Passport & Plate - Mackerel Chilli Fish Curry
India | Friday, March 14, 2014 | 5 photos
Ingredients
Mackerel fish- four (big in size)
Red Chilli powder 5 teaspoons
Turmeric powder- one tea spoon
Garlic one bunch ( or one table spoon paste)
Ginger one small piece ( cut into small pieces or one table spoon paste)
Small onion- five (finely chopped)
Mustard - half teaspoon
Fenugreek- One tea spoon
Vegetable oil four table spoon (Coconut oil will be more tasty)
Green chillies-four (vertically cut to half portion)
Curry leaves- four
Tamarind -without seed two table spoons
Salt two tea spoons
Tomato- two (Vertically cut into six pieces each)
How to prepare this recipeClean and wash Mackerel in running water two-three times. Cut into two or three pieces each. In Kerala (India) traditional cooking practices bones of the fish will not be removed. Soft bones, on boiling, will supplement calcium to our body. The frying of spices and other ingredients has to be done in a hot pan. Pour two table spoon of vegetable to the pan, when it boils add mustard, it will start breaking. Add green chillies, two curry leaves and Fenugreek and small onion. Stir it with a fat spoon. Then add garlic, ginger and small onions. Continuously stir it. The ingredients will become golden grey. Add chilli and turmeric ( it has to be made into paste with water). Stir the mixture for four minutes and take the fame off. Pour water and make the mixed, little bit fried pate into gravy.
Fish curry will be cooked in earthen pot, it will give more taste to the curry than using a cook and serve vessel. Put the earthen pot in in low flame stove. When it starts heating pour the gravy to the pot. Add tamarind mixed with water and salt also. Stir it till we get a spicy smell. Place fish pieces into the gravy and some more water so that all the fish pieces are immersed. Boil the curry for 10 minutes, after covering the pot with a lid. You can now smell the tasty fish curry. Remove the curry from the burner. Sprinkle oil and garnish the curry with curry leaves and tomato pieces. Chilly fish curry is ready to serve with rice, rice cake, bread and a number of other dishes.
The story behind this recipeMackerel is poor man's food and cheaply available in India. It is an oily fish, has high percentage of omega-4 content, protein and beneficial to cardiovascular system, when blood pressure and cholesterol are the rules of the day.
I come from an agrarian background. We used to work very hard in our paddy fields and coconut plantation to feed our family . Since the income from agriculture was not good ( situation has now improved) we have little resources for education, health care and sustainable living. So the habit of small spending to buy groceries and other goods has evolved in agrarian communities in Kerala, India. Then the low cost fish Mackerel slowly became a delicacy in agrarian families. My great grand mother, Maria introduced Mackerel fish curry to our family more than a century ago. It passed to my grandmother, then to my mother and to me and my sisters and brothers. The curry can be used for a few days, without putting it in refrigerator. Fish curry pot has to be heated up for three to four minutes in the morning and evening. The taste will increase as days passes.
The advantages of Mackerel fish curry are in several counts. It is ethnic, organic, spicy and cheap. Home spices will alleviate many ailments including high blood pressure and Cholesterol. So eating Mackerel fish curry is not for taste alone but for healthy living too. In olden days people have little ailments related to life style.
We used to have Mackerel fish curry for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The taste and In a way it is more healthy and inexpensive too. But a paradigm shift is now taking place. People from all walks of life, from the urban world, slowly switching to ethnic and traditional foods for better living. Ethnic food joints are coming up in many parts of Kerala and house wives cooperatives are making big intervention. medicinal benefits of mackerel will be lost if it is fried in oil.
