A Kerala Fish Curry, Quick and Spicy And Great For Chilly Days And Nights

   For the last month pr so we've have the Atmospheric River pissing on us up here in Sonoma it seems, 24/7. The state really needs the water, the Sierra needs the snow pack.  After drought years, the aquafer has to be restored and all the water we're getting both as snow and rain are going a long way toward helping. Both ends of the California have been weather-whacked, but it seems like most of it has been focused in the north lately. When the atmospheric river parked itself over our town last week, the gentle little creek that is across the road turned into this:

Of course that was mild compared to what happened  at the Russian River.

So, we're grateful things stayed manageable here in Sonoma. The cold temps however demand something warm in the belly, and nothing warms one up like a good curry, especially a spicy one from Kerala. Now this curry requires Kokum, which I usually have on hand.  However I was fresh out, and so used tamarind as a substitute. 

Kerala Fish Curry

 

Here's What You Need:

1/2 Pound of fish cut up into pieces. You want a meaty fish. I used some cod and also tossed in some fresh prawns and scallops for good measure.

1 Small onion halved then cut into thin half moon slices
8 Thinly sliced shallots
1 Tbs Crushed fresh ginger
2 Serrano chilies slit lengthwise
1 Tbs Kashmiri Chili powder
1 Tbs Ground Coriander
1/2 tsp Turmeric
3 or 4 Fenugreek seeds
2 tsps Tamarind paste
2 Cups of full fat coconut milk
1 cup of light coconut milk
Salt to taste
Curry leaves (optional)

Here's What To Do:

Heat  about 2 Tbs of coconut or other vegetable oil in a skillet or kadhi.
When the oil is hot, toss in the crushed ginger and saute it.
Add the onion, and Serrano chili. Stir everything around.
When the onion starts to get translucent and a bit brown, add in the coriander, fenugreek, turmeric and Kashmiri chili.
Turn the heat down low and cook the spices for a minute or two.
Add the tamarind paste and salt to taste.
Add 1 cup of light coconut milk and 1 cup of full fat coconut milk to the pan. bring it to a boil.
When the coconut milk is boiling, turn the heat way down and add the pieces of fish.
Cook until the fish is cooked through. This takes about 15 to 20 minutes depending on the size and thickness of the pieces of fish you've used.
When the fish has cooked through, add 1 cup of full fat coconut milk.
Stir everything around and let cook on a low flame for another 5 minutes.
Take it off the heat and serve it up.

NOTE:
This can be made ahead, and like almost all Indian dishes tastes better on the day after. So, if you're planning on a dinner party, this is one dish that can easily be made a day ahead.

I served this up with some homemade roti

This fish curry cooks up very quickly, and even though one can make it ahead and serve it the next day for an even better marriage of flavors, we just polished it off for lunch. It's definitely going on the rotation at our house.

Coming up next, an Italian dish of fish, olives, tomatoes, and artichoke hearts that's good enough for company but also works as an easy lunch or dinner. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori
 

A One Skillet Dish With Indian Spices: Cod and Chickpea Curry

  
   I regularly get What You Should Be Cooking sort of notifications from the New York Times. In the past I've had a recipe or two featured and so I'm always looking for interesting  dishes that I can get on the table in a hurry during the work week.  The last thing I want to think about in the middle of my writing is some long-assed complicated dish to throw to the starving masses at our house. So last week when I saw  a piece on a fish dish made with chickpeas and I thought ah ha!  this fits the bill perfectly, especially once I read the comments.
  
   A note on reading comments. I find them very helpful. Most of the comments on the dish were positive  but the ones that weren't, complained that the recipe as written was merely a template and lacked enough flavor for some people. Now we like flavor around here. After cooking Indian food for the last 29 years, we've gotta have our spices or no one's happy. So I took the advice of the folks who commented and decided to use the recipe merely as my template for a fish curry. I started with the basics of fish, chickpeas and the dreaded kale and  expanded out into the world of Indian spices from there. What I got was a dish that was easy to fix and also delicious. It was a great dish for midweek tastebud boredom without a lot of effort.

