Fish mollee/Fish molly (A mild fish curry in thick coconut milk)

This is going be my last post before I go to Abu-Dhabi to pay a visit to my family and my friends. Iam planning to travel on november 2nd and should be there for a couple or months. I don't really know how much of blogging I will be able to do from there, but sure, I will come back with a bunch of my mother's delicious recipes.

I had fish mollee for the first time at my friend Z’s house when we went there for the Iftar party. There were around 15 people for the party and this curry was a super hit of that day. The curry was so delicious and everybody was drooling over. Its very easy to make. Here goes her recipe:

Fish mollee
Serves 4

Ingredients:
500 -600 gm Fish cut into 1 ½ inch pieces
½ cup chopped onion
1 medium size tomato
1 ½ tsp black pepper powder
¾ tsp turmeric powder
1 ½ cup thin coconut milk
½ cup thick coconut milk
2-4 Green chillies split lengthwise
4 cloves
2 small piece cinnamon sticks
3 sprigs Curry leaves
½ tsp plain flour
½ tsp Kashmiri chilli powder
Salt as required
Oil – As required

Preparation
1. Marinate fish in 1 tsp pepper powder,1/4 tsp turmeric powder and salt and keep aside for 20 minutes.
2. Heat a pan and add litttle oil. Shallow fry the fish slightly until partially cooked. Drain them on kitchen towel.
3. Heat another saucepan, add 2 tbs of oil and add cloves and cinnamom. When the aroma of the spices starts to come off, add onion and sauté until golden. Add tomato, pepper powder, turmeric powder, kashmiri chilli powder,green chillies, plain flour and curry leaves and sauté until the tomato goes soft.
4. Add thin coconut milk and boil for around 5 minutes. Add fish to this and boil for further 3 minutes. Add thick coconut milk and boil for another two minutes.

Serve hot with chappathi, puri and plain boiled rice.

Notes:
My friend Z had added capsicum and I really liked the taste of it. So I also added ½ of a medium size red capsicum diced at step 3 along with other ingredients. But that’s purely optional

Sraavu varuthathu (Crushed Shark in spicy coconut masala)

I feel somebody might feel bizarre when I post this recipe as I don’t really know many people eating shark. These are not the giant man eater shark that Im talking about. These are edible baby sharks. If you think this dish is bizarre, please feel free to comment. And let me know if you had any bizarre dishes before as well….like a hundred days old egg, a fertilized egg, (these are had in China), or even a stuffed camel?! I read from a food article that stuffed camels are found in the Middle Eastern countries, but I don’t really know how far this is true. May be it is a myth. And the way they described stuffing the camel was even strange. The camel is stuffed with a large sheep or goat and rice along with dried nuts and fruits. The sheep itself will be stuffed again with around 20 chicken and rice, nuts and spices. And not to finish there, the chicken itself is stuffed with a huge number of boiled eggs and rice!!!!And this serves a mob of 100 people it seems!!! I don’t how the camel is going to be cooked though, and they wont fit the oven or any vessel.:). So may be it is a fairy tale.
The only part that I hate in making this dish is the smell of the fish that comes out while boiling. Keep the kitchen well ventilated and open the windows. Else you will have a fish smeling house!

Sraavu varuthathu (Crushed Shark in spicy coconut masala)
serves 4

Ingredients :
300-400 gms Shark or 1 ½ cups of crumbles shark..
1 ½ cup onion
2 tbs kashmiri chilli powder
1 tbs Coriander powder
½ tsp turmeric powder
3 green chillies
½ cup freshly grated coconut
15 curry leaves
5 tbs coconut oil
salt as required.

Preparation:


1. Boil shark in plenty of water for about 15-20 minutes until it is cooked.
2. Drain off the water and wash the fish in cold water. Peel off the skin and crumble the fish using hand. (I had 1 ½ cup of shark crumble. Take equal amount of onion as shark crumbles.)
3. Heat a frying pan and add oil. To this, add chopped onion, green chillies, curry leaves and fish and cook it covered until onions go soft and transparent.

4. Add chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and salt and mix well and sauté for around 2 minutes until the raw smell of the spices goes off.
5. Add in the grated coconut and mix well and cook it covered for about 5 more minutes.

It goes very well with rice, rice pan cakes etc.