Malabar Fish Curry

My Mom always tell me about her childhood days.How the home made food used to taste so great. Of course all the Masalas (Chilly, Corriander and Turmeric) used to be roasted and grinded at home.

Nowadays, life is so easy, go to any supermarket and there u have a line of Masalas ready to be picked.

My Dad used to tell me, in the olden days, there used to be something called as ' Uri'. This was like a 2/3 layered basket hung from the ceiling and on each layer you can place your Mannu chatti / Earthern vessels in it.

Before storing in the Uri, the curry/ gravy used to be simmered well, so that there is just thick gravy in the end. Next day, the dish tastes better than the day it was prepared.

Once such dish is our Meen Mulakilittahu. Last year, on my vacation to India, I bought some mannu chattis :) from Calicut. My hubby helped me in selecting  some good ones but we were really shocked at how expensive these chattis have become.

Now that I own some, all fish dishes are made in it and trust me it tastes really great !! Meen Moleeru is my hubby's one of the favourite dishes.

Ingredients

1. Fish - Mackerel - 1 medium
2. Onion - 1 medium - sliced
3. Shallots - 3/4 sliced
4. Tomato - 1 large 
5. Green chilly - 2 slit length wise
6. Ginger, garlic - 1 tsp each
7. Chilly powder - 11/2 tsp
8. Corriander powder - 1/2 tsp
9. Turmeric powder - 1/ tsp
10. Tarmarind - 1/2 lemon size
11. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
12. Fenugreek seeds- 1/ tsp
13. Curry leaves - 1 handful
14. Coconut oil - 2 tbsp
15. Salt - as required

Preparation method:

Clean the fish and cut into medium pieces. We can use Pomfret / Mackerel as we like.

Here I have used Mackerel. Soak the tarmarind in 1/2 cup of water. Give it some time for the tarmarind pulp to get dissolved.

Heat the oil, add the fenugreek seeds, then the mustard seeds. Once the mustard seeds stop spluttering, add the sliced onions, shallots, green chilly and ginger garlic. all 1/2 tsp salt to it and saute it well.

Once the onions start turning light brown, add the tomoatoes and saute well till they get half cooked. Now add chilly, corriander and turmeric powder. Take care to saute this mix really well till the tomatoes gets well smashed and this becomes like a thick paste. Now, squeeze the tarmarind pulp well and keep the juice ready.

Add this to this mixture along with 1 cup of water and stir it well. Once the gravy starts boiling well add the fish pieces. We don't need to add much water as  fish gets cooked fast.

Check the salt and add more if required. Once the fish is cooked, add the curry leaves, simmer for 1 min.

Remove from flame.

Meen Mulakilittahu is ready. Serve with varavu/ thoran and hot rice. Enjoy !!

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