kacki macher tak(fish with sour mango)

Delicious item for hot noon (lunch) with plain rice.Bengali's are very much fond of fish.But ,in the hotty noon ,sometimes fishes are not in the dish.At that time,little fish with sour is being perfect item.any kind of little fish can be used for curry.
Ingredients:Kacki mach(one kind of little fish)250gram
black jira(little bit),green chilli(as you like),green mango(6-7 pics.),turmeric powder(little bit),curry leaves(for different smell),salt(as per quantity),mustered oil(1 table spoon).

Method:Put musterd oil into karhai.After boiling it,put black jeera,green chilli and mango pieceses .When Mangoes become soft,then put fishes into the karhai,with turmeric powder and salt.Nurture it slowly(otherwise fishes would smashed).Mixed little bit of water(if required).Lastly,mixed curry leaves.Then ,item is ready to serve.

Karimeen polichattu

A new discovery from Kerala trip.

The recipe uses karimeen or pearl fish, but my hunch is it will be equally tasty with pomfret or even bhekti fillet.

Anyway, assuming you got hold of pearl fish, cut some slits across the fish.

Now grind some garlic, red chilli, ginger, black pepper, curry leaves, salt, turmeric together. Put in the masala as much as you can digest. Keralites like it hot, so the deadly combo of many red chilli and black pepper is used. We bengalis on the other hand probably should go easy on the chilli.

Now apply the paste all over the fish insert some inside the slits and fish.
Keep it for at least an hour.

Now wrap it up in a kalapata and fry it in oil in a pan .... if you dont have kalapata, just fry the fish in oil, not much oil is needed. Only some of the marination masala will be lost if directly fried in oil.

If you can get hold of coconut oil ... great, otherwise refined oil would do.

Now fry some onion, green chili, curry leaves in a teaspoon of oil.
When the onion becomes transparent put in the fish, fold in the spices.
Add 2 tbsp/fish coconut milk. Make sure whole fish gets to fold in the milk.
Now simmer for few minutes and wait till the water evaporates.
Now serve with some green salad or rice....

pomphret exotica

this is ofcourse an innovative recipe(aparent from the name, isn't it?). will work well with most sea fishes (a huge pomphret in this case) as long as you have this very pretty looking spice. it is called 'anaras-ke phul' in mysore. sure it has some other names, here's what it looks like in case you know it by some other name.

(the name is star anise of course, acknowledgement to my far more knowledgable friend)

the basic procedure is the same as most grilling/ baking recipes... slitting the fish... rubbing with salt and lime... and setting it aside for a while. then comes this magic ingredient. it is gounded and fried in about 1 teaspoon of butter. and now the fish is drenched in this exotic smelling butter..placed in a baking tray... covered with onions and tomatoes that are cut in to rings and put in a microwave in combo (grill+bake) mode for about 15 mins. (the fish needs to be tunrned over once in between).

juices from the tomatoes and onion tricles into the fish mixes with the spice and lime and the result is this really exotic smelling and tasting dish.

rui bake

marinate the rui fishes overnight in onion paste and garlic paste
add tomato sauce, cumin powder and coriander powder and mustard oil (about two teaspns for 500grms of fish), put two/three green chillies, salt
bake for 20/30 mins

doi mach

clean the rui fishes and rub turmeric and salt on them fry them lightly and set aside
add a little besan (gramflower) to about one cup of curd and beat it long enough to make it smooth
heat oil add tej pata (bay leaves) and sukna lanka (dry red chilli)
add onions (finely cut) in oil, add a little suger to see the brown colour come through
add the curd and fry in medium heat till oil separates
add the fishes and after mixing well in the gravy keep coverd in low heat till done