Easiest Fish Curry Ever!

Easiest fish curry ever! And so tasty, with the sharp flavors of tamarind and curry leaves. Got it from here. Don't go by the picture, it's a lot tastier than it looks :)

 Ingredients 

• 5-6 pieces of fish (like seer, pomfret etc that can be cut into slices. Prawn may also be a good idea.)
• 1 tbl spn coriander seeds
• 1 tea spn cumin seeds
• 2 tea spns chilli powder
• A pinch turmeric
• 1 tea spn ginger (a thick piece)
• 1 tea spn garlic (a few pods, I used more garlic than ginger)
• 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract
• Oil
• 10-12 curry leaves
• Salt

Method:

1. Roast cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Cool, and grind. I am assuming that if you don't have the time, you could just use some good quality coriander and jeera powder!
2. Make a paste of ginger, garlic, tamarind, turmeric, the coriander-jeera you just ground, chilli powder, salt, with very little water.
3. Heat a little oil and fry the paste till the raw smell goes off. Now add 1/4 cup water, and add fish pieces. Add the curry leaves cut into two. Cover and cook till done. Taste gravy in between to see if you want to make it tangier with more tamarind. You can either make it slightly-gravy-ish, or cook until dry.

  

I made the mistake of not pre-grinding the coriander-jeera first - it doesn't grind well when you add it to the wet ingredients - that's why the masala looks a bit chunky!

Onion-Tomato Chutney

Here's the recipe for the chutney in the Oats dosa picture below - from my friend Venkat.

Ingrediants

1. Tomatoes
2. Onions
3. Tamarind Paste
4. Red Chilly powder
5. Turmeric
6. Salt

Method

1. Grind all the stuff in mixie.
2. Heat a little oil, add mustard and urad dal seeds.
3. Add the mixture and stir for 2 mins until the raw smell is reduced.

You can also add some ground nuts and channa dal to the mixture while grinding. I think this will taste great with some curry leaves and garlic in the mixture too!

Groundnut Chutney Powder (North Karnataka Style)

To think that I did not post this before! An easy way to get healthy groundnuts, garlic and curry leaves in, and goes well with chapathis and rice and as sandwich filling. See picture in the Palak Chapathis post below.

Ingrediants

1. Groundnuts - roasted, skin removed
2. Peeled garlic, as much as you can take :)
3. Red chilly powder  - choose a chilly that has a great colour, like the Kashimir chillies. They use the byedagi chillies in North Karnataka - such a brilliant red!
4. Curry leaves - washed and dried. One big twig-worth of leaves or less.
5. Salt

Procedure

Grind it all together in the mixie! Adjust salt, garlic, chilly, curry leaf according to your taste - highlight the flavor you want!

Palak/Methi Chapathis

A great way to get that green stuff in! And it doesn't taste as bad as it looks, it's quite nice!

Ingredients

1. A bunch of palak leaves - soak in salt water for a a while and clean well.
2. Atta (wheat flour), 2 cups
3. Jeera powder (Cummin), 2-3 teaspoons, to taste
4. Salt
5. Crushed garlic and green chilly (if you want)

Procedure

1. Grind palak in mixie well.
2. Add it to atta, then add jeera powder and salt, and some crushed garlic and green chilly. Add additional water if needed (add water in mixie and pour that water in here - conserve, conserve!) and mix into a soft dough.
3. Roll out chapathis!

My friend Rekha does it this way: "Take methi leaves fresh, take equal quantity of palak leaves, few strands of corriander leaves, wash and grind them into a fine paste in the mixer. Add this to the wheat flour with jeera , salt and green chillies. Make chapatis and have with plain curds. My son loves these chapatis."

You can have this with your regular vegetables/dal - or just chutney/chuney powder and curd. It does not have a very strong taste, so it is an easy chapathi substitute.

