Braided n baked fish

A healthy, easy lunch with plenty of twists to make it interesting- that’s braided and baked fish fillets. Together with a simple salad inspired by Ashwini’s colorful salad, it was a pleasing, light meal. Ever since learning how to braid a bread, I've been trying it on various things. Braiding the fish fillets is fun, and the result is quite dramatic:)

Recipe:

Fish Fillets cut into thin long strips, as much as you need. (I used whiting. A 10lb bag of whiting is taking up our freezer space, so whiting it is until we get tired of it)
Marinate these strips in a mix of lime juice, soya sauce, fresh ginger paste and salt, for half an hour .

Pre heat oven to 375 F.

Take three strips and braid them, just as in a braided breaded. Tuck in the ends.

Place them carefully on a greased baking sheet, and bake for 20 minutes.

Heat a little, (I mean very little) oil in a pan and season with a few crushed green chilies. Pour this oil over the baked fish, and serve hot. (You can cut out this step , but I think that wee bit of seasoned oil adds a nice touch to the fish)

For the salad, mix grated carrots, sliced grapes, oranges, red onions , and sprinkle a dash of salt and lime juice.

chicken everything in my crisper

Somedays I am confronted by that monstrous question ‘what do I cook?’ Yesterday was one of them. I gaped at the contents of my fridge for inspiration, but they reciprocated with a cold, blank stare. My otherwise cherished recipe notebook lost its appeal; I wanted something simple, easy and tasty. Dinner time was fast approaching, and the gnawing hunger added to the dilemma. Usually on such days I ring up one of my friends, ‘What are you cooking?’, and somehow that would do the trick. Yesterday, I turned to my latest obsession, food blogs . Browsing through all the fabulous recipes with their tempting pictures was not an easy task , especially with a growling stomach, but proved to be very fruitful, or very chickenful. And the moment I saw Anthony’s Chicken masala dry, my puzzle was solved. Anthony’s recipe sounded easy and versatile, I was willing to play with it.

The crisper emptied a bunch of fresh fenugreek leaves , a tiny piece of purple cabbage, and my onion basket gave me two onions which had been lying there so long that they had nice green sprouts. I have never used fenugreek leaf in a non-vegetarian dish, well there’s always a first time. To make the long story short, it was fun cooking this one!

Recipe :

Chicken : 2 lbs
Yogurt : 2 T
Juice of one lime, and a little bit of its zest if you care
Crushed black pepper : 2 t
Ginger –garlic paste : 1 t
Turmeric : ¼ t
Green chili , crushed : 2
Salt

Mix all of this and marinate chicken in this, while you assemble the rest of the stuff.
Corriander powder : 2 t
Onions, chopped : 2
Fenugreek leaf, minced: 2 cup
Water : 2 cup
Cabbage, onion sprouts or any thing you care to throw in, sliced.

Heat around 2 T oil in a pan, add onions and sauté until golden. Add the coriander powder, fry for a few seconds. Add the chicken, and fry for a couple of minutes.Pour enough water to cook the chicken, (about two cups or less). Cover and cook on medium heat .
Once the chicken is well done, add the fenugreek leaf, and stir fry for another 4 to 5 minutes, Throw in the cabbage, onion sprout at the end and salt if needed.
You are done!We had it with those flaky frozen parathas.

Lesson learnt, slightly bitter fenugreek takes on a new avatar in a chicken curry. The sourness of lime-yogurt and the bitterness of fenugreek combined to a very interesting flavor. I am looking forward to my left-over lunch today ;)

Yucca root with Fish Curry (kappa -meen varattiyathu)

Yucca root is called kappa or kollikizhangu in Malayalam. This vegetable is widely grown in Kerala; being inexpensive and an excellent source of dietary fiber and carbohydrates it is a boon to the poor. Kappa and sardine curry is one of the most popular dishes of Kerala, from a poor man’s hut to a five star hotel, this combo has won hearts always.





The very first meal I shared with my other half was a kappa and sardine curry from a small roadside eatery at Waynad, on our first date. The scenery was mesmerizing; mist covered blue hills in the distance, meandering streams, refreshing greenery- the perfect setting to fall in love. And we did, both of us fell head over heels in love with kappa and sardine curry. Today we tried yucca root with a whiting fish curry, and learnt that yucca root can never disappoint you when paired with any fiery fish curry. Here's my entry to Meenakshi's 'from my rasoi-february' event.




Yucca root
When life’s steely edge gash you,
You can Lean on me .




Kappa (for two)

Yucca root: about 2 lb ,remove the hard skin and cut into small pieces
mustard seeds : 1/4 t
Scraped coconut: 1 T
Dry red chilies: 3/4
Curry leaf: 4/5
A little turmeric powder and salt
Oil : 1 t

Take the cut yucca in a pot, fill enough water to cover the yucca, add turmeric and salt and let boil, until the pieces are thoroughly cooked, and can be easily pierced by a fork.
In another pan, season oil with mustard seeds, dry read chilies, and curry leaves. Add this to the yucca along with the coconut, and mix well.

