Coconut Fish Curry with Tomato by Sarah Naveen

Kerala, a state in Southern India is known as a tropical paradise of waving palms and wide sandy beaches. A strip of land between the Arabian Sea and the Western Ghats, Kerala’s perfect climate flirts unabashedly with the fertile soil, and everything glows.

It was named as one of the “ten paradises of the world” and “50 places of a lifetime” by the National Geographic Traveler magazine. This is the place, where India slips down into second gear, stops to smell the roses and talks to strangers. I have never been to Kerala, but I have heard so much about it that I tell myself, I must visit the beautiful place at least once this lifetime.

Today, I am happy to share Sarah Naveen’s guest post on a traditional Kerala dish. I actually found Sarah’s blog while googling for “Kerala and spices and food blog”. I was blown away by her lovely photos and the rest was history.

Do give this recipe a try when you are free. I am sure you will fall in love with Kerala…

Preamble: I recently bumped into Maureen’s space, while blog hopping and it was love at first sight. She is such a versatile blogger and I adore her photography. When she asked me to do a guest post with a Kerala dish, I was excited and jumped at the opportunity. Thanks a lot Maureen for inviting me to your beautiful blog. 🙂

Kerala, known as the Hawaii of Asia, is a beautiful state in the southern most tip of India. Known for its lush green paddy fields, backwaters and Ayurvedic resorts, it attracted the world explorers even centuries ago with its finest quality of the King of Spices – Black pepper. Unlike many other Indian states, Kerala cuisine boasts a wide variety of non-vegetarian dishes, due to the significant population of Christian and Muslim community.

I am bringing for you today, a lunch and dinner favorite of people from Kerala – Coconut Fish Curry with Tomato. Hope you enjoy it!

Fish – 2 fillets of 4 oz each

Tomato quartered – 1

Coconut milk – 3/4 cup

Water – 3/4 to 1 cup

(Coconut ) Oil – 2-3 table spoons

Mustard seeds – 1/2 tea spoon

Cumin seeds – 1/4 tea spoon

Shallots 3 or 1 small onion chopped

Garlic chopped – 3-4 cloves

Ginger chopped – 1.5 inch piece

Green chilli chopped – 1

Curry leaves – 5-6 leaves

Kashmiri Red chilli powder – 1.5 tea spoon

Coriander powder – 1.5 tea spoon

Turmeric powder – 1/4 tea spoon

Salt to taste

Water – 2-3 tablespoons

1. Clean and cut each fish fillet into 3 or 4 pieces. Set aside.

2. Heat 2-3 tablespoons of oil in a pan, and add mustard seeds. When it splutter, add cumin seeds and fry for 20 seconds.

3. Add all the ingredients in Bowl 1 and saute till the raw smell disappears, for like 3-4 minutes.

4. Meanwhile make a paste with all the ingredients in Bowl 2, and add it to the pan, and fry for a minute.

5. Mix 3/4 cup of coconut milk with 3/4 to 1 cup of water and add it the pan and bring to boil.

6. Arrange tomato and fish pieces in a single layer, without touching each other.(The liquid level should be just above the fish when it is arranged, so if your pan is very wide, add more water and coconut milk mix to cover the fish.)

7. Simmer covered for 15 minutes, or until the fish is cooked. Switch off the flame and let it rest for 30 minutes. Serve warm with white rice and pickles.

Vazhayila – the plantain leaf, a kerala food blog started in 2009 is Sarah’s initiative that was born out of a desire for real and satisfying food. She tries to make intensely good meals that are ridiculously easy, and share it in this online recipe journal. Its been 2.5years with 200 plus recipes and more than 200,000 hits per month.

In her blog, Sarah presents mainly Kerala dishes, which got their taste and flavor from Kottayam -Changanacherry to be precise (where she grew up) and Kuttanad- the rice bowl (her mom’s place and where she spent her vacations on splendid treats). She is also trying to recreate the tastes from her mom’s and grandma’s kitchen, rolled up in some dusty dark corner of her mind simple, no-nonsense, fuss free cooking.

Visit her blog www.vazhayila.com for more recipes!