Raw Garlic Chutney

From my friend Rekha, who is from North Karnataka:

 

"This is my mother-in-law's recipe for healthy bones, especially for women:

 

Ingredients

 

1. Garlic - 6 raw
2. Onions - 6 small (shallots, sambar onions)
3. Curry leaves - a bunch, fresh
4. Tamrind pulp
5. Red chilly powder - for this I roast dry red chillies at home and powder them in a mixer
6. Jaggery
7. Mustard seeds 2 tea spoons
8. Jeera - 2 teaspoons
9. Coriander seeds - 3 teaspoons

 

Procedure

 

1. You need to fry all the ingredients except the garlic. (Onions, curry leaves, seeds)
2. Grind all the fried ingredients.
3. Now grind the raw garlic seperately and mix it with the ground paste.
4. Add tamarind, jaggery, salt and red chilly powder as per your taste.
5. Fill it in a bottle and keep it in the fridge.
6. You can eat this  with chapatis, dosas and hot rice with little ghee.

 

This gives a lot of strength to the bones and helps reduce cholestrol
I have eaten this chutney though I hate raw garlic and believe me it has reduced my back ache to a large extent."

To Reduce Cholesterol

This is something my sister-in-law has tried successfully on my brother who had high cholesterol. My father, who's a cardiologist, and who was monitoring my brother's cholesterol levels, was surprised to see the reduction in cholesterol levels in a month!

Ingredients

Fresh Garlic: A tablespoonful, peeled (My sister-in-law roasts this for a few seconds with skin on, on a tava, to take away the pungency a bit)
Fresh Curry Leaves: A tablespoonful (soak in water with salt and turmeric powder for 15 mins if you want to make sure it's really clean)
Shallots (Sambar Onion): 5-6 peeled

Procedure

Grind all three, make a  chutney. Have once a day, mixed with any kind of food. Rice and dal is a good camouflage :)  You can be innovative and grind this with other ingredients that may take away the pungency - like tamarind.

Tip from my friend Anil: Curry leaves chutney and curry leaves in butter milk (with complete removal of butter version) is a medicine to reduce  cholesterol.


How to include garlic, curry leaves and/or shallots in your diet

Chutneys are obviously the best way to get these in fresh. I use these in various cooked dishes too, see labels.


Curry Leaf Chutney

I use this in my chutney - see post below - though it has coconut, not sure people with high cholesterol are allowed that.

Groundnut Chutney

Grind roasted groundnuts with some garlic and curry leaves and red chilly to make chutney powder.

Curry Leaf Chutney

This is the chutney which contains all 3 cholesterol-reducing fresh ingredients: garlic, curry leaves, shallots (sambar onions). My staple chutney with dosas.


Ingredients

Coconut: Half
Curry leaves: A handful. Soak in salt and turmeric powder and water for a while if you want to really clean it.
Garlic: A handful, peeled
Shallots: A handful, peeled
Tamarind: a small lemon-sized piece, soaked in water at least 15 mins before.
Green chilly: 2, or more if you like it spicy. Always check with one chilly first - some big chillies are hot :)
Salt

Procedure

Grind all of it in a grinder :)
Season with mustard seeds and asafoetida in a little  bit of oil.

Leafy Dals!

Mixing with dals is a great way to eat green leafy vegetables - and a very quick and tasty way to make a balanced dish. Goes great with chapathis and rice.

Ingredients

Tuvar dal/Moong Dal/Any other dal of your choice. Tuvar is the best for this, I find. (Dal = Pulse)
Sabbajgi (Dill - the thin needle-like leaves - very high in iron, and fragrant)
And/or Methi (Fenugreek leaves)
And/or Palak (Spinach)
And/or Drumstick leaves (highly nutritious) and any other leaf you get in the carts of the leaf-vendors.
Tomato
Garlic
Green Chilly
Onion (optional)
Jeera/Ajwain (Cummin seeds/Om seeds)
Hing (Asafoetida)
Turmeric
Salt

Procedure

You can do this 2 different ways - and the tastes are slightly different.

Method 1

Cook dal in cooker, with the chopped leaf of your choice. With Tuvar dal, sabbajgi, methi, and palak go very well, either all together or individually. Add a pinch of turmeric while cooking.

When dal is cooked, add some oil in a deep pan and add the seasoning.

You could try jeera, then a chopped green chilly, then the hing, then a chopped tomato and fry a bit. If you have the time, chop and onion and fry after the jeera.

Crushed garlic can be added before the chilly if you like the taste, or you can add it right at the end, after the dal is ready.

