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Tomato Fish

April 6, 2012 in Fish, Main Course, Recipes

Easy, Simple and Delicious

My mom used to make tomato fish very often specially when we had guests over. I love this recipe because it is simple and easy to make. It also requires minimal ingredients. Most of the ingredients are almost always at home in my pantry or refrigerator. I have made this about 3-4 times but never found the time to take pictures before we ate it all. This serves about 2 persons.

Ingredients:

  1. 1 halibut filet (cut into 1.5 inch cubes)
  2. 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
  3. 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper powder
  4. 1/4 tsp salt
  5. 1 tomato chopped
  6. 1 large shallot chopped
  7. 1 cup water
  8. 3 garlic cloves minced
  9. 1″ ginger minced
  10. 2 green chilies slit
  11. 1.5 tsp coriander leaves
  12. 1/2 tsp fennel powder
  13. 1/4 tsp asafoetida
  14. 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
  15. 1/4 tsp fenugreek seeds
  16. 1/4 tsp tamarind paste
  17. 1 tsp black pepper powder
  18. salt to taste
  19. oil (2 tsp + 2 tsp)

Directions:

  • Marinate the fish pieces with the turmeric, cayenne pepper and salt.
  • Marinate the fish for about 2 hrs or overnight.
  • Heat  2 tsp of the oil in a saucepan and add the fish to it. Fry the fish pieces on each side for about 2 mins each.
  • Remove the fish pieces from the saucepan and set it aside.
  • Add the rest of the oil to the same saucepan . Once the oil is hot add the fenugreek seeds and asafoetida.
  • Once the seeds are brown, add the shallots, ginger nad garlic to the oil and fry till it is browned.
  • Now add the dry spices to this mixture.
  • Once the spices are mixed with the shallots and ginger-garlic mixture, add the tomato.
  • Cook the mixture till the tomato is completely cooked and all mushy.
  • Add the cup of water to the mixture and bring to a boil.
  • Add the tamarind to the mixture and let it simmer for a couple of minutes. Next add the fish pieces to the gravy.
  • Let the tomato fish simmer for about 10-20 mins. This will thicken the gravy and cook the fish.

This is not the same recipe that my mom follows when she makes her tomato fish. She fries the fish and then adds it into the gravy. I just cook it to ensure that it is cooked faster. I love this curry specially since it goes well with rice, bread or even chappatis. It is a spicy dish and you can go slow on the green chili, cayenne pepper or the black pepper. Hope you enjoy this dish as much as I did and thanks for reading.

Shilpa

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Kerala Style Fish Biryani

September 27, 2011 in Main Course, Recipes

This is something I would die for….

I remember going to Kerala on summer vacations and the number of biryanis I used to eat. Wherever you go for dinner or lunch, that’s one thing that’s almost always served. And it was always brilliant with just that unique touch of the person cooking it. And Biryani is made with fish, chicken or shrimp as the meat ingredient. Imagine my shock when I suggested to Amit that I will make fish biryani and he had no clue that biryani was made with fish as well. He had eaten chicken, lamb, shrimp biryani but not fish biryani. How could Amit have never eaten fish biryani. I remember the fish biryani that mom makes at home and then I also did some internet search and voila, I think I have the perfect fish biryani recipe now. We had this for a couple of days for both lunch and dinner and as the biryani sat in the refrigerator for a longer period of time, it got tastier. This dish takes about an hour and a half to prepare. But I promise you the end result is so good that you will forget about all the effort you put in. It serves about 5-6 persons.

