Awesome! Thanks! (And thank you for the alternate recipes to cross reference!) I will report back with the finished dish.
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Ilish/Hilsa is a fish which is hugely prized by Bengalis for it’s flavour - it is an extremely bony (hundreds of tiny bones) fish. It’s typically only available in season (but now more widely available frozen) and sold at very high prices in season. You don’t see many other fish being used in biryani type preparations but this fish suits it because of it’s distinctive rich oily flavour. I wouldn’t use mishti doi in cooking - you can just add some sugar to balance the flavours if needed. I’ll be interested to read how your flounder version turns out.
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Ilish pulao is delicious. I was once treated to one that had been made by someone’s mom in Bangladesh and magically made its way to NYC 
Flounder might be a bit light depending on your spicing, or it may be fine.
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Good to know about the hilsa. I am going with the winter flounder because it’s local and in season. It will be much less oily, but I find that it absorbs gravy flavors well. We’ll see what happens. A repeat in the future might get made with arctic char.
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Frozen hilsa is not as hard to find these days in the US because of the increase in the Bangladeshi immigrant population in recent years.
I’ve read shad is meant to be a good substitute.
Since I was looking at the original recipe I posted when I pulled the other ingredients to start, I thought the flounder would play well with the coconut milk (as fluke does). Might try this again with salmon or arctic char in the future.
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I don’t have that in stores near me (nor mackerel)! But, I will keep an eye out!
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Mackerel would work too. But really, fish pulao is fish pulao so if you have a fish that won’t fall apart, you’ll be fine.
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I think with the flounder, they are likely going to get stirred in carefully in the last minute of cooking when I reheat the gravy. They will finish cooking through when I layer up the rice and gravy and do the final cook, I think.
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Most Bengali fish preps call for seasoning and pan-frying the fish at the outset, which helps it hold together better. Then the aromatics are fried in the same oil.
I just don’t want to over cook the flounder! I might have been able to get away with it with the haddock that ended up this morning’s brunch.
Ok, gonna go dig through the freezer to see if I have something more salmonoid left…
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Don’t stress too much. It will be delcious even if the fish falls apart! But I’d recommend the Bengali way at the start.
Got it! I appreciate the advice!
And, I found my arctic char, so, I have a sturdier, oiler fish to work with!
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Most Indian fish preparations seem overcooked when judged by Western standards. I was told that because of the hot and humid climate, seasoning fish with salt and turmeric and then frying it and then currying the heck out of it was a way of ensuring it didn’t spoil, in the days before refrigeration was commonly available.
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That absolutely makes sense!
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Ok, checking back in now that I have made (and eaten) the Bengali Style Hilsa Arctic Char Pulao:
This definitely benefitted from being made in stages over a couple days. Yesterday I made the fried onions (note to self - frying lots of onions in mustard oil should be undertaken next when I can open some windows!) and the gravy base. It took a while for the oil to separate back out while I was cooking it, so you need some patience. In place of the mishti doi, I added the cream portion of my can of coconut milk. Then, once it was well incorporated and had again cracked, I added the milk part once I got to that part of the recipe. I cooled and stored it overnight so it could develop its flavors. Today I cooked my skin on arctic char and some green chiles in the gravy. I’m glad I went with the arctic char because it did stand up to all the other flavors very well. It also worked out fine with the cooking times and wasn’t dried out.
I used the cashews and black cardamom suggested by this recipe and watched the video linked in this other recipe that @Saregama shared upthread.
All told, I feel like this was a pretty successful attempt. Thank you to both @Saregama and @medgirl for your advice on making this!
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Looks good!
(I “fry” onions – not in mustard oil – in the microwave. As long as you’ve got some mustard oil in the mix, you’ll get the flavor.)
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Thank you! I will have to give the microwave a go.
