WHAT THE FISH?

The staple food of Goa is rice & fish curry made in this style is tangy and spicy! Tuna tastes especially good in Goan Fish Curry but you can also use any fish with firm white flesh.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg fish cleaned and cut into pieces
• 1 1/2" lump of tamarind
• 1/2 cup hot water
• 1 large onion sliced
• 1 large tomato sliced
• 7-8 dry red chillies
• 2 tbsps garlic paste
• 1 tbsp ginger paste
• 1 1/2 cups grated fresh coconut
• 2 tbsps coriander powder
• 2 tbsps cumin powder
• 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
• 2 green chillies slit
• 2 tbsps vegetable/ canola/ sunflower cooking oil
• Hot water for gravy (approximately 2 cups)
• Salt to taste

Preparation:

• Soak the tamarind in 1/2 a cup of hot water for 10 minutes. Now mash the tamarind with your fingers to mix it well into the water. Strain through a sieve to extract all the pulp. Keep pulp aside.
• Put the onion, tomato, coconut, ginger, garlic, dry red chillies, all the spices and the tamarind pureé into your food processor and grind well to make a smooth paste (masala).
• Heat a deep pan on a medium flame, add the oil and heat.
• Add the green chillies, masala paste you just ground to the oil and fry for 5 minutes.
• Now add the 2 cups of water (add more water if you would like more gravy) and bring the gravy to a boil. Reduce the flame to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Add salt to taste.
• Gently add the pieces of fish to the gravy and cook for 10 more minutes. Do not cover the pan at any time during the cooking.
• Turn off the fire and serve immediately with plain boiled rice.

Tips & Variations :

You can use prawns, pomfret , king fish or any other fish of your choice to prepare this curry.

Do not over cook the fish or it will disintegrate into the curry.

You may use a combination of scraped coconut & coconut milk.

If you do not like excess coconut then you may use half coconut.

You can grind the masala paste; use warm water to extract juice & then make curry.

You can use only tamarind pulp or only tomatoes, bimlees or bindi sol which is also known as sol/sola/amsol/kokum.

Using coconut oil gives a good flavor. Coconut oil is used to prepare traditional curries.

You can prepare the curry without oil by thinning the masala paste & directly boiling it.