Grilled Cajun Fish

We have been walking and trying to eat healthy. The walking part is not a challenge, eating healthy is! I am not a diet food fan and I need my meals to be tasty. I am fond of spicy food so I thought a combination of spices and fish will be a tasty and healthy idea. I looked through my freezer and found a packet of Mahi Mahi fillets. Mahi Mahi is a white fish from the pampano dolphin fish family. It is not dolphin and not related to the dolphin family according to wikipedia. I guess it is a Hawaiian fish and it is pretty expensive.
So I defrosted the fish while I attended to other chores and decided to grill the fish and serve it with steamed veggies. I had a bunch of Chinese broccoli at hand which my hubby is in love with so I decided to steam it.

I had a big bottle of Tones Cajun Seasoning which interestingly my aunt back in India had introduced me to. She used it as a marination for frying pomfret (a sea fish found in India). My MIL, mom  and sister love it too so I end up taking bottles back to India when I visit. Cajun is the name for Louisiana style cooking which is spicy and has some French influences as well. Cajun seasoning is a blend of herbs, garlic, hot peppers (cayenne, paprika), black pepper and salt.

Ingredients:

4 Mahi-Mahi fillets or any firm white fish
1-2 tsbpn Cajun Seasoning or more if you want it spicier
PAM's olive oil spray or few drops of olive oil
1 lime (juice)

Defrost fish fillets and wash and dry them with a kitchen towel.
Now in a bowl put the fillets and coat them with the Cajun seasoning. Make sure all the fillets are coated well. Keep aside for 15 mins and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Now drizzle some olive oil or spray it on the fillets and on a baking pan lined with foil. Place the fish on the foil and place the pan in the oven for 20-22 mins or until the fish is cooked. Broil for a min or two for a crispy fillet.
Squeeze some lime juice and enjoy.

Note:
If you can't find the Cajun seasoning just marinate the fillets with garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cayenne pepper, thyme, oregano, black pepper, red pepper flakes and salt.
The seasoning already has salt so I didn't add an more but taste your seasoning before using it and add salt according to your taste.
You can use the Cajun seasoning with turmeric powder and some red chili powder and marinate any fish then coat it with semolina or rice flour and fry it. This is the Indian way of frying fish.

Fish Hariyali/Hirwa Masala

I 

I am trying to cook healthy dishes these days.. yeah I am undoing 31 years of eating! I wish there was a delete button for that. Ofcourse I have enjoyed every bite of food till date but I wish good food was not fattening or I was inclined to work out everyday!
So I decided to make chapati and fish hariyali masala or hirwa masala. I remember eating this at Chakra at Saki Naka (Bombay) they make the best fish green masala, I guess that's what they call it! Even Bharat Excellency at Fort (Bombay) makes it well.. they make it with crab meat I guess that is my favorite dish there. Slurp! I am salivating inspite of having a tummy full of this green goodness ;)

Ok so I made this without any coconut. Traditionally you add coconut milk or grind fresh grated coconut. I added spinach instead to give the gravy a good texture.

1 Pomfret cleaned and sliced (or any white fish)
1 bunch spinach
1 tomato roughly chopped
1 onion chopped
1 bunch cilantro/coriander leaves, cleaned and chopped
4-6 mint leaves (optional)
1 tbspn ginger-garlic paste
1green chilli broken into 2 pieces
1/2 tsp Jeera/cumin seeds
1 tsp coriander powder
1 tsp tandoori masala or malwani masala
1 tsp garam masala (use half in spinach mixture and half on top of the fish once done)
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
 oil
salt as per taste

Rub some turmeric and salt on the fish pieces and keep aside.

Heat oil in a pan add cumin seeds when it sizzles add onions fry for a bit. Then add ginger-garlic paste and fry till the onions are brown. Now add tomatoes fry and add all the dry spice powders and mix well. When the tomatoes are soft add spinach, green chili, cilantro leaves and mint and mix till it wilts.
Once this is cooked turn off the stove and let this cool down. Once the mixture is cool enough grind to a smooth paste. Add very little water only if needed.
Now heat the same pan add the spinach paste give a good stir add some hot water about 1/4 cup mix well. Now add the fish pieces cover and cook.
Adjust salt. Add some garam masala and mix gently.
Serve with roti or rice.

