Dried Fish

Khansland Dried Fish is traditional shutki — sun-dried and salt-cured fish using preservation methods that have sustained Bangladeshi coastal and riverine communities for centuries before refrigeration. Our shutki range covers the principal varieties: dried hilsa (shukna ilish), dried prawn (chingri shutki), dried puti fish, and dried tengra fish — each with a distinctive character that specific traditional recipes are built around.

Shutki has a flavour unlike any other food — deeply pungent, intensely savoury, and extraordinarily rich in umami from the extensive protein breakdown that occurs during the curing process. Its smell is powerful and confronting to the uninitiated, but when properly prepared — soaked, cleaned, and cooked with the right combination of onion, chili, and mustard oil — it produces curries and preparations of remarkable depth and complexity that fresh fish simply cannot match.

The most celebrated shutki preparations include shutki bhaji (dried fish fry with onion, chili, and mustard oil), shutki-alor jhol (dried fish and potato curry), and the use of small quantities of shutki as a flavouring agent in vegetable preparations in the same way that European cooking uses anchovies or fish sauce — for pure umami depth rather than as a primary ingredient.