Ichar mura- A Bengali Sweet

Since my childhood, my Dida (maternal grandmother) used to make sweets after Bijoya Dashami. One of them is ‘Ichar Mura’ which used to melt inside my mouth whenever I took a bite.

In Bengali, Ichar Mura literally means ‘Icha’ (chingri / prawn)’s ‘mura’ (head). This is a purely vegetarian sweet dish but since it takes the shape of a prawn’s head 🍤 when it is made, it’s named so! People from erstwhile East Bengal (now Bangladesh) used to make it. And Hindu Bengalis who migrated (since partition) to India & elsewhere continue this tradition of preparing this sweet coconut delicacy during puja! My Dida also mentioned that not everyone knows about ichar mura these days as back then people used to make these in their own homes and it wasn’t commercialized, not made easily available in the markets like other sweets .

I chose to share this wonderful recipe with everyone so that everyone may taste this exquisite and tempting treat.

Ingredients

1. Freshly grated 1 medium sized coconut

2. Sugar 150 grams

3. Khoya / mawa 25grams

4. Ghee 1 tsp

Steps

• Take a thick bottomed kadai and cook the grated coconut with sugar for almost an hour on a slow fire. Stir it continuously.

• Add khoya / mawa and also add more sugar later on to taste (if required), then mix it properly and cook it for more than another 30 min.

• When it's cooked as well as sticky, get it off the heat.

• Make the cooked coconut mould into the shape of prawn’s head (ichar mura) 🍤 with your hands as shown in the 1st picture and then keep it aside for a few hours till the outer layer gets hardened.

• Smear a flat iron tava with ghee and shallow fry the ichar mura till it gets caramelised on both sides.

And here you are, ready to enjoy the feast :D