Fish

We ate fish at home after a very long time. Sig’s beautiful fish curry recipes and pictures had started fish cravings in me. Thanks to Asha’s links of Sumeet mixer, I have a very good mixer which makes very smooth paste. So I wanted to try some fish dishes that require real smooth paste. My hubby being a great fish fan, I thought he would enjoy aayi’s fish dishes.

So we went to Chinese market here to buy some fish. To our disappointment, we didn’t find many familiar fishes. Then I saw a piece of shark (mori) which looked very fresh. There was one more fish which looked familiar and we bought those two. The guys who were cleaning the fish didn’t agree to de-skin mori – this is one of the toughest fishes to clean. Removing the thick skin off the fish takes forever if you don’t know how to do it. Luckily they had cleaned the fish(it smells real bad if the insides are not removed) but had only the skin on.

At my native, mori is one of the most loved fishes. The day people get this, they have a big feast. At my home, this was not very frequent since removing the skin of this fish is very hard. Aayi used to ask the maid or someone else to clean it. As I said, this fish has a very peculiar smell which is not loved by many. So when we bought it here, my parents were very skeptic about cleaning the skin – the fish cannot be eaten with skin on since it is very hard and thick. I took about 30mins to clean it well (everyone was surprised that I could clean it, considering I have never attempted to clean it anytime before). Aayi made this delicious gravy. Everyone liked it very much.

Things to remember:
– The skin is real hard and thick, so it has to be removed before cooking this fish.
– The fish has only one hard bone in the center, it does not have any other bones. So usually it is cut into small 1″ by 1″ square pieces. They slightly increase in size after cooking.
– Wash them very well in water.
– Do not cook them for a long time.

Ingredients:
15 pieces of shark(mori)
1 cup fresh/frozen coconut
6-7 red chilies
1/2 tea spn chopped ginger
1/4 tea spn turmeric powder
4-5 sichuan pepper(teppal)
2-3 kokum pieces
2 green chilies
Salt

Method:
Grind together red chilies, coconut, ginger, turmeric powder into a very smooth paste.
Cook the paste with enough water, slightly crushed teppal, slitted green chilies, kokum, salt and cook. When the gravy starts boiling, add fish pieces and cook for about 3-4mins (when it comes to a rapid boil. Do not boil for long after adding pieces, they become paste if cooked more).
Serve hot with rice. Top with few drops of coconut oil while eating, this increases taste.

Serves : 3-4
Preparation time : 15mins

I bought one pomfret hoping to make the ‘masala fish’ that we got in “Curry House”, Bangalore. Unfortunately, when I serached on the google, I could not get the exact recipe for it. But I knew how it should taste and I got one recipe which looked more or less like the one I was searching for. When I prepared it, it was quite different from the one I was searching for, but the taste of it was superb. So here is the recipe.

Ingredients:
Pomfret 1
Dry roasted coconut 2 tea spn
Lemon juice 1 tbl spn
Onions 1/2 cup
Red chillies 10
Garlic 3
Ginger 1″ piece
Cinnamon(dalchini) 1″ piece
Cloves 3
Vinegar 1 tea spn
Banana leaves or foil (to wrap)
Oil 1 tea spn
Salt

In the picture, I reduced the amount of red chillies to make it less spicy. I liked the thick coating of the masala on fish, this can be reduced if you wish to have a thin masala layer.

Method:
Clean the fish. Make 2-3 slits in the fish with a sharp knife. Rub lemon juice and salt on the fish and keep it aside for 1hr.

Heat oil and fry finely chopped onions till slightly brownish. Take out one tea spn of onions and keep aside to be used later in the dish. Add coconut to remaining onions and fry for 4-5mins. Grind it with ginger-garlic, cinnamon, chillies, cloves, vinegar and salt without adding water.
Add the onions (preserved earlier) to the masala. Rub the masala on the fish to make a thick/thin coating. Wrap it in banana leaf or foil.

Preheat the over to 400F. Bake the fish for 25-30min. Open the oven after every 10mins and turn the fish.

Serves : 2
Preparation time : 45min

Isn’t that very tempting??

This is a Marathi dish I guess, because aayi learnt it from pachi(aayi’s sister). The burst of flavor in the mouth when you taste this is amazing.

Some of my bachelor friends keep asking me about easy to do dishes. So I think they will definitely like this one.

Preferably Bangada(Mackerel) is used for this. I haven’t tried this with any other fish, but prawns can also be used in the place of bangada. It tastes great.

We call it Bangade kholu(Mackerel pickle) or sungata kholu(Prawn pickle) in Konkani.

Ingredients:
4-5 big mackerel (or prawns 1/4 kg)
6 big cloves of garlic
1 tea spn Coriander powder 
A pinch Turmeric powder
1 tea spn Chilli powder
6-7 Kokum pieces
Oil
Salt

Method:
Mix crushed garlic, coriander powder, chilli powder, turmeric and salt.
Heat oil and fry the mixture for 1 min.
Add fish or prawn.
Add half cup water (If prawn is used, fry it for sometime before adding water).
Now add kokum pieces.
Cook till the fish is completely cooked (The color of the fish changes from transparent to white).
Serve hot.

Serves : 4-5
Preparation time : 15min