Ingredients
  1. 2 lbs Fish cleaned and cut into medium-sized pieces
  2. 2 cups Basmati Rice
To cook the rice
  1. 2 tsp Ghee
  2. salt to taste
  3. 2 tsp lemon juice
  4. whole spices (cardamom – green and black, cinnamon, cloves, bay leaves, fennel seeds)
For Marination
  1. 2 tsp Chilli powder
  2. 1/2 Turmeric powder
  3. 1 tbsp Pepper powder
  4. 2 tsp Coriander powder
  5. 1 tbsp Ginger – Garlic paste
  6. 1 1/2 tsp Fennel powder
  7. 2 tbsp Yoghurt
  8. Salt – To taste
For biryani masala
  1. 2 onions – sliced
  2. 2 Tomatoes – chopped
  3. 3 Green chillies
  4. 5-6 Garlic cloves
  5. 2″ Ginger piece
  6. 8-10 Cloves
  7. 8-10 Whole pepper corns
  8. 2 Cinnamon Sticks
  9. 2-3 green Cardamoms
  10. 1-2 black cardamoms
  11. 2 Bay leaves
  12. 1/2 tsp fennel seeds
  13. 1/2 tsp nutmeg powder
  14. 1/4 tsp Turmeric powder
  15. 1/2 tsp Chilli powder
  16. 1/2 tsp Pepper powder
  17. 1 tsp Coriander powder
  18. 2 tsp Fennel powder
  19. Salt – To taste
  20. Oil – As required
For garnish
  1. 1/4 cup Fried onion
  2. 1/4 coriander / cilantro
  3. 1/4 cup Fried cashews
Directions
  • Soak the rice in water for about 30 mins.
  • Boil the water for the rice and add all the ingredients under “to cook the rice” and add the rice to it. Once the rice is cooked, set it aside.
  • Next marinate the fish in the ingredients listed under “For Marination”. Keep t aside for 1-2 hours.
  • Shallow fry the fish at set them aside.
  • Grind together ginger, garlic, green chillies and half of the whole spices mentioned under the ingredients for biryani masala.
  • Heat some oil in a pan and add the rest of the whole spices. Once the spices get fragrant add the sliced onions and saute till the onions turn dark brown.
  • Now add the ginger-garlic-green chili-whole spice mixture and saute for a few more minutes.
  • Next add the chopped tomatoes and cook till the tomatoes are completely mashed.
  • Now add the dry spices and cook for a couple of minutes. After a couple of minutes add 3/4 cup of water and let it simmer for about 2 minutes.
  • Now add the fried fish and let the gravy simmer for a couple of minutes.
  • Now grease the bottom of a oven proof dish and add a layer of the fish gravy. Next add a layer of rice, another layer of fish gravy and lastly a rice on top.
  • Add the garnishing ingredients on top and place the dish in the oven at 350F for about 20-30 minutes.

Hope you enjoy this dish as much as we did. During my internet search for the perfect Kerala style biryani, I landed at this site; http://www.yummyoyummy.com/2010/04/spicy-kerala-style-fish-biriyani.html.

Shilpa

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Fish in Spinach Curry (Fish Palak)

May 16, 2011 in Main Course

Back after another unplanned break!!!

I know I had promised I would not disappear for such long periods of time but I guess my PhD program does take precedence over all else… :) But well I am back and this is gonna be a short post but a post nonetheless after one whole month. I had actually made this dish before I went on my one month sabbatical but never got down to posting the recipe. I love spinach and it’s healthy too. So why not combine some spinach with fish! And I do love all kinds of seafood so it  feels like the best combination…. And its takes about 30-45 minutes to make with about 20-30 minutes of active prep / cooking from your side.

Ingredients:

  1. 4 fish fillets (any kind cleaned and cut into four pieces each)
  2. 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
  3. 8 cups of spinach leaves
  4. 1 tomato (pureed)
  5. 1 1/2 onions (finely chopped)
  6. 4-5 cloves garlic (sliced fine)
  7. 1/4 teaspoon turmeric powder
  8. 2 teaspoons red chili powder
  9. 3 teaspoon cumin powder
  10. 1/2 teaspoon black pepper powder
  11. 1 teaspoon coriander powder
  12. 2 teaspoons oil
  13. 1 cup water
  14. salt to taste

Directions:
  • Heat 1/2 teaspoon oil. Add the cumin seeds and when it sputters add the raw spinach leaves. Let the leaves wilt just a little; this takes about a minute.
  • Now transfer the spinach to the pureed tomato and puree the entire mixture together.
  • Heat the rest of the oil in the same pan and add the chopped onions to it. Once the onions soften a little add the sliced garlic.
  • Once the onion and garlic brown add the turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder and cumin powder and fry for a minute.
  • Add the water and salt to this mixture and let it come to a simmer.
  • Now add the fish to this mixture and cover and cook for 5 minutes. Remove the cover and let the fish cook in the mixture for another 5 minutes or till the fish is partially cooked.
  • Now add the spinach – tomato puree to the fish and cover the pan. Let is cook for about 10 minutes.
Your fish in spinach curry is ready to be served either with rice or bread. This recipe is a keeper as far as I am concerned specially for the weeknights. And it serves about 2-3 persons. I hope to be a little more regular now with my posts but I do not think it’s going to be possible till after I am done with my exams. For now, I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as we did. Now I am gonna go have dinner – some fish in spinach gravy with bread…

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Fish and Potatoes in Red Curry Sauce

January 9, 2011 in Main Course

Back after a short break…

I have been away from my blog for a few days now. Well it’s not because I have been lazy, it’s more because I have had too many things happening all around me. Just never found the time to get to my blog. Also, Amit and I celebrated our third wedding anniversary last week. But am back now.

Last week we bought a lot of fish and I really needed to finish it before it got stale. I remember seeing a fish recipe which had some potatoes in them, so thought of doing just that. Though I do not remember the recipe but the idea of putting fish and potatoes together in the same dish intrigued me. For the red curry sauce I made a few changes to the recipe I found at a website which I have linked at the end of my blog. So here’s my own version of fish and potatoes in red curry sauce recipe.