Fish Curry / Meen varattiyathu

This recipe is very similar to the chemmen varattiyathu.

Any fish : 1 ilb
Tamarind paste : ½ cup
Chili powder : 4 t
Turmeric powder : ½ t
Fenugreek : ¼ t
Onion, sliced : 1 quarter
Green chili : 1
Ginger –garlic paste : 1 t
Curry leaf : 4-5
Water : 1 cup
Oil : 4 T

Heat oil, fry the fenugreek for a couple of minutes.

Add onion, ginger, and garlic and sauté until transparent. Add green chilies, curry leaf, and masala powders and let fry until the raw smell is gone.

Pour tamarind paste, and water. Bring to a boil. Add the fish pieces, and salt. Cover and cook until the fish is well done, and the curry is fairly thick.Serve hot with cooked yucca.

Sizzling Shrimp / Chemmen varattiyathu

Be warned –this one is RED-HOT


In Kerala clay-pots are preferred for cooking, especially for cooking sea food. Since I do not have a clay-pot, I just use my regular pan. A poor substitute. There really has to be some logical reason why food cooked in a clay-pot tastes so good that it becomes the ideal in your mind, an unattainable ideal!

recipe

Shrimp : around 30, de-veined, washed
Onion : 1 medium, finely sliced
Tomato: 2 medium
Green Chilli : 1 or 2
Ginger paste : 1 t
Garlic paste : 1 t
Curry leaf: 10
Chili powder : 2t +1 t
Turmeric powder : ½ t
Corriander powder : 2t
Fenugreek : ¼ t
Oil : 4/5 T

Reserve 1 T oil, heat the rest in a heavy pan.

Sprinkle 1t of chili powder, pinch of turmeric powder, and a hint of ginger on the shrimp, and drop the shrimp in the pan. Enjoy the sizzzzzle, stir-fry for a minute or two, until just done and take them out.

Fry fenugreek for a minute, add ginger, garlic,green chillies, and onion, and cook on medium to low heat giving an occasional stir.

Once the onions are almost golden, push them to a side of the pan and pour the reserved oil. Now throw in the red, the brown and the yellow ( chili, coriander and turmeric), and let their colors and flavors get tuned in the hot oil for a minute. I mean let the spices fry in the oil until their raw smell is gone, about 2 minutes.

Add tomatoes, salt and curry leaves. Cook until it forms a thick gravy , and oil floats on top. Now let shrimp join the waiting and wooing gravy. Cook for a another two minutes so that all the shrimp is well coated with masala, and revel in it! This curry tastes good with rotis, rice n dal, bread…even dosa.



an artist's palette , or a foodie's platter

Chekov and Ginger-Coconut fudge

Chekov's short stories, Ginger-coconut fudge , and black tea.





Unlikey combination, it might seem. Not quite.

"When you depict depict sad or unlucky people," Chekov writes," and want to touch the reader’s heart, try to be colder-it gives their grief, as it were, a background, against which it stands out in greater relief. As it is, your heroes weep and you sigh. Yes, you must be cold".He knew how to touch the reader's heart, by sketching his characters and their woes in restrained strokes,never permitting cloying sentimentality, and never stepping in to make a moral judgement.

Dark irony runs through Chekov’s short stories, and at the same time they are compassionate. Bitterness and sweetness are deftly woven together in these stories, each strand highlighting and checking the other- I will take a leap here and say, just like in this fudge, where the fierceness of ginger and mild sweetness of coconut play upon each other. The result is an exciting fudge,neither too sweet nor too rich, and a suitable companion piece for Chekov’s stories on a cold evening.


Recipe

Ingredients:
Fresh coconut, grated : 1 cup
Sugar : ¾ cup
Ginger, grated/crushed into a coarse paste : 4 table spoons
Whole milk : 1 cup
Water : 5 table spoons
Ghee/clarified butter : 1 tea spoon

Grind the coconut to a fine paste.

Heat water and sugar in a pan on low heat, until the sugar melts completely, and forms a thick syrup.

Add ginger and coconut, cook for a minute.

Pour milk, and cook on low heat stirring occasionally until the mixture is thick, and leaves the sides of the pan easily.

Grease a mold with ghee. Pour in the mixture, let it set. Cut into small pieces and enjoy.

easy roasted fish

Last Saturday we had an eclectic group of friends for lunch. Not quite sure about their 'Indian-spice tolerance', I decided to play safe. This baked fish surprisingly, was much praised, and since it is such an easy thing am holding on to this recipe forever! I regret not taking a photo of the fish once it was cooked, well, there’s always a next time.

