Kerala Fish Curry, Oil-free

(Click photo to enlarge)

So I should've taken the photo before most of the fish got polished off, but well, I forgot, greed :)

You can use this exact same recipe for prawn curry too.

This is a routine, ordinary fish recipe from Kerala, with only fresh ingredients, no ground masalas, and absolutely no oil. The only real effort is the making of the coconut milk - but the reaction to the curry is usually so good, in the end you feel it was all worth it :)  You can also buy coconut milk in packets these days. Remember that it is concentrated, you need to dilute a bit when adding.

I use an earthen-ware pot to cook this. You can use any thick vessel too, but see if you can buy a pot - am sure it adds something to the taste.

Ingredients

• Fish (any one, though the most popular are seer, pomfret, karimeen(pearl spot), sardine, mackerel. I used karimeen this time, 4 of them.) Preferably something with one center bone.
• Ginger, one big piece, lightly crushed
• Green chilly - 1
• Red chilly powder - 1 teaspoon
• Turmeric - half a teaspoon
• Curry leaves - 2 whole sprigs, you can leave the sprig as it is, without pulling out the leaves.
• Shallots (sambar onion) - a handful, sliced in half
• Kodampuli - 3 pieces, soaked in water beforehand (http://www.kodampuli.com). This is what adds that typical addictive sourness/tanginess. You should get it in any Mallu grocery shop, or ask any Mallu friend to get it for you from Kerala. You can keep it for years, in a bottle, won't go bad - it's dried and preserved. If you can't get this, use tamarind, lots of it. Or green mango slices!
• Coconut milk. 1 packet. Or make it fresh this way: For 4 fish, I used half a coconut, you can add a whole coconut if you want a thicker gravy - scrape it, grind in the mixie, add warm water and extract as much milk as you can. Grind twice, strain the milk so no coconut scrapings remain in the milk.
• Rock salt, a teaspoon (if not, ordinary salt)
• Cornflour. If you want to thicken the gravy in the end, mix a bit of cornflour in water and add and boil for a couple of minutes.

Preparation

Just put all the stuff together in the pot, with half the packet of coconut milk, add the fish, add water to immerse it all, and cook, with lid half-open. That's it! Taste in between, add more chilly/ginger if you want it spicier. Coconut milk reduces the chilly flavour. In the end add the remaining thick coconut milk to thicken the gravy.

Fish cooks real fast, so keep an eye. Some big fish may break when you try to turn them around, like it happened to one fish in the photo :) - but hey, it still tastes delicious, you will search out the pieces and eat every last bit! It is best to not turn them around.

Some people do add a drop of coconut oil in the end, to give that extra flavour. If you want the gravy thicker, add some cornflour as described above.