Bengali recipe style

The following are a list of characteristic Bengali recipe styles Each entry here is actually a class of recipes, producing different dishes depending on the choice of ingredients.

Jhal : Literally, hot. A great favorite in West Bengali households, this is made with fish or shrimp or crab, first lightly fried and then cooked in a light sauce of ground red chilli or ground mustard and a flavoring of pach-pouron or kalo jira. Being dryish, it is often eaten with a little bit of dal pored over the rice   

Posto : anything cooked with poppy seed paste as the main flavoring agent. Often poppy seed paste with some mustard oil is eaten mixed with rice all by itself as a mild beginner for any Bengali meal.

Torkari : A general term often used in Bengal the way `curry' is used in English. The word first meant uncooked garden vegetables. From this it was a natural extension to mean cooked vegetables or even fish and vegetables cooked together.

Shukto : A favorite Bengali palate cleanser, made with a lot of different vegetables including at least one bitter veg, simmered with a hint of sugar and milk to bring out the bitterness of the fresh vegetables.

Bhorta : Any vegetable, such as potatoes, beans, sour mangoes, papaya, pumpkins or even dal, first boiled whole and then mashed and seasoned with red shallot, fresh chile, mustard oil/ghee and spices.

Bhaate : A vegetable, that has been put inside the pot in which rice is cooking, and it has been cooked along with the rice. Generally, you get potatoes, butternut squash, raw papayas, bitter gourd, snake gourd and okra in the rice. Bengalis often eat it with a tinge of mustard oil and salt. However, a very popular one-dish Bengali meal is Alu Bhaate Bhaat, which is Potatoes boiled along with rice, and then served along with the rice.  

Ombol or Aum-bol (also known as Tok) : A sour dish made either with several vegetables or fish, especially fish bones. The souring agent is usually tamarind pulp, unripe mango and sometimes amla or amloki is used. Curd, though a souring agent occasionally used with non-vegetarian dishes, will not be called ombol. It is served at the end of the meal as a kind of digestive, and to cleanse the palate