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- Photo: ross.grady / Flickr
This curried tomato fish dish is inspired by South Indian cooking where sour tamarind leaves combine with curry leaves to flavour curries. The tomato curry acts as gravy for the fresh fish. The sauce has a hot, sharp taste, consisting as it does of aniseed, coriander, garlic and chilli. Any firm fish can be used in this recipe. The dish can be made a day ahead, which will allow the flavours to be absorbed by the fish. It can also be frozen.
Ingredients
You will need the following ingredients for six: 1 kg of fresh sliced fish (washed and patted dry), 60 ml of vegetable oil, 2 level teaspoons of salt, 1 teaspoon of turmeric, 1 teaspoon of chilli powder, 1 teaspoon of crushed aniseed, 2 teaspoons of crushed coriander seeds and 2 tablespoons of plain four.
You will also require 30 grams of tamarind, 10 curry leaves, 1 green chilli (sliced lengthways), 6 crushed gloves of garlic, 1 finely chopped onion, 6 pulped ripe tomatoes, 2 level teaspoons of sugar and four sprigs of dhania (coriander) leaves for the garnishing.
Prepare the paste and rub the fish
Place the following ingredients into a bowl and mix them into a paste: 1 tablespoon of the vegetable oil, the turmeric, chilli powder and salt, as well as the aniseed and coriander seeds. Now rub the paste all over the fish pieces and leave them to absorb the flavours for four hours.
Prepare the tomato curry
Use two tablespoons of water to mix the flour into a paste. Add another three-quarters of a cup of water so as to dissolve the flour paste. Next, soak the tamarind in half a cup of water for 10 minutes. Reserve the puree after straining the tamarind in order to remove the pips.
Place the rest of the oil in a pan and heat it up. Stir in the curry leaves, garlic and green chilli and allow the mixture to brown for 10 seconds before adding the onion. Stir the ingredients for half a minute before you add the tomatoes, sugar, flour paste and tamarind. Simmer the sauce for 20 minutes with the lid on.
Finish and serve
Place the marinade and fish into the curry and continue to cook the curried tomato fish for 15 minutes. When the fish is tender, remove the saucepan from the stove and spoon the curried tomato fish into a warm serving dish. Garnish with the dhania and serve with freshly cooked rice.
A crisp salad will also go well with this dish, in which case top it with a mint dressing. To make a quick mint dressing, measure out 300 ml of distilled white vinegar, 175 grams of sugar and 75 grams of chopped mint leaves. Bring the sugar and vinegar to a slow boil, stirring until the sugar dissolves.
Boil for a minute, stir in the mint leaves and boil for another minute. Allow the mint sauce to cool before serving it.
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