Malabar Style Fish Curry (Kudampuli itta Meen curry)

This dish is one of the regular dishes back home in Kerala, the one with the ‘’kodampuli’’ that I don’t even know if there’s any special name for this. So I’m going to call it as  “Malabar fish curry” !!! 

 Here goes the recipe …

 

Ingredients

Fish – 1lb cut into pieces

Shallots – 6, sliced

Ginger – 1 inch, finely chopped

Garlic – 3 cloves, finely chopped

Mustard – 1 tsp

Kudam Puli (Meen puli) – 3 pieces 

Chili powder – 1 tsp

Kashmiri Chili powder – ½ tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Methi Powder – ½ tsp

Salt – to taste

Curry leaves – 8 to l0 leaves

Oil – 2 tsp

 

 

Method

Soak the tamarind in ½ cup of hot water for 10 minutes. 

In a non-stick vessel, heat oil and splutter mustard seeds & add curry leaves.

Add sliced shallots, and saute till transparent.

Add the ginger & garlic and saute for a minute, now saute all the spices – Chili powder, Turmeric powder and Kashmiri Chili powder together for 2 mins.

Add the tamarind along with the water and  salt;  let this masala boil for a few minutes.

Add the fish pieces gently to this mixture, add  ½ cup of water, cover and let it cook in low heat till the fish is cooked.  You can adjust the quantity of water depending on how much gravy you like.  

Once done, add the Methi powder, mix well and simmer it for a few minutes. Be careful not to break the fish in this process!

Remove from heat & serve with Rice. Personally I like this combo, combined with Cabbage thoran & Lime pickle. It is a deadly combination, try it out and  let me know!

Note: Please keep an eye while the fish is cooking, I am a big fan of Tilapia which cooks fast, most of the times I start multitasking only to find my  fish all broken and aviyal types 😦

Also you can increase the quatity of chili powder, to spice it up.

Back home, mom makes this in a earthern pot, manchatty ? This is supposed to enhance the flavor of this curry a lot, though I’ve not yet found any difference 🙂 … Well then I can’t make out the difference between olive oil & coconut oil too ! Weird me …

However, one thing I can vouch for is the taste that it attains when kept overnight .. mostly due to all the flavour from the tamarind & the fish blended . The moral of the story, use manchatty or not, make sure that you keep some leftover for the next day!

 

Ulli Sambhar (Sambhar with Shallots)

Ingredients

 

Toor dal -1 cup

Shallots – 10 to 12 peeled and kept whole

Tomato – 2, diced

Red Chili powder – 1 tsp

Kashmiri Chili powder – ½ tsp

Sambar powder – 2 to 3 tsp

Curry leaves – 1 stalk

Corrainder leaves – 1 handful

Mustard – 1 tsp

Red chili whole – 3 broken

Oil – 2 tsp

Tamarind – 1 lemon sized

Shallot – 1 spliced thin

Salt to taste

 

 

Method

Soak the tamarind in ½ cup boiled water for 10 minutes and extract the pulp using your hands 

Pressure cook Toor dal with 1 ½ cup of water till it is cooked well. I usually give 5 – 6 whistles. 

In a non-stick vessel, heat oil and splutter mustard seeds, red chili, curry leaves and sliced shallot till it turns brown.

Add the diced tomato & salt and let it cook till soft. 

Stir in the Sambar powder, chili powder and Kashmiri chili powder for a minute.  Smash the mixture with a spatula. 

Add the shallots and 1 cup of water to this and let it cook well

Once cooked add the cooked dal and tamarind water, adjust the salt level and bring it to a boil; let it simmer in medium heat to the required consistency.

Remove from heat and garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Serve hot with Rice, Sambhar or Idli!

 

Note: Normally I buy the MTR Sambar powder which comes very close to the homemade Sambar masala. Also if you want you can skip the Kashmiri chili powder, I use it as I like my Sambar to have that striking red color!

 

Beans Thoran

Ingredients:-

 

Beans – 1 lb, finely chopped

Shallots – 2 chopped

Curry leaves – 8 to 9

Mustard seed – 1 tsp

Udad daal – 1 tsp 

Cumin Powder – 1 tsp

Red Chili Powder – ½ tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Coconut – ½ cup grated

Salt – to taste

Oil – 6 tbsp

 

 

 

Method:-

 

Heat oil in a non stick skillet; splutter mustard seed, curry leaves and udad daal, till it is medium brown

Sauté the chopped shallots till it turns golden brown

Add the chopped beans, grated coconut, salt, red chili powder, cumin powder and turmeric powder and stir well 

Cover and cook this for a few minutes in medium heat till the vegetable is cooked.  This should take 5 – 10 minutes approx.

 Remove the lid and cook for another 5 minutes in high heat, stirring in between till the dish becomes dry.    

 Remove and serve hot with Sambhar & Rice. Personally I like to add Pappad & Lime pickle with this combo 🙂

 

Note: You will need to add a little bit of water now and then to help the vegetable cook.

 

Chemmeen Theeyal

Ingredients

 

Shrimp – 1 lb, cleaned & de-veined

Shallot – 5 to 6 finely sliced

Red Chili – 3 each broken into two

Curry leaves – 8 to 9

Fenugreek powder – ½ tsp

Oil – 2 tbsp

Tamarind – 1 lemon sized  

Salt to taste

 

 

To dry roast

Coconut – ½ cup grated 

Coriander powder – 3 tsp

Red chili powder – 1 tsp

Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

Cumin powder – ½ tsp

 

 

 

Method:-

 

Soak the tamarind in ½ cup boiled water for 10 minutes and extract the pulp using your hands 

Dry roast the grated coconut in a non-stick pan till it turns brown.  Add all the other ingredients list in the ‘To dry roast’ section and stir continuously. Switch off the stove when the coconut is dark brown. You need to keep a close eye on this to avoid the coconut from getting burnt

Remove and when cool, grind to a smooth, I repeat smooth paste with a little water in a blender. There is no easy way out of it, this need to be ground to a smooth paste. So to be on the safer side, I just keep running my blender for 5 minutes, stopping in between. 

Heat oil in a non stick skillet; splutter mustard seed, red chili & curry leaves.

Add shallots to this and sauté till it turns transparent.

Add the ground masala and the cleaned shrimp, salt and little water; cover & cook for 2 to 5 minutes.

Add the tamarind pulp and bring it to a boil.

Add fenugreek powder, stir well & remove from heat

Serve hot with rice.

  

Note:  This dish doesn’t call for a lot of gravy, it is very easy to adjust this, just add little water when soaking the tamarind.

 Also be careful not to overcook the shrimp as it tends to get rubbery & chewy when cooked for a long time.  One other thing – try to get small sized shrimp, this tastes yummy and give a nice look too