FISH CURRY

                                   

                                   FISH CURRY 

“Fish” is probably the most important source of proteins for humans throughout recorded history. You can easily find the lovers of fish curry in any part of India. Be it Kerala, Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Goa, the list goes on and on. I have been to these places and never missed any opportunity to grab the local fish curry. If you don’t have control over your diet while eating fish and somehow done the overeating then need not to worry, the beautiful thing about fish is that it digests very quickly. This is the uniqueness of fish over other non-veg dishes like meat, chicken etc.

As fish is quite popular across India, the difficult part is that each and every state has its own taste of fish curry. In Kerala you will find the gravy a bit thinner and less spicy whereas in Bengal the gravy you will find in general will be thick and a bit spicy. Same story for Bihar too. So, here I will try to keep it as simple as possible. The recipe down here is a mix of Bihari and Bengali kind.

A special credit goes to my dear friend “KUMAR UTKARSHA aka CHAK”. He is the main “cook” behind this dish. 

Ingredients (For 1 KG Fish):

• 1 KG fresh “ROHU” Fish. Check out with local vendors and ask them to provide good fresh fish if possible. The real trick is to buy a fresh piece. If you didn’t get this right then the whole of your dish is going to be ruined. Some peoples are an expert in buying fresh fish. Take advice from them or take them with you to buy. If you are from the coastal area or have any river by your city then you don’t need to worry, you will get the best fish there.

• 3-4 medium sized Tomatoes.

• 10-12 Garlic Cloves.

• Mustard oil for frying the Fish (Amount of oil has to be that much such that every fish piece should be fully dipped in it).

• 3-4 Teaspoon Ginger-Garlic paste (For Marination).

• 3-4 Teaspoon Turmeric powder.

• Spice mix for curry: -  
• 4-5 medium spoons of Mustard seed (sarso).
• 1-2 teaspoon Black Pepper powder.
• 1-2 teaspoon Cummins seed (Jeera) or Powder will also do.
• 2-3 teaspoon Coriander Powder. 
• 1 teaspoon Fenugreek seed.
• 1 teaspoon Ajowan (Ajwain).
• Red chili as per your taste.

The above spice mix must be grind properly to get a very well powdered mixture. If you don’t have a mixer grinder, then you are in a bit of trouble. Mustard seeds has to be grinded well otherwise the taste of curry will not taste that good. You can find some shops from where you can take this spice and ask them to grind them. It requires a bit of effort but trust me when you will taste that curry then you will realize that it was worth it.

Note: - Be very careful with Mustard seeds. If you add more than what is required then the gravy will taste “Bitter” and whole your gravy will be wasted. So watch out while adding mustard seed. 4-5 medium spoons are enough for 1 KG fish curry.

                             Enough with the precautions. Let’s cook now!!!!

• Wash the fish very well. If possible wash it with Besan (Gram Flour). It will remove that unpleasant smell of raw fish.

• After washing it well, add Turmeric powder, salt to taste, ginger-garlic paste, red chili powder and keep it aside for few minutes.

Add ginger-garlic paste. It will help in getting fish crispy.

Mix well with salt and Turmeric Powder.

Yeah. You are doing it right!!

• Heat a deep frying pan (Kadahi).

• Pour in mustard oil. The quantity of mustard oil must be same as explained above. Fish pieces should get properly dipped in it.

Thick iron kadahi is preferable.

This is exactly how you have to do the frying stuff.

• Add 2-3 piece at a time, lower down the flame and let it cook. Avoid continuous checking of it, otherwise pieces can break.  Please be safe and careful while putting the fish in heated oil. Burn scars don’t fade away easily. Just saying!!!

• When the pieces will turn to dark brown color from both sides then take it out.

I am no expert on color identification. But, i think this is shade is known as brown. Isn't it?

• Repeat the procedure for all the remaining pieces and you are ready with fried fish. This is also quite popular dish among people. As per my observation 50% of the fish is kept for curry and rest 50% is consumed as fried. Starter and main course both with a single source. Beat that!!

The toughest part is done. Now let us make curry for these.

Now for the gravy part:

• Chop the tomatoes and garlic in small pieces.

These are the main ingredients to make gravy. Onion is a big "NO" for Fish Curry.

• Take a pan and heat it.

• Pour in some mustard oil in it.

• After the oil heats up add chopped tomatoes and garlic into it. Lower down the flame and cover it. Cook for 5-10 minutes. Check after 2-3 minutes if the mixture is not sticking to the frying pan base.

Cover it and let it cook for 5 minutes. Mix it after 5 minutes. Repeat it 2-3 times.

• You will see that tomatoes are getting cooked and slowly removing water.

• Take spice mix curry and dilute it well in water. Make sure the mixture remains on the thicker side.

• Pour the mixture into the pan. Keeping the flame lower mix it with cooked tomatoes.