Now add the cooked dal+leaves to this, add salt and boil just a little. Leafy dal is ready!

Method 2

Cook dal alone in the cooker, with turmeric.
Add the chopped leaves in the seasoning, after the tomato, and stir-fry for a little bit until the raw look has gone.
Now add the cooked dal to this and boil a little.
Here the taste of the leaves will be stronger. I quite like it this way too. The green will remain dark green this way, so the curry looks nicer.

Pack a healthy lunch the Mix & Match Kichdi Way!

I take kichdi for lunch every day - and there's so many varieties of it, I haven't yet run out of combinations! If you can get your kids to eat this, you don't have to worry about them not getting enough nutrition anymore :)

Ingredients

The basic concept is this:

• Half glass rice
• Half glass broken wheat (you get this in packets in grocery shops). Or millets - you get millets so easily these days.
• One dal/Soya Chunks/Frozen peas/Frozen corn (Soya is very good if you are feeling tired - it gives instant energy)
• One Vegetable
• And/or one Green Leafy Vegetable

So it's as healthy as it can get, and it's all cooked in one go in a cooker! And you can mix and match with all the vegetables/dals you like - just see if you can sneak in some green leaves also, to complete the nutrition.

I usually have this with pickle or some chutney, so the kichdi by itself is bland - though you can always try out various kinds of seasoning to change that.

Procedure

The measurements in here should give you enough kichdi for 2 people, for a meal. So I just cook once in 2 days for my lunch box, I just vary the pickle/chutney to change the taste.

Heat a pressure cooker (the small one in which you cook directly) and add a little oil and add a seasoning of your choice. Jeera is a good option. Also Panch Phoren, described earlier in this blog.

Add a split green chilly and/or some crushed garlic, which is optional. Or add a chopped tomato and fry a bit. If you have the time, fry a chopped onion and then the green chilly and then the tomato. I normally do only the chilly and tomato.

Now add whatever chopped vegetables/green leafy vegetables you want. You can add sabbajgi (dill - those spiky needle-like leaves very high in iron), drumstick leaves/methi leaves/spinach. Just stir-fry for a few seconds.

Vegetables - carrot/potato/cauliflower are the most obvious, you could try others too.

Then add the washed rice - half a glass, or even a little less than that.
Dal - half glass. You can use Tuvar dal/Moong Dal/Soaked Green gram/any other soaked dal you like.
Or/and some frozen peas/corn, or soya chunks which you have already soaked in boiling water with salt, and drained and washed.
Half glass broken wheat

Add 3.5 glasses of water to this - this measurement leaves it just the correct consistency without making it dry or watery.

Add salt to the water and taste - add half a teaspoon and then adjust. It is very important to add the salt - this makes sure the kichdi does not get watery.

Put lid on cooker, and cook for 2 whistles.

Eat this with pickles/chutney/leftover sabji from previous night's dinner :)
Non-vegetarians can add some leftovers from their chicken/meat/prawn/fish dishes in the end, after the kichdi is cooked.

You can also crush some garlic and mix in the end - you get the full medicinal benefits of garlic if it is taken raw, so this will be almost raw, but slightly cooked because of the heat.

To make this more like a biriyani, you can use some ginger-garlic paste along with the seasoning, and add some cloves/cinnamon etc. Or of course, some ghee at the end.

Basically, the whole point is that you can mix and match, just make sure you have the basic concept in place :)

Green & Red coconut chutneys

I usually make a green chutney and/or a red chutney to go with the dosa.

Green Chutney

Half a coconut grated
Curry leaves
Green chillies
Some ginger
Soaked tamarind
Salt

Red Chutney

Half a coconut grated
Dry red chillies
1 onion (or preferably some sambar onions)
Some garlic cloves
Soaked tamarind
Salt

Grind well and add seasoning with jeera or mustard.

Fish Fry Masala

This masala paste is simple, and results in great fish fry! Tried and tested.

Garlic
Curry leaves
Red chilly powder
Coriander powder, a little
Turmeric
Salt
Lemon juice

Grind all these to make the paste. I used to use tamarind earlier, but lime gives a better taste. Proportions? Garlic and Curry leaves the max, and the others a lesser quantity.
Apply on fish and keep for a few hours for the best results.