Fish curry with fresh coconut milk

Hello again. Today's recipe is the fish curry with coconut milk. This is yet another post which was in the drafts. Just like any other Malayali, I am a big fan of fish curries and fry. I love both the ones with coconut milk as well as the ones without. The ones without coconut milk usually tend to me more spicy.

This is the fish curry I learnt from my mom-in-law and grandmother-in-law. When you have 2 mom in laws it can get a bit funny and weird sometimes in the kitchen :D what with both giving different instructions :P .... I used to be a bit worried as to who exactly to follow, not wanting to upset either of them. But I've learnt to balance them now :) My husband's grandmother has been quite an active person MashaAllah. But recently she has not been feeling that well... :(

This is a pretty simple and easy fish curry in which you cut and put all ingredients in a pot (I use earthen pot for making fish curry mostly). Let it all cook in the fresh coconut milk... after 10-15 minutes you'd get a nice slightly thick gravy. Add in the cleaned and cut pieces of fish. Fish cooks pretty fast. Hardly 5-6 minutes. Your fish curry is ready. And boy, does it taste good!
I usually do not do any tempering of curry leaves in the end. The curry leaves are added with all the ingredients.

But in this specific pic I did do a final tempering in coconut oil, small onions and curry leaves...

Fish curry is all about the different kinds of items you use to give the curry its tangy-ness. My mom in law uses both ripe and raw tamarind, Kudampuli (Gambooge), Irumban puli (Bilimbi) and Raw mango. Each of these give a different tangy taste and all taste excellent. What I use mostly here in Dubai is ripe tamarind or kudampuli. And tomatoes too add their own tangy taste. But the tomatoes we get in kerala are a lot more tangy than the ones we get here. So when my mom-in-law uses 1 small tomato there, I use 2 here.

I love this curry a lot not only because its so yummy, but also coz its extremely easy to make. Just throw everything in and let it cook :)

Now here's what you'll need to make this curry:

• Shallots - a hanful chppoed (I like adding a lot of this :))
• Tomatoes - 1 big or 2 medium (Like I explained above it depends on your tomato. Add whatever u feel necessary)
• 1  green chilly
• 1/2 tbsp turmeric powder
• 3/4 tbsp chilly powder
• Salt to taste
• 4 slices of kudampuli/ half a palm-full of ripe tamarind (Check taste.. do not over do on these if you do not like a lot of tangy taste)
• 2 cups coconut milk (made by grinding fresh coconut and water)
• Curry leaves a handful
• Fish of your choice (cleaned and cut into pieces)

How to make:

• Take a deep bottomed pan add in the shallots, tomatoes, curry leaves, the kudampuli/ripe tamarind, turmeric powder, chilliy powder, salt, coconut milk and also an extra of 2 cups of water.
• Let this mixture come to boil and then reduce flame and cook for 10-15 minutes until u can see the gravy thickening up. 
• Now check taste and then add in the fish. Fish cooks pretty fast. Let this cook for 5-6 minutes. Check the curry and switch off stove. 

That's it! Your fish curry is ready. You can put the curry leaves along with all the ingredients or else you could temper it in coconut oil and add in at the end after curry is ready. I personally find adding all in one go creates a lot less mess to clean up :D

Anyway, the choice is up to you. Try this and check out what consistency of the ingredients finally your taste bud loves. And if you do try this out, please comment below as to how it turned out. This is usually served with rice but I love it with putt too

Ok then guys... see you in the next post! Bye!