Ingredients:

  1. 2 tilapia fillets
  2. 1 small potato
  3. 1 teaspoon ginger paste
  4. 4 garlic cloves (chopped fine)
  5. 3 sweet peppers (small) (chopped fine)
  6. 1 cup chopped red onion
  7. 2 teaspoons Thai red curry paste
  8. 1 teaspoon curry powder
  9. 1/2 teaspoon cumin powder
  10. 4 teaspoon soy sauce
  11. 1 tablespoon brown sugar
  12. 7 ounce coconut milk
  13. 2 tablespoons chopped coriander
  14. 1 teaspoon lemon juice
  15. 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
  16. salt to taste
  17. 2 teaspoons olive oil

Directions:

Preparing the Fish

  • Marinate the tilapia fillets in some salt and 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (freshly ground) for about 15 minutes.
  • Heat the broiler in the meanwhile.
  • Slice the potato into really thin slices.
  • Broil the fish fillets on one side for about 10 minutes.
  • Turn the fillets over and place the potato slices on top of the fish fillets. Broil this side for about 5 minutes. Once the potatoes start turning brown, turn over the potato slices. Once this side also browns set aside the fish and potato slices.

Preparing the Red Curry sauce

  • Heat the oil in a saucepan.
  • Add the ginger and garlic and saute this till it turns light brown.
  • Add the onions and fry it till it turns light brown. Now add the sweet pepper and cook till the pepper is soft and cooked through.
  • Once the pepper is cooked, add the cumin powder and curry powder and saute for a couple of minutes.
  • Then add the soy sauce, brown sugar and curry paste and stir till the mixture is homogeneous.
  • Next add the coconut milk and simmer for about 5 minutes. Now add the salt to taste. (The curry paste and soy sauce usually have some salt, therefore be careful when adding more salt)
  • Add the lemon juice and chopped cilantro and stir it.
  • Now remove the sauce from heat.
  • To serve, place the fish fillet in a plate and pour the red curry sauce over the fish fillet.
  • I cut the fillet into smaller pieces just because it’s easier to serve.

This serves two persons and does make some extra sauce. I was able to use the leftover sauce, the next day, with some boiled eggs. The entire recipe takes about 45 minutes from start to finish. And here is the original recipe for the red curry sauce http://find.myrecipes.com/recipes/recipefinder.dyn?action=displayRecipe&recipe_id=10000000348346. I did make some changes to suit my taste buds. Hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I did. You can make the sauce and use it as a topping over any other vegetables / meat. We loved this sauce over the boiled eggs as well.

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Tilapia in Coconut Gravy

December 20, 2010 in Fish, Main Course

Amit works his magic in the kitchen!

I am back and hopefully will not disappear for such a long period of time ever again. Well as most of you may already know I am currently working towards my PhD. The Industrial Engineering PhD program at ASU requires you to take a ton of classes (19 courses to be precise) and then they need you to pass a qualifying exam (based on coursework), a comprehensive exam (based on your research) and then a final dissertation defense. I gave my PhD qualifiers a few days back and therefore was busy, really busy studying for the exams. Finally I am done with it and “YES” I cleared the qualifiers. So, till it’s time for the Comprehensive exams,  I am going to be as regular as possible.

You can imagine with the preparations for the exams in full swing, I hardly found any time to cook, forget blogging about it. Well that’s not exactly true, Amit and I did manage to cook some very quick and tasty recipes. But I never managed to get any pictures neither did I get a chance to write the recipe down. So the next few posts are going to be those recipes made again but this time I’ll actually blog about it.

The first recipe is Tilapia in coconut gravy. A few days before the exam preparations started, I caught a bad cold and that resulted in Amit cooking dinner at home. And he made this awesome fish curry that was beyond awesome. He was supposed to just bake or fry the fish but he decided to make something a little more than that. And I am so glad he did. This is an easy to make and quick recipe and it tastes heavenly.

Ingredients:

  1. 6 tilapia fillets
  2. 2 tablespoons garlic paste
  3. 2 tablespoons tamarind paste
  4. 1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder
  5. 2 teaspoons red chilli powder
  6. 1 teaspoon coriander powder
  7. 3 garlic cloves (chopped fine)
  8. 2 green chilies (slit)
  9. 1/2 tsp asafoetida
  10. salt to taste
  11. 2 teaspoons oil
  12. 3/4 cup coconut milk

Directions:

