I was looking at one of my pins on Pinterest for some inspiration as usual. Then I came up with this recipe on my own. This can be used with any type of firm fish and the one I chose for this recipe was salmon. I added 3 tbs of coconut oil to the cast iron skillet.
It had a tiny bit of oil left over from making my akara made with besan (chickpea flour). Also there are many types of fish curries becuse there are many differnt recipes for fish curry.
I added to my mortar and pestle 1 pinch each of coriander seeds, black pepper corns and 1 kashmiri chili. I ground those in to a coarse powder and set it aside.
I cooked the fish first in the oil until it turned opaque. This keeps the fish from scattering in to your curry and keeps the flesh in tact. I learned this tip from reading the African food blogs. They cook lots of fish and this works. I told Mr. Riaz now about this method and he was raving about it.
He calls me a genious lol. 😀
After I cooked the fish and set it aside, I started to make the curry. To the oil that is in the cast iron skillet I added 1 pinch each of cumin seeds, fenugreek seeds, mustard seeds and 3 curry leaves. I would add either 1 shallot I have sliced in to half moon slices or 4 green onions cut in to tiny pieces and stir until they are slightly brown on low heat.
I added 3 pieces of kokum phool to 1/4 cup of water and set it aside. Phool in urdu means flower and it is a souring agent used in a lot of South Indian cooking . They can be found in any Indian grocery store. If you can not find them, substitute with 1 small marble size ball of tamarind.
I added the spices I have ground in my mortar and pestle to the rest of the masala base in my cast iron. I added 1 slice of ginger that is washed and peeled with 1 clove of garlic that I had peeled and added it to my mortar and pestle and ground it in to a semi paste then added it to the masala base in the skillet. I stirred and added 1 pinch of desiccated coconut. Shreaded coconut can be used too.
Then I added the kokum phool or tamarind and stirred some more. I added 1 tbs of tomato paste then 1/2 cup of water and strirred until the tomato paste disolved and a nice red curry started to form.
I added the fish back to the skillet this time to the curry and cooked it 5 minutes longer. The fish remained in tact and started to look inviting. When time was up, I added 1 pinch of cilentro and shut off the stove then covered the skillet.
It is ready to consume with plain basmati rice or chapati.