Cod and Chickpea Curry 

Here's What You Need:

1 lb of cod or other fish cut into fillets
1 can of chickpeas rinsed and drained
1 28 oz can of chopped tomatoes...(if it was the correct season I'd have used fresh)
3/4 cup of thinly sliced shallots
1 bunch of dino kale, washed dried and cut into strips
salt to taste

1 bunch fresh cilantro chopped
2 Tbs coconut oil or other vegetable oil
1/2 tsp kashmiri chili
1/2 tsp black mustard seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp garam masala
1 cup chopped pistachios (for garnish)

Here's What To Do:

Heat the vegetable oil in a skillet or kadhai.
When the oil is hot add in the mustard and cumin seeds.
When the mustard seeds start to pop and the cumin seeds turn fragrant, add in the thinly sliced shallots.
Saute the shallots until they start to darken then add in the ground cumin, coriander, and turmeric.
Stir the spices around until they turn fragrant. This takes just a minute or two.
Now add in the chopped tomatoes and salt to taste .
Bring the tomatoes to a boil then turn the heat down quickly to low and cook the tomatoes at a low simmer until they begin to soften, breaking them up with the back of a wooden spoon.
When the tomatoes have softened, add in the rinsed and drained chickpeas, and the sliced kale.

Stir everything together and then simmer for about 10 to 15 minutes, or until the kale has completely softened.

Rub a bit of kashmiri chili on the raw fish for seasoning. I used my homemade kashmiri  spice blend.
Place the seasoned fish pieces into the  tomato, kale, chickpea mixture. Nestle them in well.

Place a lid on the pan, turn the heat waaaaay down to the lowest setting and cook until the fish  is cooked though and flakes easily. This takes about 10 minutes, and bingo , you're done.
Place the tomato, kale, and chickpea mixture in a bowl  and place the cooked fish on top of it. Top with some of the sauce, then sprinkle with chopped fresh cilantro and chopped pistachios.

This was a big hit on a cold and rainy Sonoma day with snow on the foothills, and is now going into meal rotation at our house. Simple, cheap, and above all, fast to fix on a work day. This is an Indian dish that can easily be accompanied and dressed up for a fancy company dinner.
   Coming up next, a Kerala fish curry spicy and tasty. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori     

Hot, Spicy, and Fast: Fish with Green Mango Curry

   One of the things I always seem to be looking for when cooking Indian food is the elusive perfectly ripe mango. They can be tricky to locate at certain times of the year. I'm always fondling the mango looking for the perfect combo of tender but not squishy. After years of doing this, I figure I have a pretty good hand and am extremely popular at the mango bin.

   So much for ripe mangoes. But all cooking doesn't involve ripe mangoes. Sometimes you want the unripe. You want the green mango. The Green Mango may sound like some kind of divey bar on Cahuenga Boulevard, but actually it's a staple of the Indian kitchen. Mangoes are full of good stuff, among them vitamin C, Vitamin A, beta carotene, I could go on.. but check this out and you'll see. Green mangoes have all that and a bit more. Being unripe they're chock full of anti-oxoidents and very alkaline, but in a  good for you way.

   Green mangos are also a hell of a lot easier to find than the ripe ones. Trust me on that one. So when you go to the market craving a nice mango and they're all hard as rocks, don't go away empty handed. Check out this simple fish curry with green mango.

Fish and Green Mango Curry

Here's What You'll Need:

1 lb of meaty mild fish, cut into pieces (I used red snapper)
1 tsp of salt
8 curry leaves (sub 1 Bay leaf)
4 cups of water
1 green mango, sliced into strips
1/2 tsp of fenugreek seeds
1/2 cup sliced shallots
2 Tbs of vegetable oil ( I use coconut oil )
1 cup grated fresh or frozen coconut (sub dried unsweetened coconut )
1 Tbs of Kashmiri chili ( 1 and 1/2 Tbs of cayenne mixed with 1 and 1/2 Tbs of paprika)
1 tsp of turmeric
1 green serrano chili seeded and chopped
1 tsp chopped fresh peeled ginger
8 whole shallots or garlic cloves
1/2 cup of water


Here's What To Do:

Grind the coconut, Kashmiri chili, serrano chili, garlic or shallots, turmeric, ginger, and water
together in a blender or food processor until you have a smooth  paste.

