Something's Fishy In Kerala!

Why I Love This Recipe

My two Italian grandmothers were amazing cooks, but after them the foodie gene in my family seemed to have skipped a generation. The homemade pasta, gnocchi, gravy and cookies of my childhood gave way to my moms' "personal Chef", some guy named Boy R Dee. Maybe you've heard of him.

Beside all the usual Italian favorites, I also grew up eating fish dinners on Fridays. I use the term fish loosely because the "fish dinners" usually served at our house came frozen solid with a picture of a smiling fisherman on the box. I think it was the guy in the slickers' American cousin. Living in San Francisco there wasn't much excuse for this sort of fish behavior. One of the largest Fisherman's wharves on the west coast with a huge variety of seafood was just blocks away. So, how the heck did that guy in the slicker seem to get in our fridge so often? To be truthful, we also had fresh fish on occasion, but by the time it got to the plate, it looked more like something that would be flung into the air after someone called "pull!." No one ever asked what kind of fish it was.

With that kind of early experience, it took me years to get into cooking fish. I'd had too much finny trauma. Then I started cooking Indian food and began exploring the wonderful fish dishes that the cuisine offered. It was a whole new and delicious world. I was finding my inner Nemo.

The book Prashad has a lot of fish dishes in it, and since I've been reading it lately I decided to harpoon myself some fish.

This recipe is done with pomfret but since we don't have any of that up here in Sonoma, I used basa instead which is a nice mild firm fleshed fish. Since the origins of Basa are in Southeast Asia, I figured it would be a good match for what I was doing which was Fish with Tamarind Curry.

I was able to whip this up pretty quickly for lunch for the two of us using about 3/4 of a pound of fish. To make it for 6 people as the main dish for a meal, you'll need a little more. Start with

Ingredients You'll Need

1 and 1/2 lbs of fish chunked into pieces and set aside
2 Tbs of vegetable oil
1 tsp black mustard seed
1/2 tsp fenugreek seed
A 1 inch piece of finely chopped ginger
4 green chilies splint longways down the middle
1 crushed clove of garlic
2 onions thinly sliced
1 tsp of turmeric
1 Tbs of coriander
1 cup of coconut milk
4 peeled, chopped tomatoes
2 Tbs of tamarind puree
salt to taste
a few curry leaves

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