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!

Fish Molly / Molee

Ingredients

1. Fish - ½ kg
2. Onion – 2 thinly sliced
3. Ginger –1 inch
4. Garlic –5 - 6 cloves
5. Green chilli – 3 – 4
6. Cloves – 6
7. Cinnamon – 2 stick
8. Cardamom – 5
9. Bay leaves - 2 
10. Tomato – 2-3
11. Coconut milk – 2 cups
12. Oil – enough to shallow fry fish
13. Mustard Seeds –1 tsp
14. Curry leaves – a hand full
15. Salt – to taste

For Marination

1. Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
2. Pepper powder – 1 tsp
3. Lemon juice – ½ lemon (optional)
4. Salt - to taste

Method

1. Marinate the fish pieces with turmeric powder, pepper powder, salt & lemon juice and keep aside for 1 hour.
2. Meanwhile prepare all the other ingredients. 
3. Shallow fry the marinated fish till they are half done.
4. Heat oil in a pan and splutter the mustard seeds.
5. Make sure that the heat is on medium and add the cloves, cinnamon, cardamom and bay-leaves and fry for few seconds.
6. Add ginger and garlic and fry for a min.
7. Now add onions and green chillies.
8. After few minutes add the tomatoes and saute for few more minutes.
9. Once the tomatoes becomes soft add coconut milk and salt. Let it boil.
10. Add the fried fish pieces and cook till they are done.
11. Serve hot with Palappam or bread.

Kerala Fish curry with coconut

Recipe adapted from ethnicindiancuisine

Ingredients    

1. Fish - 500 gms
2. Grated Coconut - 1 Cups
3. Ginger - 1 inch piece
4. Pearl Onion - 1 no
5. Red Chilly Powder - 3 tsp
6. Coriander Powder - 3 tsp
7. Turmeric Powder - 1/4 tsp
8. Green chillies - 3 or 4
9. Kudam Puli or Tarmarind - 2 small
10. Curry leaves - 1 sprig
11. Coconut Oil - 2 tbsp
12. Salt - to taste

Preparation

1. Any kind of fish can be used for this. Clean and cut the fish into pieces.   
   
   
2. In a blender, grind ginger, coconut, pearl onion, chilly powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder, a couple of curry leaves and just enough water to make a smooth paste.  
    
3. Pour the ground mixture into a clay pot, add the rest of the curry leaves, kudam puli, green chillies, salt and required amount of water(depends on how thick you need the gravy to be) and bring it to a simmer on medium heat. 
     
4. Now add the fish pieces and mix well. Cook on medium-low till the fish pieces are cooked.   
5. Drizzle coconut oil over the curry and keep covered.  
    
6. Serve hot rice.

The original recipe had 2 cups of grated coconut but I felt that it was a bit too much.  This is not a very spicy curry, you can add more chilli powder depending on your taste. Be careful though. If you reduce the amount of coconut, you won't have to increase the amount of chilli powder.

Kerala Fish Biryani

"The Belly rules the mind." - Spanish Proverb

The soul reason I made this for dinner Friday night was because my elder sister had mailed me pics of what she had made for lunch.
Fish Biryani. Her husband loves it.
It was so mouth-watering to look at that I just had to have it!
So I made it!

I love biryanis. I prefer chicken thou. I like mutton biryani only if the mutton is tender and juicy.
My husband had got some fresh King Fish on his way back from Jummah prayer. And everything else I had at home... just needed to get a good recipe. I have never made fish biryani before.. needed to find a good one...

While searching in Google (as usual :) ) for a good fish biryani recipe I came to this amazing site ( http://www.desimelange.com/ ) This site is awesome!! I love the photography! The pics would tempt even those who hate cooking into making it. You just have to check this site. I'm sure you'll love it as much as I do. And the fish biryani recipe I got from it was perfect. I'm no great shakes at fish biryani, but I loved the resultant biryani I managed to cook up in my kitchen :)

As usual I got a bit too excited with the turmeric.. :) My biryanis are always very yellow :D
Once I remember (a few months after marriage back when we were in Bangalore) I made prawns biryani which had sooo much turmeric in it that our hands were all yellow even after washing it with soap :P

