Goan Fish Stew

In my quest to make more new to us recipes I’d been thinking about a fish curry but unsure of what to do with it for a while now, sort of thought Goan or Keralan would be a nice mix of flavours.

I did a bit of a search around the Internet and found a few recipes that sounded really nice and eventually settled for the Goan Curried-Fish Stew from Food & Wine as a base for our Saturday night treat.

Of course it wouldn’t be a recipe for us if we didn’t tweak it a bit 😉 so we cut a bit of the fish out so we could just have a big plate on the one night for a start, more coconut milk instead of water and a couple of garlic cloves more.

This was served in out nice big bowls over shredded bok choy leaves and fresh basmati.

Ingredients:

• 300g cod, cut into chunks
• 300g salmon, cut into chunks
• juice of 1 lemon
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 4 cloves garlic, smashed
• 4 teaspoons chopped fresh ginger
• 1 can unsweetened coconut milk, best you can afford
• 1 tablespoon ground coriander
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon brown sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1/8 teaspoon cayenne
• 3 tablespoons rapeseed oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 large tomato, chopped
• 4 red chilli peppers, seeds and ribs removed, minced

Putting it all together:

• In a steel bowl, combine the fish, lemon juice, and 1/2 teaspoon of the salt. Let marinate at least 10 minutes, we did it for 30 minutes

• In a blender, puree the garlic and ginger with the coconut milk, coriander, cumin, brown sugar, black pepper, turmeric, and cayenne make sure it is well blended, do this as long before as you want and let all the flavours mix.

• In a large saute pan, heat the oil over moderate heat. Add the onion; cook, stirring occasionally, until golden, about 10 minutes. Add the tomato and cook, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 5 minutes. Add the coconut mixture, the chillies, and the remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt and bring slowly to a simmer, stirring frequently and cook for about 5 minutes.

• Add the fish and lemon juice. Bring to a simmer and continue simmering until the fish is just done, 1 to 2 minutes.

I loved how this recipe just worked and it’s going to be another of our regulars.