kayeon eats: Curried Fried Fish

I know I know I know, don’t give me that look. FRIED?! Yeah, I wasn’t the best detox eater yesterday, but hey! It’s only once in a long time I ever eat fried things! Ahem, anyway. I had to do something with this halibut that was sitting in the fridge. Our neighbour is a fish monger or something like that and she brought over 2 vacuum sealed packages of fish! One halibut, and one Wild Pacific Salmon. Mmm… There is a record run of wild salmon that’s flooding into the Fraser River this year, so an entire whole Salmon is 20 dollars! Yes really. 20 dollars! As the neighbour said, even if you wanted to give them away, people wouldn’t be taking them. Well, we sure didn’t mind.

This is my take on Goan style curried fried fish from West India. (Derived from Meena Pathak’s Flavours of India. Great book!) You can serve this with brown basmati rice, or Spicy Coriander Chickpea Pancakes and Raita.

Final Product:

Ingredients:

500 grams One Large cut of Halibut (or Cod, Monkfish even 30 Prawns), cut into 1 inch strips.

1/2 Lemon

1 tsp Turmeric

1 tsp Cumin

1 tsp Chilli powder

1/4 White Onion

1 tsp Tamarind Paste/Concentrate

1 Tbsp Chopped Coriander

1/4 cup Plain Yogurt

3/4 cup Spelt flour, for dredging

Salt and Pepper

1/4 cup Grapeseed Oil for frying (approximate based on pan size)

Prep:

I like to have my coriander leaves (cilantro, same thing) washed and spun ahead of time whenever I buy a bunch. Some people think having the stems in a glass of water work, or store them in the fridge wrapped in paper towel… I find that it spoils them really easily.

They usually have a lot of dirt in them, so I pull all the leaves off, put them in a salad spinner, soak them in water, drain, soak them in water again, inspect for dirt, soak them again or if they’re good, spin it. I put them in Ziploc bags in the fridge so that I always have them on hand. I hate it when you need just a handful, and you have to go through the whole process of washing and things burn on the stove.

I do the same thing with parsley, not that you need any in this recipe.

1. Slice your fish in one inch strips and place them in a big bowl.

2. Add the juice of half a lemon and add a pinch of salt. Toss and let sit for 10 minutes.

3. This scary looking thing is Tamarind paste, and it’s tangy, and lends a little bit of sweetness. It’s high in vitamin B and calcium. Add one teaspoon.

4. Chop up a pinch of coriander and chop it up.

5. Add spices

6. Add plain yogurt

7. Mince and pulverize (with mortar and pestle) some white onion

8. Mix up the mixture with your clean hand and make sure everything is well coated and mixed. Add pepper.

9. Add salt and pepper to the flour in a large bowl or plate.

10. Set it up so that the fish goes in the flour, gets tossed and coated then onto a plate.

11. Heat up a pan with Grapeseed oil. The reason why you use Grapeseed Oil is because it has a higher burning temperature than olive oil, so you can get it really hot without it burning the oil. When the pan gets hot, test it by dropping in the tip of one of the fish. If it sizzles right away, then it’s hot enough.