  • Marinate the tilapia fillets in the tamarind paste, garlic paste, turmeric powder, red chili powder, coriander powder and salt.
  • Marinate the fish for about 30 minutes.
  • Heat the oil in a wide saucepan and heat the chopped garlic, green chillies and asafoetida. (Add these three ingredients based on how many fillets you can fry at a time. I fried the fish in 3 batches so I split the chopped garlic, asafoetida and green chilies into 3 batches as well.)
  • Once the garlic is browned add the marinated fish and fry for a couple of minutes on either side.
  • Add a little water to the saucepan and let the fish cook thoroughly (Cook covered and keep an eye on the fish and the amount of water in the saucepan ensuring that the gravy never dries up completely).
  • If you are cooking the fish in batches, put the fish fillets together into the same dish and set aside till all the fillets are done cooking.
  • Once all the fish fillets are cooked, put it together in the same saucepan and add the coconut milk and 1/4 cup water.
  • Cook the fish in the coconut gravy for about 5-10 minutes.
  • Garnish the fish gravy with a few coriander leaves and it is ready to be served with any bread of your choice.

This recipe serves 2-3 persons. It takes about 30-45 minutes to prepare this dish. You can substitute the tilapia with any other fish of your choice but preferably white fish. I give full credit of this recipe to Amit. I just followed his steps to make this dish. If you love fish, you will love this recipe and take my word for it, it’s delicious! Oh and as a thank you to Amit, I baked some chocolate chip cookies for dessert…

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Fish Cutlets

November 14, 2010 in Appetizers, Fish, Potatoes, Snacks

A walk down memory lane

I remember cutlets being the appetizer that my mom used to make when we had guests over. She used to make vegetable cutlets, fish cutlets, kheema cutlets. They are actually pretty easy to make and beyond delicious.

I have made vegetable cutlets before; they are my favorite among cutlets. I bought some tilapia at the grocery store the other day and had plans to fry or roast it for dinner. Then I noticed some boiled potatoes in the refrigerator, and that’s when it hit me, fish cutlets!!!

Mom always used to make some extra cutlets for next day. I loved the cutlets the next day (not that I ate any less on the day of the party) because they used to be served piping hot – from the stove to my plate. The fish cutlets she used to make were from the tastiest fish varieties ever – I so long for the fresh fish from the fish markets in Bombay. I guess I’ll have to make do with the tilapia for now. So here’s the recipe for fish cutlets. You can make them even the day before and save yourself sometime on the day of a party. This recipe makes about 12 cutlets.

Ingredients:

  1. 2 Tilapia fillets
  2. salt and black pepper for seasoning the fish
  3. 2 potatoes – boiled and mashed
  4. 1 onion large
  5. 4 green chillies
  6. 2 cloves garlic
  7. 2 tsp black pepper
  8. 1 teaspoon cumin powder
  9. 1/2 teaspoon coriander powder
  10. 2 teaspoon lemon juice
  11. coriander leaves (1 cup chopped)
  12. 1 egg
  13. bread crumbs (made from 3-4 slices)
  14. 2 teaspoons oil
  15. oil for frying
  16. salt to taste

Directions:

  1. Season the fish fillets with salt and black pepper. Set this aside for a about 15 minutes.
  2. Bake the fish in the preheated oven at 350 deg F. Turn the fillet over after about 5-7 minutes. Turn over the fillet once again after another 5-7 minutes. Remove the fillets from the oven after about 3-5 minutes.
  3. Shred the fish into small pieces and set aside.
  4. In the meanwhile boil the potatoes and mash the potatoes to a smooth consistency.
  5. Chop the onions, green chillies and garlic cloves.
  6. Heat the oil and when hot add the onions and fry for a couple of minutes.
  7. Add the green chillies and the garlic and fry all the ingredients till the onions turn a brown in color.
  8. Now add the cumin, coriander powder and fry for a couple of minutes till the ingredients are mixed together well.
  9. Reduce the heat and add the mashed potatoes and mix well.
  10. Add salt to taste.
  11. Remove the potato mixture from the heat and add the shredded fish, coriander leaves and the lime juice to it. Mix all the ingredients together and ensure that the mixture has a sticky consistency.
  12. Make about 12 flat patties out of the mixture and set aside.
  13. Beat the egg in a separate bowl.
  14. Make the bread crumbs and set aside.
  15. Take each flat patty and apply a little egg on both side and then cover with the bread crumbs.
  16. Heat a little oil in a frying pan and place the cutlets in the frying pan.
  17. Fry the cutlets till brown on both sides.

This recipe takes about 30-40 minutes for preparation and another 10-15 mins for frying. These cutlets can be served with any kind of bread and some people also like some ketchup on the side. Some green chutney would also go well with the cutlets. I made these cutlets atleast 3 weeks back but then had a conference to go to so had to put an hold on the blog. But am back now and will be back to regular postings as before. You can easily substitute the fish with any other, it is not necessary to use tilapia. And the outer crust for the cutlets can be made using a lot of ingredients but I love the version with bread crumbs. You could also use corn meal or semolina. Hope you enjoy making these cutlets as much as my I did.

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