• Cover the pan and continue to cook on low flame for 10-15 minutes.

• Now you will be able to see that oil is getting separated.

Now is the time to add the remaining fish pieces (50%) into this gravy.

• Add water according to your requirement. But make sure that it must not get too dilute, otherwise it will not taste that good.

• Add the fried fish pieces into the curry. Cover it for 5 minutes.

• Server it with steamed rice.

Need i say more??

It tastes best with steamed rice and lemon slice. There is a famous saying in “Darbhanga (Bihar)” that: - “Jab nimbu ka ras machli ke jhor me mil jata hai to WO amrit ban jata hai”. I was curious to try it and one day I did. Believe me, people of Darbhanga is not wrong at all. It tastes amazing with lemon juice.

Credits:-

Pic Courtesy:- Sujit

Quote from Darbhanga:- Anup

Cooked by our swagger Utkarsh aka CHAK!!! :P

Dreamed, Planned, Traveled: “Princess of Hill stations”

            Dreamed, Planned, Traveled: “Princess of Hill stations”

September’10

“Chal yaar kahin ka trip banao”, these were the words from my mouth while munching kalmi kabab at our super favorite Vaishali Restaurant @Tumkur.  “Kodai chal lo”, Kanhaiya replied. That was the moment we started planning our most memorable tour of college life (perhaps the best to date).

The biggest deal while you are a student is always to check the budget of anything that is planned. We have to explain it to our parents to get those extra bucks. We got a rough estimate from the travel agent.

Now, the question was who all are in. As, there was some local festival of Karnataka, we were having few days off including Sunday. I was the initiator so have to count myself in. Anup (forever ready), Kaushal aka Obama (hum bhi chalenge bhai were his words), Ashutosh Ji (Always ready for tours and hanging out), Priyanshu (You just have to say word tour to him, that will be it), Alok (needed some convincing), Rakesh (ready due to economical budget :P), Kanhaiya (Due to his alma  mater). Rohit was the last time addition, he was literally dragged by us from his room to Tavera.

Tavera was booked by Rohit’s Landlord. Pricing was around Rs8/KM (remember, it was way back in 2010). Being the most matured and sensible person of the lot, Ashutosh Ji was given the responsibility of the accounts. I was made the cashier. All set, we were ready to roll.

Route taken was:

Tumkurà Bangaloreà Salemà Maduraià Kodaikanal

Ashutosh Ji and I occupied the front seats alongside with the Driver. One of us has to stay awake the whole night to keep an eye on the driver (You all must know why!!). We all were pulling legs of each other as we normally do. After battling with traffic jams, we were out of the hustle and bustle of Bangalore and were on the National Highway No. 7. A small stop over at toll booth on the border of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Few hours later, everyone lost their battle with sleep. Ashutosh Ji and I were the lone rangers. Discussion on various topics of cricket, politics etc. etc. was going on between us. And finally I was down too. Suddenly I woke up and saw the beautiful Sun rising in front of me. And one of the milestones read “Kodaikanal 90 KMs”. We just crossed Dindigul and the beauty of hills could be easily seen from there on.

90 KMs is not that much distance if you are travelling on a plain terrain. But when you have to travel through the sharp turns and inclined roads to reach the top of the hill, it has to take a bit long.

I have to admit, the best part while travelling to any hill station is the view you get when you are driving through the hills. Pure and Serene. It was about 7 o clock in the morning when everyone woke up one by one. A couple of Loo breaks later we saw a board announcing “Welcome to Kodaikanal: Princess of Hill Stations”. Spot on, I must say. Truly a Princess.

I have been to various hill stations before, but there is something special about Kodaikanal.

After few minutes, we saw one water fall on the right hand side of the road. We all shouted to stop the car. That was our first tourist spot of Kodaikanal. Few clicks and not to forget “Mera single photu lo bhai”, by Obama.

First Click of Kodaikanal. PK clicked it. I can't recall the name of this fall (It's been 5 years so please bear with me!!)

Group Pic. Pk was our camera man through out the tour, so he will be missing out in most of the pics. "Selfie" was an unknown entity back then.

We then headed towards the main city where we had to book a hotel. Since, the stay was of 2 days and 2 nights, we wanted to book an economical hotel (We were students, rememberJ). Kanhaiya’s local knowledge of Kodaikanal came to our rescue and we booked a room at the hotel. The room was quite big, even for 8 people. We were tired as hell, thanks to 9 hours of road journey. Few of us went to freshen up and few stretched their legs. About an hour or so we were up and ready to explore what Kodaikanal has got.

Our Hotel. No names again for the same reason. That's our white Tavera (almost forgot to mention that)!!!