Set the coconut paste aside.
Heat 2 Tbs of oil in a skillet or kadhai.
When the oil is hot, add in the 1/2 cup of sliced shallots and fry them until they're lightly browned.
Add in the fenugreek seeds, and curry leaves or bay leaf and stir them around for about 1minute.
Add the coconut paste.
Fry it until the oil seeps to the top and the mixture is cooked.
add in the 4 cups of water, the fish...

...mango and salt.

Simmer everything together over a low heat until the fish is cooked through.
This should take about 5 minutes or so.
Pour into bowls and serve. This recipe serves 2.

   This soupy curry is perfect served with rice and a vegetable side. I served it with  Eggplant Thoran. What I love about this dish from Kerala is it's a perfect meal for the cooler fall weather, a variation on the usual fish stews and chowders that are usually served, plus it looks like Halloween with all that great mango beta carotene!  If your'e using bay leaf instead of curry leaves remember, always remove bay leaves before serving.

   Another great thing, this dish makes up super fast which is a big deal for me lately with all the family stuff that needs tending to. My mother has moved on from toaster ovens to microwaves and I'm bringing one over this afternoon that I hope she can operate. I have turned into a small appliance chauffeur.

   Coming up next Bibi's Krispie Balls. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Something's Fishy In Kerala!

My two Italian grandmothers were amazing cooks, but after them the foodie gene in my family seemed to have skipped a generation. The homemade pasta, gnocchi, gravy and cookies of my childhood gave way to my moms' "personal Chef", some guy named Boy R Dee. Maybe you've heard of him.
  Beside all the usual Italian favorites, I also grew up eating fish dinners on Fridays. I use the term fish loosely because the "fish dinners" usually served at our house came frozen solid with a picture of a smiling fisherman on the box. I think it was the guy in the slickers' American cousin. Living in San Francisco there wasn't much excuse for this sort of fish behavior. One of the largest Fisherman's wharves on the west coast with a huge variety of seafood was just blocks away. So, how the heck did that guy in the slicker seem to get in our fridge so often? To be truthful, we also had fresh fish on occasion, but by the time it got to the plate, it looked more like something that would be flung into the air after someone called "pull!." No one ever asked what kind of fish it was.
  With that kind of early experience, it took me years to get into cooking fish. I'd had too much finny trauma. Then I started cooking Indian food and began exploring the wonderful fish dishes that the cuisine offered. It was a whole new and delicious world. I was finding my inner Nemo.
  The book Prashad has a lot of fish dishes in it, and since I've been reading it lately I decided to harpoon myself some fish.
  This recipe is done with pomfret but since we don't have any of that up here in Sonoma, I used basa instead which is a nice mild firm fleshed fish. Since the origins of Basa are in Southeast Asia, I figured it would be a good match for what I was doing which was
                     Fish with Tamarind Curry

I was able to whip this up pretty quickly for lunch for the two of us using about 3/4 of a pound of fish. To  make it for 6 people  as the main dish for a meal, you'll need a little more. Start with :

1.) 1 and 1/2 lbs of fish chunked into pieces and set aside
Heat 2 Tbs of vegetable oil in a heavy pan or kadhai
When the oil is hot toss in
2.)  1 tsp black mustard seed
 When the seeds start to pop toss in:
3.)  1/2 tsp fenugreek seed
4.) A 1 inch piece of finely chopped ginger
5.) 4 green chilies splint longways down the middle
6.) 1 crushed clove of garlic
7.)  2 onions thinly sliced
  Cook this down until the onion is soft and translucent.

Then toss in
8.) 1 tsp of turmeric
9.) 1 Tbs of coriander
Fry it up for about 2 minutes then add in:
10.)  1 cup of coconut milk
11.) 4 peeled, chopped tomatoes ( since there aren't any good fresh tomatoes around here about now, I might suggest one 16 oz can of good quality chopped tomatoes)
12.) 2 Tbs of tamarind puree

Bring all of this to a boil and then lower the heat and simmer it all for 5 minutes.
Then add the fish to the mixture

Simmer it all again for about 2 to 3 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.
13.) Add salt to taste and then scatter a few curry leaves about the top.
I served it with a cauliflower and pea dish and some nice roti.

 There it is. Nothing in a box. Nothing frozen, and no guy in a bright yellow raincoat hanging around the kitchen...unless that's the way you roll.