Aromatic Coconut Fish Curry

Curry resides in my soul. I am fascinated by the inter play of flavours that happen to bring about one bowl of delicious ness. Once you understand the basics of a curry then it becomes a mix and match.  It gets real fun then. I know curry has a bad rep for being thick and heavy and not too friendly with the waistline. I have had those curries and I m not a big fan of them. They almost always make me sick after. Home made curries are always different. They are if can say so more to the point.

So this one today started out as a Kerala Fish Curry and then navigated into the world of Thai Curries and I finally settled on an inspiration from both. I wanted a light fragrant and flavourful curry. To get started you need the Aromatic Curry paste:
For that you need:

7 small shallots or 1 small to medium onion
5 cloves of garlic
1/2 inch of ginger
4 green chillies
1 tbsp chopped coriander
1/2 tsp salt

 This is the time to bring out your pestle and mortar. Oh how I love bashing about things in them. Its the best way to squeeze out the juicy juicy flavours. In case you don't have one use  food processor. No, you don't need a smooth paste but you a need a grubby one.





 This is how you want it to be.
 Add the salt at the very last.





You will also need:
1/2 kg of any white fish. We use fish with the bones in curries as they ooze a lot of flavour into them. Eastern cultures hardly ever use stocks in their cooking because of this. We don't discard the bones.
1 cup of coconut milk.
1/2 cup of chopped tomato
1/4 tsp turmeric powder.
1/2 tsp salt.
1 tbsp vegetable oil 


Method:


1. Heat the oil and add the curry paste to it. And Breathe just stand still and in hale all the wonderful aroma's that engulf your kitchen:) Then you need to fry the paste for about 7 minutes. Keep the paste moist but not watery so keep adding some water whenever you need to.

2. Add the tomatoes and the turmeric at this point.
Let this cook for another 5 minutes. Don't add any water the moisture of the tomatoes are enough. Give time for the flavours to integrate.




3.Add the coconut milk and 1/2 cup of water to it an bring it up to boil.
Add the fish and cook for 15-20 minutes. Stir in the 1/2 tsp of salt.





Serve with rice and  a few wedges of lemon. That's your Curry.