Suddenly, our whole enthusiasm was turned down by the Rain. We somehow managed to get back to the hotel and waited rain to stop. We were lucky that it stopped quite early otherwise our whole day would have been wasted in the hotel room.

Nevertheless, we started again and went to the market down there and had our lunch. We kept roaming here and there that day. We went to “Coakers Walk” that evening and had a good time there. The view was impeccable. We walked through for some time and due to some “UNAVOIDABLE CIRCUMSTANCES” Anup and Alok had to rush back to the hotel (I am not going to explain whyJ). They joined us after sometime and we kept roaming around the main market.

We came across one Chinese food joint opposite to the petrol pump, it was the savior for us because the price of food is on a higher side on other joints. As higher as RS 200 per plate of plain rice (trust me, I am not making this up). There is one bakery too which is run by a very polite lady. We bought some cookies from there. The bakery and the Chinese food joint is a must visit.

It was way past 8 PM and we decided to head back towards our hotel. That night was one of the memorable night in my life. There are some moments of that night which made me smile even today. Lines like “Hats off to you Sir!!!” and the “Kaand” by Rohit and Alok will remain imprinted in my mind for a lifetime.

Day-2 began with a high, everyone were at their best. Jokes about last night kept going on and on. We ordered coffee and masala dosa for breakfast. Now, it was up to our local guide Kanhaiya to lead us towards tourist spots.

We headed towards Pillar Rock and Pine Forest. Pillar rock provides a great view of Kodaikanal. Pine forest will surely make your day. It will look quite familiar to you if you are X-Men movie fan. We had a whole lot of photo session there. We kept going deep into the forest and reached at the end of the valley. As expected the area was not explored by most of the people. It was an awesome experience feeling the clouds passing by. “Nature at its best”.

That's  Pillar Rock for you!!

Almost  everyone had guava (amrud) there. The timing of this click was awesome. Kudos 'PK'.

At Pine forest. Giving  X-Men, who? Finally Pk comes in a pic :).

Yeah, you guessed it right. There is no more land left. One slip and you will experience a ride of 2200 meters that too downwards. Any one up for it??

At camp rock we came to know about a place called “Devil’s Kitchen”. Locals around there told us that some famous movie was shot at this point. Interesting place I must say. Smoke was coming out from deep and dark caves. That explains the reason for naming it “Devil’s Kitchen”. Then we headed towards “Liril Fall” (I was wondering what was with this place and whacky names). The fall was named “Liril Fall” because famous Liril soap advertisement was shot there. People of all ages were enjoying the shower. We didn’t take even a minute to jump into the water. Water was dead cold but who the hell cares. We were enjoying a lot but sudden a call from our empty stomachs pulled us out of fall and then we went searching something to eat. We had few bondas (local snacks made of smashed potatoes).

Liril Fall

Sorry to disappoint you all. No Priety Zinta here in Liril Fall.

What is the fun of a group trip if we didn’t have any twist in the tale? So, suddenly our group of four people got split into 2 groups of 4 people each. Anup, Ashustosh Ji, Alok, Obama & I were at the parking and PK (Priyanshu), Kanhaiya, Rakesh & Rohit went roaming around and searching a spot called “Dolphin’s nose” (told you!! Whacky names and here goes another). Eventually they did found that and looked like a great place. We four guys missed that out. But, we had to make it evenJ. So, we went for a small fall behind our hotel. “Bear Shola” fall (we neither had any damn idea about the significance of naming it nor we tried to get anyJ). It was a small fall but worth visiting.

That's PK for you!! Dolphin's nose.

Now we were left with few hours in Kodaikanal. We decided to go to the Kodai Lake that evening. Not much of gas were left in us but we tried and at least covered one small woolen market there. That eventually was the last tourist spot we visited there.

Back in the hotell room, everyone was looking tired and we had all reasons for it. Then Anup & Ashutosh Ji asked us that if we were interested in going to Madurai and visit the famous Meenakshi Temple. The detour was costing us around 140KMs extra. After some heated discussion, we all agreed.

We left Kodaikanal early in the morning. Again those mesmerizing views took our breath away. We headed towards Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. A lot of hustle and bustle was there. We didn’t have any such good memories to cherish from Madurai. The temperature was on the higher side, too much crowd, above all the question that was going in our mind was that we have to travel 400+KMs from there.

We bought some DVDs from the local shop to entertain ourselves. But we were a bit tired, and as a result one by one we all fell to sleep. We had few halts in between for lunch and snacks. Not to forget that crazy biker “Prem Bhaii”. That dude overtook our Tavera at a speed of more than 100KMph. That was some crazy stuff. Our driver got excited too and then the shit went real. Then we calmed our driver down by telling him “jaane do anna!!!” 

