish of Manipur People

Main Dish

Non-Vegetarian

Fish Meal

Kanglei

Curry

One Pan

Spicy

Sareng Thongba

Friday, February 11, 2022 By : KH MATHOU

5.0 2 Reviews Add Review

Manipur style Catfish cooking - A Special Dish of Manipur People

16 Ingredients
45 Mins
4 People

Sareng (Helicopter Catfish or Wallago Catfish) has a unique story with the civilization of the people in Manipur. It is an important and special fish bonded with the culture and tradition. Till today 'Sareng' is using in worshipping gods in a form of 'Sairen Chanba', a style of cooking characterized by distinctive ingredients, techniques and dishes and offering to gods for blessing of happy, peace and prosperous land since thousands of years ago. The Manipur people believes that the life form of Sareng became from 100 water life form and 100 land life form.
The Manipur people regards Sareng Thongba as one of the most special and popular dish in the state but method of cooking become different with the traditional style. It's a common dish available in a grand feast or in a party. We will use minimum ingredients and more common with todays method for this recipe.

Sareng Thongba

Preparation Time
15 minutes

Cook Time
30 minutes

Total Time
45 minutes

Servings
4 servings

Ingredients
16 ingredients

Directions
9 steps

Ingredients

Primary

	2 pieces - Onion Roughly chopped
	2 pieces - Ginger Roughly chopped
	As per your choice - Chilli
	1 bundle - Coriander leaves Raw is preferred
	2 nail size pieces - Sweet Lemon peeled (Haribob) Dry
	As required - Mustard Oil
	1 teaspoon - Coriander powder
	1/2 teaspoon - Asafoetida (Hing)
	3 to 5 leaves - Bay leaves (Tejpata) Dry
	1 bundle with roots - Hooker chives (Maroi napakpi)
	1 bundle - Chinese chives (Maroi nakuppi)
	As required - Salt
	1 teaspoon - Turmeric powder
	500 g - Sareng (helicopter catfish or wallago catfish)
	1 cup - Peas
	2 pieces - Tomato

Directions

1 Preparing the veg ingredients
Wash and chop up the onions, ginger and tomatoes in pieces.
2 Prepare the fish
Clean and prepare your fish and cut it into pieces.
3 The tempering
Heat the oil (as per your preferred quantity) in a pan and add the Asafoetida (Hing). Saute Bay leaves for a few seconds, add Hooker chives, Chinese chives, Chopped Onion, Chopped Ginger altogether. Stir occasionally till it soften.
4 Make it little spicy
Add chilli powder, lemon peel, coriander powder and fry for a few seconds. Later add turmeric powder and stir and make it sticky.
5 The Vegetables
Add green peas, chopped tomatoes, stir and cook for a while.
6 Add the Fish
Now, add the fish. Make sure that the ingredients are mixed really well before you add the fish fry it for 3-4 minutes, stir it well so that the fish will not stick to the pan and it’s coated with the spices and ingredients.
7 The Cooking
Add 1 and 1/2 cup of water (preferably hot, water from washing white rice) for gravy, and boil it. Cover it with a lid and let it cook on high heat for 10 minutes.
8 The Water Consistency
Open the lid and let it simmer until the gravy thickened and stir occasionally. Add salt to taste. Cook it for 4-5 minutes under low flame.
9 Ready to serve
Stop the heat and garnish with coriander leaves.