Fish curry

I always thought this was my mother's fish curry recipe. However, I recently found out that was actually passed down from my great grandmother. My great grandmother was from Kerala, a coastal region where fish and coconuts are both abundant. The curry is spicy and tangy but with a creaminess. Serve with rice and one or more of the following: pumpkin curry, puttu, and some lightly fried greens. My favourite combo is rice, fish curry, pumpkin and yoghurt (I've always eaten yoghurt with fish even if some say fish and dairy shouldn't be mixed). The long list of ingredients may make this dish look complicated, but it's not that difficult. And if you make curries regularly, you'll know that the spices listed here are standard in most curry recipes. The little bit of rice that is added with the spices acts as a thickening agent to produce a nice thick sauce. Unlike most curries, the tempering (adding the mustard, onions and curry leaves to hot oil ) in this curry happens at the end of the cooking process.

I usually stick to snapper when I make fish curry as I don't know my fish very well but any firm fleshed fish should work well.

Ingredients

    • 750g snapper cutlets

    • 3 tbsp coriander seeds

    • 1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds

    • 1 1/2 tsp rice (uncooked)

    • 1/2 tsp fenugreek seeds

    • 1 tsp black peppercorns

    • 1 tsp turmeric

    • 20g fresh ginger

    • 6 cloves garlic

    • 1 fresh chilli, or to taste

    • 1 stalk curry leaves, leaves picked

    • 1 small onion

    • 1-2 tomatoes, chopped

    • 1 tbsp tomato puree

    • 15g dried tamarind

    • Lemon or lime juice

    • 1/2-1 cup coconut milk*

    • 1 tbsp oil

    • 1/2 tsp mustard seeds

    • 1-2 tbsp fresh coriander leaves, chopped

Method

    1. Soak the tamarind in about 1/2 cup of hot water.

    2. Dry roast coriander seeds, 1 tsp cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, peppercorns and rice and grind with the remaining 1/2 tsp unroasted cumin seeds to a fine powder.

    3. Grind the ginger, garlic and chilli to a paste.

    4. Finely sliced half the onion and chop the remaining half.

    5. Squash the tamarind with your fingers to extract the pulp. Strain the pulp and if needed, add a little more water to extract any remaining pulp.

    6. In a large saucepan, mix together the ground spices, ginger-garlic-chilli paste, turmeric, salt, half the curry leaves, sliced onion, tomato and tomato paste, salt and the tamarind pulp with 3 cups of water and bring to the boil. Simmer for about 10 minutes.

    7. Add the fish pieces and a squeeze of lemon or lime juice.

    8. Simmer until the fish is almost cooked and add about 1/2 cup of coconut milk and bring back to a gentle simmer.

    9. In a small pan, heat the oil. Add the mustard seeds. When the seeds stop popping, add the chopped onions and remaining curry leaves. Fry until the onions just start to turn brown. Turn off heat and immediately pour the the oil mixture into the fish curry. Stir gently so as not to break the fish pieces.

    10. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed by adding more lemon or lime juice and or salt. If too sour, add more coconut milk.

    11. Remove from heat and add the chopped coriander leaves.

* The amount of coconut milk needed will depend on the type of coconut milk. Canned coconut milk is richer than the milk you get when you extract it yourself from fresh grated coconut.