Indonesian Fish Curry

Method

Cut up the fish (cod, haddock, pollock, coley – whatever is least expensive!) into good size chunks and put into a bowl with the garlic, ginger (I always use lots), coriander and lime-juice (lemon juice is fine, but not quite so good for this). Stir the fish around, so that it’s well coated with the other ingredients, cover and leave in the fridge to marinade, for a few hours if possible. I usually give it all an extra stir from time to time.

About half an hour before you want to eat, heat a little oil in a large pan and fry the onion gently until soft, but not browned.  Still on a low heat, add the cumin, turmeric, chilli and/or ½ tsp cayenne pepper (depending on how much bite you prefer) and wine vinegar (sometimes I use sherry vinegar), stirring constantly so that the spices don’t burn.  It will be smelling wonderful by now! After about half a minute, stir in the tin of chopped tomatoes.  Let the mixture simmer very gently for about 15 minutes, then add the pieces of fish together with its marinade.  Watch the fish carefully now; it doesn’t take long to be just cooked, but not breaking up. Swirl in the yoghurt and some seasoning and serve with basmati rice and some mango chutney.

Recently, Lisa in the shop was telling me how she had added a spoonful of curry powder to her butternut squash soup and not only made the soup rather more exciting, but persuaded her husband that he might quite like eating butternut squash after all.  Anything curried goes down well in the Whitsend kitchen and what I so like about using Indian spices is that the results are a little different every time.  That’s probably because I never measure anything very precisely, but in the case of curries, such sloppiness can lead to pleasant surprises.

Mrs Trewhitless