Spicy Fish Curry with Coconut Milk - Version 1

Lip smacking, delicious spicy fish curry with coconut milk and Ciabatta bread or Baguette is match made in heaven. This is my way of making fish curry, but do apologize me for the fiery red look of the curry pool. I added 1 1/2 tablespoons of chili powder that gave such a deep red color. If you are not used to spicy food please skimp on the chili powder. 

Spicy Fish Curry with coconut milk- Version 1

 INGREDIENTS:

Fourfinger Thread Fin fish/ Ikan Senangin, Kaala Meen - 400g

Medium sized red onion  - 1

Green chilies - 3 

Curry leaves - a sprig

Medium sized tomato - 1

Lady fingers - 7

Tamarind - small gooseberry size

Coconut milk - 60 ml

Salt - to taste

To make paste :

Homemade fish curry powder - 2 tablespoons(follow this link for the curry powder)

https://abbylakshmi.blogspot.com/2021/02/homemade-south-indian-style-fish-curry.html   

Turmeric powder - 1/2 teaspoon

Medium sized red onion  - 1

Red chili powder - 1/2 tablespoon or 1/4 tablespoons (I used 1 1/2 tablespoons, which I find to fiery so please adjust the chili powder to your spice level)

To Temper :

Fenugreek - 1/2 teaspoon

Fennel seeds - 1 teaspoon

Vegetable oil - 3 tablespoons

METHOD :

1. Here I have taken Fourfinger fish, but you can use any variety of fish. My mother has cut the fish into smaller chunks, and also cleaned them with salt, rice flour and water. The reason to use rice flour or any kind of flour in hand is to remove the fishy smell.     

2. Next step is preparing fish masala paste. You will need a medium sized red onion, 2 tablespoons of fish curry powder, turmeric powder and 1/2 tablespoon chili powder. Blend all of them together with some water to form thick paste. 

Fish masala paste

3. Heat up a pan, temper fenugreek and fennel seeds until slightly golden brown. 

4. Chuck in diced onion, green chilies and chopped tomato and a sprig of curry leaves. Stir all until onion is translucent and tomato is slightly mushy. At this stage, I like to add some salt to speed up the sautéing process.

Diced onion, chopped tomato, green chilies and the fish

5. I used small gooseberry size of tamarind and squeezed it in one cup of water to extract the juice. Strain the pulp and add the tamarind juice to a clay pot.

6. To the same clay pot, add the fish, fish masala paste and also tempered ingredients from the pan. So now, we are going to cook the fish curry in this clay pot. The rule of thumb for adding water is make sure your fish is completely submerged in that scrumptious curry pool. The curry should neither be too thick nor watery. 

7. Close the lid while cooking the fish. This should be cooked on low flame for a good 35 minutes. 

8. After that, fry whole lady fingers in 3 tablespoons of oil till they are a bit charred and wrinkled. Now, add them to the fish curry after cooking for 35 minutes along with some coconut milk. Cook this for further 5 minutes only.

9. Serve hot with anything like rice, chapati or Ciabatta bread or Baguette. Why not? 

Thank you

Abby