Hello folks. As always, let’s dive into the recipe first and then get to the story around it. Ok? Here we go:
Ingredients:
Main Ingredient:
- Pomfret or King Fish – 1.5lbs/sliced to ~0.5 inch or less thickness
Veggies:
- Red onions – 3 medium, finely chopped
- Tomatoes – 2 small, finely chopped
Optional Veggies:
- Raw mango – half a mango, sliced (skin on is fine)
- Baby eggplants – 0.5 lb, halved
- Drumsticks – 0.5 lb, 2inch pieces
Whole spices:
- Mustard seeds – 2 tsp
- Urad dal – 1 tsp
- Cumin seeds – 2 tsp
- Fenugreek seeds – 0.5tsp
- Whole black pepper – 2 tsp
- Whole garlic pods – 10-12 (A whole garlic bulb, peeled and washed works for this)
- Channa dal – 2 tsp (My addition, not my mom’s)
- Dry red chillies (whole) – 3-4
- Curry leaves – 8-10
Ground spices:
- Cayenne chilli powder – 1-2 tsp
- Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
- Coriander powder – 3 Tbsp
Other Ingredients:
- Salt – To taste (~3tsps)
- Tamarind pulp/paste – 3-4 Tbsp
- Peanut/Sesame Oil – 3 Tbsp
- Cilantro – A handful, chopped
Recipe (as I remember it):
- Clean, slice and wash the fish. Ideally for fish curry, the slices can be slightly thicker than for fried fish. So ~0.5inch or less works. This is so the fish can stand up to all the stewing in the sauce that needs to happen. Also, the fish soaks up the spices and flavors as it sits so the taste only improves as time goes on. Never stops me from diving in right after cooking though 🙂
- Place a heavy bottomed, deep pan on the stove. Add the oil and heat on medium flame. When the oil is hot, add the mustard seeds. Wait for it to splutter. Then, add the remaining whole spices one by one. Sauté for a few minutes until spices are toasted well and the curry leaves are fried.
- Add in the chopped onions. Sauté for atleast 5 minutes or until the onions have browned and softened well.
- Add in the tomatoes. Continue to sauté for another 5 minutes until the tomatoes have completely softened. The mixture in the pan should look like a chutney with oil seeping out the sides.
- Next, add in about 3 cups of water and the tamarind paste. Bring to a rolling boil.
- Add the ground spices and salt. Mix well and let this mixture boil and reduce for ~7minutes.
- Add this point, add in any veggies you’ve decided to add. The eggplants will take slightly longer to cook than the mangoes. If using mangoes, you can add these at the 10minute mark instead.
- After a full 10minutes of boiling and when the sauce looks to have thickened and the veggies cooked to desired consistency, add in the fish.
- At this point, the fish only needs a few minutes to cook through. Bring the curry to a boil with the fish and let it do so for 3-4minutes.
- Add in the chopped cilantro and turn off the stove.
- Serve with piping hot rice. Enjoy!
Optional accompaniments: I’ve never really had fish curry without fried fish to go with it. So of course this fish curry can be served with fried fish and appalam (fried papad). Mommy Rita also made stir-fried spinach with coconut (Spinach Poriyal) to go with this as a veggie side. Other sides that my kids like to pick.. plain yoghurt to cool it down a little, I’ve seen some folks eat this with spicy mango or lime pickle too. And of course, the type of rice can vary too. I prefer short grain white rice (Sona Masoori). Red/brown/basmati are all options too.
Back Story:
Growing up, we primarily ate a lot of veggies during the week and non-vegetarian proteins were limited to weekends. Even so, seafood and chicken were the preferred go-tos. Goat was mostly only made for special occasions. Fish curry and fish fry were staples in our house. My earliest memory of this specific dish dates back to the early 1980s when mommy Rita and grand mommy Mary would cook in our tiny kitchen in our Chennai apartment. I distinctly remember the kitchen scenes, the stove in the corner with a sweeping chimney right over it. Peering in, you couldn’t really see the end of the tall stack. All you saw was a dark tower extending into what seemed like heaven itself! The walls right above the stove were near black from soot and dust I imagine. But, the food that came out of the kitchen was just divine 🙂 There were no tables or counter tops for food preparation. Mom, grandma and sometimes us kids would all sit on the floor in the middle of the kitchen cutting or washing veggies. A medium-watt bulb hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room illuminated what we were doing.
This particular story is set right in the middle of summer in Chennai circa 1991. The thing about South Indian summers: very very hot households, humid and sweaty feeling all around, frequent and inconsistent power cuts throughout the city, schools were out so kids were home.
On this specific afternoon, mom and grandmommy prepared fish curry, spinach poriyal and fried fish. Mommy always fried the fish last. She announces that lunch is served so my sister and I head over to the ‘dining area’ which is really two feet outside the threshold of the kitchen and encroaching in the ‘bedroom’ adjoining the kitchen. We sit down and all the dishes have been placed in front of us.
As we eat, the power cuts out. The rooms are now dark (there are no windows in the kitchen) and the only light is from a window in the bedroom which faces other buildings so not enough light. We continue to eat. The food is incredibly tasty but also spicy and hot from coming off of the stove only moments before. We are profusely sweating and trying to blow out the spice from our tongues but we continue to eat. Grandmom is fanning herself occasionally to combat the humid heat around us.
I venture a casual glance towards the kitchen while slowly chewing on my food and notice that there are flames on the stove! At first I don’t understand. Then, it slowly dawns on me that one of the pans that mom used to fry the fish was on fire. The oil in the pan was burning. Mommy had lowered the flame but hadn’t turned off the stove and now the pan was on fire. I manage to get some words out and point in the general direction of the kitchen.
Mommy sees it and rushes in. She swiftly grabs a lid and quickly covers the pot. Then, she grabs a kitchen towel and moves the pan off the stove. All fluid motions without any hesitation or fanfare. And she does it all with just her left hand (because we were eating with our right hand)! We all let out a collective sigh of relief. And then, we quickly and quietly return back to eating our very hot and tasty meal through the power cut like we didn’t just thwart a major fire in our microscopic apartment!
I still remember how my heart was thumping and my adrenaline was soaring but what I now find most striking about the whole episode is how fast mommy acted in that moment. Now, not sure about the rest of you but me, I like to play out how I would react to emergencies all in my head. Step-by-step from start to finish. Living here in the US I even rehearse pulling out the fire extinguisher under the sink and pulling the pin and aiming it at the base of the flames. All in my head but I do believe preparation equals preparedness.
But, the thing about our little kitchen in Chennai back in the 90s though was that we didn’t have a handy fire extinguisher around. The house was tiny and somewhat closed off. A burning pot must be walked out all the way through the bedroom, living room and then the front entrance OR through the bathrooms and out through the back door.
And so I truly believe (although I’ve never asked her for confirmation and can’t anymore) that mommy must have prepared just like I did in her head on how she would handle a fire if it were to happen. How else does one react so quickly and seamlessly?
Just like one would look for exits on an airplane before a flight or nearest shelter/escape in a crowded building. I remember watching a show about a plane crash where the ones who actually made it alive out of the burning aircraft were the ones who had paid attention to the preliminary safety briefing and knew where the exits were. Serves to spend a few minutes to lodge that Information in our brains. The brain apparently goes into autonomous mode when in a crisis. Anyway, back to the story behind the recipe … what a way to enjoy a spicy, hot meal on an otherwise uneventful summer day!
Do try out the recipe and let me know how it turns out. You can of course swap out with any fish of your choice if you can’t find the kinds I’ve mentioned above. Also, feel free to make it your own. Add some tweaks and let me know about that as well. Happy cooking!