Our last stop was at our beloved pyaari dhaba. Seeing North-Indian food after such a long time, everyone went berserk. Paranthas, Lassi, Kheer you name it. We were all over the place. After loading ourselves with tasty stuff, it was time to go back to our college. The cab driver dropped us at our college gate and we went to our hostel rooms with lots of memories, cookies and chocolatesJ.

We missed Paresh, Kaushal (Sherni), Kunal and Abhishek (Raju Anna) a lot. They missed out due to some unforeseen circumstances.

To be very frank, I was lucky to live these moments with you all. Hoping for an awesome get together somewhere down the line.

CHEERS!!!!

Kaushal aka Obama

Anup

Pryianshu aka PK

Rohit

Kanhaiya

Rakesh

Ashutosh ji

Alok

Me (Mukund)

Dahi Chicken

                                      Dahi Chicken

Yogurt or Dahi is often considered as a digestive aid. It is easily available in any grocery stores or can be made at the home too. Food expert says that yogurt contains proteins, vitamins, calcium blah blah blah and what not .So, what if we can use this “Healthy” stuff to make our chicken curry more delicious and its gravy much thicker. Enough said, now we are going to make “Dahi Chicken” , before that I must tell you that I don’t take any guarantee about the healthiness of this recipe but I am pretty much sure that it will be quite tastyJ. 

Ingredients (For 500 grams Chicken):

• 500 grams of Chicken. You know what to do next, washing and all thing. If you have tried what I did in the the previous recipe, then you will agree the point of washing chicken with turmeric powder.

Washing is important though (It doesn't matter you like it or not)!!

• Take 250-300 grams of onion and chop them finely. Please make sure you don’t use too much of onions otherwise the gravy will taste a bit on the sweeter side.

• A half cup of yogurt (no matter low fat or high fat, to be very honest I still find it impossible to differentiate between types of yogurt. For me it is either sweet or normal :P).

• Ginger and Garlic paste (This time please put in some extra effort. Peel off garlic and ginger and crush them if you don’t have a mixer grinder. If you have one then just peel off the outer skin of ginger). Believe me, this will taste much better than packed ones.

• Mustard oil (Nothing taste better than our very own ‘sarso ka tel’.

• 2 teaspoon Turmeric powder.

• Half teaspoon Cumin (Jeera) seeds.

• 2 teaspoon Coriander (Dhania) powder.

• 2 teaspoon black pepper (Golki) powder.

• 2 teaspoon cumin (Jeera) powder.

• 2 teaspoon Kashmiri mirch powder (for color).

• Point to note that if you don’t have the above arsenal then 4-5 teaspoon of ‘chicken or meat masala’ of any brand will do.

                                                                   Now, Let’s Cook it up!!!!

• Heat a frying pan properly. The theory behind this is the same as described in the previous recipe.

• Pour mustard oil in it. Don’t add too much oil, 4-5 big spoons will do.

Mustard oil has it own flavor and richness that makes non-veg dishes more tasty.

• Add cumin seeds when oil gets heated properly. When cumin seeds start to pop up, add the chopped onions into it.

Salt and onion together and you know why!!!

• Add salt to taste. Here we go again. Same drill: - Add as much salt as you need for the whole dish. As explained before.

• Sauté the onions for some time. You will see that the onions will start changing its color.

• When the onions will turn into light brown color, add the ginger garlic paste.

As i suggested you guys to try making the ginger-garlic paste on your own. But, if you decided to make the dish at 10:00 PM like me then packed paste is the only option you can have :P.

• Mix it well with onions and sauté for 5-10 minutes. If you are using the home made paste then you will find the raw smell of the paste disappearing way more quickly than the packed one (As I always say, home-made things rock).

• Now is the time to add chicken and mix it well with the mixture of onion and ginger garlic paste.

Mix them well.

• Cover the pan with a lid and let the chicken cook for some time.

Let chicken cook slowly on low flame.

• Meanwhile, take all the spices mentioned in a bowl or glass and pour yogurt into it. Add a little bit of water and mix it well. Spices should get properly diluted with yogurt and water.

Mix yogurt and the spices together thoroughly. You will need some water too. Make sure that the mixture is not that concentrated.

• Check the chicken now, water must have started to separate from it. Now is the time to add the spices into it.

Your chicken is almost 50 percent cooked now. Just have to add spices and let them cook for a bit more.

• Mix chicken and spices properly and cover the pan with Lid. Let it cook on low flame for a while. After some time just check to make sure that spices are not sticking to the base of the pan.

Don't worry about the color. It will come nice after some time.

Add some turmeric to get nice texture.

• Slowly you will find that oil are getting separated from the gravy. Check the chicken, it should be well cooked by now.

Told ya!!!!

• You are done now. Turn the flame off. Take 2-3 teaspoon of yogurt and put it on the dish. It will give the nice flavor.

Free your taste buds and enjoy!!!

                Enjoy this with plain parathas. It tastes best with parathas!!!