So here's how I made it:

Ingredients:
1/2 kg King fish... there'll be about 6 steaks..
2 and 1/2 cups of basmati rice (I use the Mumtaz Basmati rice we get here in Dubai)
3 big onions sliced finely
2 large tomatoes chopped
1.5 tbsp of garlic(crushed)
1.5 tbsp of ginger(crushed)
Green chillies, sliced (add according to how spicy hot you want it)
1.5 tsp garam masala powder
1/4 tbsp turmeric powder
1/2 tbsp chilli powder (Add only if u need more chilli to ur masala!!)
3-4 cloves, cardamom and 2-3 small pieces of cinnamon sticks
2 tbsp lemon juice
A handful of fresh coriander and mint leaves chopped
Sunflower oil (traditionally biryani is made using ghee but i prefer sunflower oil)
Salt according to taste
Some roasted almonds and cashew nuts for garnishing

While making a fish biryani its best to fry the fish lightly first so that it does not break while making the masala and mixing with rice.

So for the marination part we will need:
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 and 1/2 tbsp chilli powder (Here u can use the Kashmiri chilli powder if u have. It will give a nice red colour to the fish)
1 tbsp of vinegar
Salt according to taste
(All this u can adjust according to how u like your fish, after all that's the best thing about cooking at home: You can eat food exactly the way you like it.)

Now first marinate the cleaned fish and keep aside.
Wash rice and cook it in a heavy bottom vessel with enough water. Add 1-2 tbsp oil and a little salt to it. Keep checking the rice. When its almost cooked (kinda like 3/4 cooked... is there something like 3/4 cooked? :) but u get my point, right? It should be a little more than half cooked but not completely cooked) drain water using a colander and keep it aside.

Next we fry the fish
Place a big wide pan with lid (big enough to accommodate the masala + rice) on the stove, put 5-6 tbsp of oil. When the oil is hot fry the fish in it lightly. Mine went a bit over cooked at one side as u can see...

After you've removed the fish from oil and done with frying,  put cloves, cardamom and cinnamon sticks into that same oil. Saute it for a minute and then add the sliced onions. When the onions soften and starts browning a little add the ginger and garlic. Add tomatoes & green chilies when the raw smell of the garlic disappears. Now mix in the turmeric, chilli powder, garam masala, salt and lemon juice. You will know the tomatoes are cooked when u can see that all the water in it has evaporated and oil starts accumulating on the sides. Now this is one tip from that site which i really liked: To debone one of the fried fish and mix the shredded pieces in the masala.
Add some of the mint and coriander leaves now.. Keep some aside for garnishing...

Switch off stove, place the fried fish on top of the masala and  cover with lid.

Now for the layering...
(Usually when I make biryani just for me and my husband, I put the cooked rice on top of the masala(It'll be rice for 2.. so not much there for layering)... roast some almonds and cashew nuts in 3 tbsps of oil... put that on top of the rice and pour that same oil, in which I roasted the nuts, on top. Cover it up and place in oven for 10-15 minutes on 175 degree C. That's why I make the masala in a pan big enough to hold the rice too...
I mix up the rice and masala 5 minutes before serving... garnish with a few mint and coriander leaves)

Anyway, layering really is like this(using a heavy bottom vessel):
The bottom most layer should be a bit of the fish masala. Keep all the fish outside. Mix fish with rice only while serving. This is not a must.. its just to make sure they dont break into pieces.
Now make the second layer with rice over the masala layer. Sprinkle lemon juice, garam masala powder, fried onion, roasted cashewnuts, almonds and coriander leaves over this (I didnt do this. I didnt even have coriander leaves for this biryani. It didnt make a noticeable difference thou. But mint should always be there in the masala... it gives more of a biryani flavour than coriander does)

Then reapt with masala layer then rice... The topmost layer must be the rice...
Cover with lid and place in oven for about 10-15 minutes on 175 degree C. Or place it on stove on low heat for 5-10 minutes.

Serve with the fish :)

This was my first try at Fish Biryani and Alhamdulillah it turned out good.
My taste buds loved it :)
That's the best part of cooking.... we make the way we like :)