We had bought a three pound flounder from the local Korean sea-food store, ‘verrryy tasty’ the Korean lady had said, and she was right.

recipe
Ingredients:
One whole fish, cleaned, patted dry
Mint chutney : 1 cup
Lime juice : ½ cup
Lime zest : ½ tsp
Ginger paste : 2 tsp
Pepper : a pinch
Oil : 2 table spoons
Salt

Mix chutney, lime juice, zest of lime, ginger paste, pepper, and salt . Smear this paste all over the fish, wrap it tightly in foil and leave it in the fridge overnight. Take out the fish from the fridge half an hour before baking, brush both the sides with oil. Pre-heat the oven, and bake the fish wrapped in foil for 40 minutes at 375 F. After 40 minutes, remove the fish from the oven, unwrap the foil, and put it back on broil for 10 minutes, or until it turns into that ' I can dig into that now' brown.
Serve with some mint chutney and slices of lime.

Vellappam & Fish Molly

Rice and coconut used to be the major crops of Kerala. Now, Gold is the most cultivated crop in kerala. Laced with the Arabian Sea, the land is blessed with a variety of seafood, so naturally rice and fish have been engraved into a Malayali’s food consciousness. We could eat rice for every meal, and still love it. Of course, there are a 1001 and more ways rice is used in Kerala cuisine. Kerala is also the land of coconut trees, and the sweetness of freshly scraped coconut makes its way into almost all our dishes, be it non-vegetarian, vegetarian, snack, dessert. Malayalis living in far-off places are known to carry plucked coconuts with their luggage.

Vellappam and Fish Molly is my all time favourite break fast. So when I read about Meenakshi's From my Rasoi-Breakfast event I thought it was one more reason to take the extra effort and make a 'proper breakfast'. Traditionally, Vellappams are made in heavy kadais used only for this purpose. Batter is poured into the kadai which is then swirled so that the batter coats the side.The appams made in such kadais have a unique look, like tiny bowls with a soft middle and thin, crisp edges. Since, my stove is electric making vellappams in a kadai has never worked out; by the time the edges turn crisp the middle portion would have dried out. Not to be beaten by this , my ever-experimenting life partner tried out making flat pancake like appams, and Alhamdulillah! we now have our soft-melt-in-your-mouth vellappams.i do miss the crisp edges though :)

Fish molly

I have always wondered what the ‘Molly” part of this curry signifies, perhaps the name of the genius who invented it? The name immediately brings to my mind ‘Boban and Molly’ the popular cartoon series of kerala.

Ingredients :
Fish (Pomphret, King fish, Salmon,, whiting, Tilapia , all have given me good results) : 2 lbs
Onion : a few slices
Coconut milk : 1 cup
Tomatoes : 2 medium sized, sliced
Tamarind paste /lime juice : 1 tsp
Green chillies : 5 , sliced
Curry leaves : 5/6
Cilantro : 3 tsp , chopped
Ginger paste : ½ tsp
Fenugreek : ¼ tsp
Turmeric powder : ¼ tsp
Water : ½ cup
Oil : 1 tsp
Salt

Heat the oil in a pan, add fenugreek and ginger and cook for a minute. Add sliced onions, green chilies, turmeric powder and curry leaves, sauté for 3 to 4 minutes. Add sliced tomatoes, tamarind paste , water, and let boil . Now add the fish pieces, cover and cook for 10 -15 minutes until the fish is cooked . Pour in the coconut milk, and simmer for 2 minutes, garnish with lemon juice and cilantro.

Vellappam

Raw rice : 2 cups
Coconut milk : 1 cup
Cooked rice : ¾ cup
Water : 1 cup
Sugar : 1 tsp
Instant yeast : ¼ tsp
Dessicated coconut : 1 table spoon
Salt to taste


Soak the raw rice for about 5 hours. Drain, and grind this along with cooked rice, dessicated coconut, coconut milk and water. Pour into a large bowl (the batter is going to rise, so if you do not enjoy seeing spilt over batter the first thing as you enter kitchen make sure the bowl is large enough). Stir in yeast and sugar and let rise in a warm place overnight.

Just before cooking, add a pinch of salt if you prefer. Pour a ladle full of batter into a hot non-stick pan , cover and cook on medium heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Lift out, and enjoy!

Etched on my culinary memory are

...Eggs!
The first twenty two years of my life I could cook , or rather I was let to cook only boiled eggs, bull's eye, omlettes and Maggi noodles. Then I boarded an airplane and landed half a world away from my mother's cooking. Thus started my culinary riots. My partiality for eggs, however, didn't ebb away. So what better way to start, than with the very first things I learnt to burn? Two eggs waiting to be yoked into a single omlette, isn't there a poetic beauty in it ?

First step

In the name of the Creator to whom I will return one day
A food journal to sketch down my culinary riots.