Tamarind Fish curry

As the title suggests, the fish is cooked in boiling tamarind sauce along with indian spices, green chillies and little coconut paste.  The seasoning gives a very good aroma and a good taste to this fish curry.


Ingredients:


Fish                              5-6 pieces
Tamarind                      lime size soaked in 1                               cup of warm water
Tomato                         1/2
Turmeric powder          1/4 tsp
Corriander powder       2 tbsp
Chilly powder               1 tbsp
Shallots                         1/4 cup approximately (blend without water)
Cumin seeds                  1/4 tsp
Grated Coconut            1/4 cup
Green chillies                 2
Salt                               to taste


For Seasoning:


Sessame Oil                    1 tbsp
Fenugreek seeds              10 nos
Mustard seeds                 1/2 tsp
Curry leaves                    1 stem
Shallots                           4




Method:


Soak lime-sized tamarind in one cup of warm water for 20 minutes.
Meantime, we can just blend the shallots 1/4 cup without water and keep aside. In the same blender, make a smooth paste of 1/4 cup coconut with 1/4 tsp cumin seeds with just enough water to form a paste. Clean and wash the fish pieces.


After 20 minutes, mix well the tamarind with our hand and filter it to remove impurities into a pan, in which we are going to prepare the fish curry. To this filtered tamarind juice add one more cup of warm water..


To this tamarind juice we prepared, add 1/4 tsp of turmeric powder, 1 tbsp of chilly powder, 2 tbsp of corriander powder and squeeze in half tomato with hand.


Heat the pan of tamarind juice and spices on medium flame and allow to boil. When it starts to boil, just stir once and allow to boil uncovered at medium flame for 5 more minutes from now, so that all the raw smell of tamarind and spices goes off.   

After 5 minutes of boiling, add the blended shallots and allow to boil for two more minutes uncovered. Then, add the coconut-cumin paste to this and allow to boil for another 3 minutes uncovered.  Get ready the fish and two slit green chillies for the next step.


After 3 min of boiling, add the fish pieces and sufficient salt for the whole sauce and two split green chillies. Now, when it starts boiling, reduce the flame little less and the whole tamarind sauce with the fish in it needs to boil uncovered at slow rate for another 20 minutes.


Just before 20 minutes, heat another pan on medium flame.  Add 1 tbsp of sessame oil. when the oil gets heated, add 10 no of fenugreek seeds, 1/2 tsp of mustard seeds and wait till it splutters.  Add one stem of curry leaves and shallots cut lengthwise. Fry for a minute or two and immediately transfer to the boiling tamarind fish sauce and cover the pan and remove from heat. Let this stand for atleast 30 minutes so that all the flavors of seasoning get into the fish gravy.  Then, the tamarind fish gravy is ready to serve.