Masala Fish Fry

Finally the fish has arrived in my kitchen :). I have issues about touching/filleting/cleaning raw meat and hence I haven't really explored non-vegetarian cooking much even though I like eating non-veg food. Poor S, he loves chicken, but I can count the number of times I have cooked it the past few years. Even those few times I offered to cook chicken, it would be on one condition that S cleans and does the basic marination of raw meat until the smell fades off. Finally I managed to get past my fussy attitude, wash, clean, marinate and fry the fish all by myself. So you should be seeing more chicken/fish based posts here soon :)

Masala Fish fry is fish marinated in shallot and spice paste and shallow fried. My favorite non-veg dish, second only to Mutton Kola Urundai is this Fish fry. Spicy and very flavorful. Best served with steamed rice and rasam.


Ingredients 

Serves - 2
Spice Level - High
Prep Time - 10 min
Cook time - 20 min

Fish pieces - 6 [ I used surmai variety]
Curd - 1 Tbsp
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Red Chilli powder - 2 Tsp
Coriander powder - 1 Tsp
Salt - as per need
Oil - to toast/shall fry
lemon juice of one lemon and little salt - to clean fish

To grind to a coarse paste

Shallots/small onions - 5
Garlic cloves - 3
Pepper - 1 Tsp
Coriander seeds - 1 Tsp
Jeera - 1/2 Tsp
Fennel - 1/2 Tsp

How do you do it

1. Grind the items mentioned into a semi-coarse paste, I used a mortar-pestle to grind it. Keep aside. Don't add any water while grinding this.

2. Clean the fish pieces in water first, rub some salt and lemon juice on the fish pieces. Keep aside for 5 minutes. Wash it again and set aside.

3. Take the ground paste, add curd, turmeric, red chilli powder, coriander powder, salt in a bowl and mix well. Taste this paste to make sure the spice/salt level is according to your taste. Make adjustments if needed. Add the fish pieces to this and wrap them well in the paste and marinate for 1-2 hrs.

4. Heat a kadai with little oil to shallow fry the pieces. Add a fish piece, shallow fry on medium flame till golden brown, until the fish is done. Alternatively you may also toast the fish pieces in a non-stick pan.

Serve with steamed white rice and rasam. Heaven! :)