Fish Molee or Molly (i still cant figure out the right spelling)

I have taken this liking towards dishes made in coconut milk. Its easy to cook and comes out brilliant. Its impossible to go wrong, or so i think. Have been wanting to try out a fish molee recipe for quite sometime, but never got down to it till yesterday. It came out really nice, except for the colour and consistency which was more like a mooru curry. Well, who the hell cares, it tasted so good, we finished up the entire thing at one go. Its perfect with bread or appams, but i don't know how to make the latter and bread, we were kinda sick of having em. So we decided to be a bit adventurous and tried it out with puttu. We were not big fans of puttu or uppuma till we got to UK. Suddenly Ro had these cravings for puttu and once when an aunt came to visit us she brought along home-made puttu podi (fried rice flour) and the utensils. Now, its part of our staple diet...or so it will be till we run out of the podi. As for uppuma, our very own MTR instant uppuma comes to the rescue. Its easy to make and tastes awesome. Do i have to keep reminding you, I'm lazy?

Fish Molee

Fish- 250gms of any fish i suppose. I used cod loins

To marinate

Pepper pwd- 1/2 tsp

Turmeric pwd- a little less than 1/4 tsp

Lime juice- 1/4 tsp

Salt- to taste

Onion- 1, thinly sliced

Green chillies- 2, thinly sliced

Tomato- 1, cut into bite size cubes

Ginger garlic paste- 1 tbs

Cardamom- 2 pods

Cloves- 2 pods

Cinnamon- 1/4inch stick

Thick coconut milk- 1/2 cup

Thin coconut milk- 1

Cornflour- 1 tbs

Curry leaves- 1 sprig

Oil- 3 tbs

Salt- to taste

To temper

Coconut oil- 1 tbs

Mustard seeds- 1 tsp

Dry red chilli- 2 (optional)

Marinate the fish pieces with all the ingredients in the 'to marinate' section and keep for half an hour.

Crush the ginger garlic paste with the chillis in a small bowl and keep ready.

In another bowl, mix half cup coconut milk with 1 tbs cornflour without any lumps to make thick coconut milk. Keep aside.

Heat about 2 tbs of oil in a wok and fry the fish for two to three minutes. This is just to keep the fish intact. Don't over do it. Remove and drain on paper towels.

In the same wok, add the remaining oil and once hot throw in the spices. When they start to splutter, add the onions and the ginger garlic chilli paste. Cook till the onions become translucent and oil starts separating. To this add the thin coconut milk and let it boil. Add the tomatoes and curry leaves and mix well and then the fish slices, making sure they don't flake. Add enough salt required and let this boil on medium fire. Once the tomatoes are cooked add the thick coconut milk and leave it on low fire till it starts to boil, stirring at intervals. This way the fish gets nicely coated with all the masalas and coconut milk. Take it off the heat and just before serving do a tadka with the oil, mustard seeds and dry chilli and pour over the curry. Ta daa....your fish molee is ready.

I am not elaborating on how puttu is made, since I'm sure every Tom, Dick and Harry would know except yours truly, who had to google it the first few times.

Notes: I used freshly ground pepper to marinate and it was nice and strong and spicy.

Since i used canned coconut milk, i had to use cornflour to make thick milk. This is however optional. If you don't want thick curry, you can omit this and just use the top creamy layer instead.

The tadka part is completely optional. Like i have mentioned before, i love what the tadka does to the flavour of the curry. Its just my addition.

If you use coconut oil for all of the above, it does make a difference i guess, health wise and taste wise :)