page_title: Bengali cuisine
section_title: Utensils
hierarchical_section_title: Bengali cuisine / Utensils
caption_attribution_description: English: Different cooking utensils used in a Bengali household. From left, kadai, tawa, handi, tea dekchi and a dekchi.
context_page_description: Bengali cuisine is a culinary style originating in Bengal region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent, which is divided between Bangladesh and the Indian states of West Bengal, Tripura and Assam's Barak Valley. There is an emphasis on fish, vegetables, and lentils served with the staple rice.
  Many Bengali food traditions draw from social activities, such as adda, or the Mezban.
  Bengali cuisine is known for its varied use of flavours, as well as the spread of its confectioneries and desserts. It has the only traditionally developed multi-course tradition from the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent that is analogous in structure to the modern service à la russe style of French cuisine, with food served in courses rather than all at once.
context_section_description: Another characteristic of Bengali food is the use the boti (also called the dao in some regional dialects). It is a long curved blade on a platform held down by foot; both hands are used to hold whatever is being cut and move it against the blade, which faces the user. This method gives effective control over the cutting process, and can be used to cut anything from prawn to large pumpkins.
  A korai is a cooking vessel for most Bengali sauces and stir-fry. The dekchi (a flat-bottomed pan) is used generally for larger amounts of cooking or for making rice. It comes with a thin flat lid which is used also to strain out the starch while finishing up cooking rice. The tawa is used to make roti and paratha. The other prominent cooking utensil is a hari, which is a round-bottomed pot-like vessel. The three mentioned vessels all come in various sizes and in various metals and alloys.
  A flat metal spatula, khunti, is used often, along with hata (scoop with a long handle), jhanjri (round-shaped sieve-like spatula to deep-fry food), the shanrashi (pincers to remove vessels from the fire), the ghuntni (wooden hand blender) for puréeing dal, the wooden belun chaki (round pastry board and rolling pin), and the shil nora, which is a rough form of a mortar and pestle or grinding stone. The kuruni is used only to grate coconuts.
  Silverware is not a part of traditional Bengali cookery.
caption: Different utensils used in a Bengali household. Clockwise from left: korai, tawa, hari, tea pan and a dekchi or deg.
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "", "Image Make": "SONY", "Image Model": "DSC-HX9V", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Picasa", "Image DateTime": "2012:03:09 17:37:46", "Image Artist": "Picasa", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "310", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "GPS GPSAltitudeRef": "0", "GPS GPSStatus": "V", "GPS GPSImgDirectionRef": "M", "GPS GPSImgDirection": "139/4", "GPS GPSMapDatum": "WGS-84", "GPS GPSDifferential": "0", "Image GPSInfo": "13322", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 51, 48, 48, 0, 0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "13576", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3226", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/15", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "800", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF RecommendedExposureIndex": "800", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2012:03:09 18:40:30", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2012:03:09 18:40:30", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "-137/320", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "55/16", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "461/100", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "4329", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2152", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "4608", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2592", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "13428", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "345980b1c60749cfcad808b5aff45095", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[107/25, 1712/25, 33/10, 59/10]"}