Cod Curry
A South Indian-style fish curry from Rick Stein. This mouthwatering cod curry incorporates fragrant spices cooked with creamy coconut milk and fresh coriander.
From the book
Rick Stein’s India
All the recipes from Rick's TV series
Over 100 meat and vegetarian recipes
Take a journey through India's flavours
Introduction
As I watched this dish being cooked in Pondicherry, I thought it was the perfect recipe for our own cod; you could also try it with pollock, haddock or hake. Another simple, fresh and fragrant curry from southern India, and, as I’m rather too fond of saying, if we could get fish dishes like this anywhere, everyone would love fish.
Ingredients
| For the paste: | |
| 1 | small onion, chopped |
| 1 | small tomato, chopped |
| 80g | fresh or frozen coconut, grated or chopped |
| 30g/6 | cloves of garlic, peeled |
| 9 | dried Kashmiri chillies, stalks snipped off |
| 1tbsp | black peppercorns |
| 1½ tsp | salt |
| For the fish: | |
| 50 ml | vegetable oil |
| 1 tsp | black mustard seeds |
| 1 tsp | urid dal (husked) |
| 2 tsp | tumeric |
| 150 ml | water |
| 600 g | cod fillet (or pollock, haddock or hake), cut into 4cm slices |
| Handful of fresh curry leaves | |
| Handful of fresh coriander leaves | |
| To serve: | |
| Boiled basmati rice and Chapatis |
Essential kit
You will need a mini food processor.
Method
Put all the paste ingredients in a mini food processor and blend to a thick paste, adding a splash of water if needed.
Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan or karahi over a medium heat. Add the mustard seeds and urid dal and fry for 30 seconds, then add the paste and the turmeric, and fry for 2–3 minutes until fragrant. Add the water, bring to the boil then add the cod. Cook for 5 minutes, or until cooked through, occasionally shaking the pan gently to distribute the heat (avoid using a utensil to stir as the fish is delicate and will break up).
Finally add the curry leaves and coriander to the pan and serve with rice and Indian bread.