Note:
If you want to add coconut milk add around 1/2 cup once the spinach paste is heating before adding the fish pieces.
If using fresh coconut add it just before grinding the spinach paste.
I didn't have malwani masala so I added tandoori masala instead.
If you don't have tandoori or malwani masala you can just use red chilli powder and garam masala

Fish curry with raw mangoes - Kerala Ishtyle!

Oh! Fish is my first love among all the non-veg food. I love fish in all forms..I love the smell of raw fish! My best friend back in Bombay is half Mallu and when I visit India I go to her house for dinner. She makes the best kerala mutton sukkha and fish curry.
I love the Kerala style fish curry with raw mangoes, they make the same with prawn too. Yum! I am already drooling. I am typing this post while I wait for hubby to get home and have dinner. I made this fish curry this afternoon. By now all the flavors must have blended!

My friend G sent me the recipe last night so I made sure I had all the ingredients. I had bought raw mango and fresh pomfret (fish) from the farmer's market few days ago to make this curry.

1 pomfret (cleaned, washed and sliced into pieces - you can use any firm white fish)
1 raw mango/kairee cut into medium sizes pieces
1 chopped onion
1 cup coconut milk
2 green chillies
1 tsp ginger (chopped into pieces)
1/2 tsp methi/fenugreek seeds
5 tsps corriander seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1 tsp red chilly powder
1 shallot chopped into small pieces (optional)
10 curry leaves
4 cloves garlic
1/2 tsp tamarind paste (or tamarind soaked in hot water and pulp squeezed out)

 In a small pan heat oil. Add the methi and coriander seeds and fry. Make sure you don't burn them it's easy to burn them, trust me! Now grind this with a little coconut milk, turmeric and red chilly powder, garlic and the tamarind paste.

In another pan take some water and add the chopped raw mango pieces and chopped onion and boil it till the onion becomes translucent and the mango becomes soft. Now add the coconut paste to this. Mix well. Add the slit green chillies, ginger and salt. Add the remaining coconut milk. Once this comes to a boil add the fish pieces.
In the small pan that you used to fry methi add some coconut oil and fry shallots and curry leaves and pour on the fish curry.  
You can also just boil the curry leaves and add a dash of coconut oil directly to the curry instead of frying.
Keep for few hours before serving with steamed rice and tapioca/kappa (will post recipe soon).

Note:
You can use freshly grated coconut/frozen coconut instead of the coconut milk.

Oven Roasted Fish with veggies

 I am a big seafood fan and can eat fish almost everyday. Back home in Bombay my Amma makes the best fish curry, rice and fish fry.. ohh I am already drooling. She knows how much I love fish so when I land in Bombay dinner that night is always Halwa/Black pomfret ghassi, fry and rice Yum!!
Here we don't get fresh seafood and even if we do it's limited only to Catfish & Tilapia so I miss fresh seafood a lot. When I visited my cousin in California over the break she made sure I had good seafood meals during my stay there.
Edamame is soy bean and is very nutritious. It's very common in Japanese (Sushi) restaurants.

I had some frozen tilapia fillets in my freezer and I had some frozen edamame and fresh broccoli.
I was very bored to chop anything or fry the fish. So I decided on a one pot meal. So here goes the recipe:

1 lb fish fillets (you can use any firm fish)
Vegetables (wash and chop veggies -I used broccoli and beans but you can use any veggies)
1 tsp Italian herbs/oregano
1/2 tsp red chilli flakes
1-2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp Pepper powder
Olive oil
Salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Defrost fish if using frozen. Now mix the Italian herbs, red chilli flakes, pepper, salt and garlic powder with olive oil.
Rub some of this mixture on the fish and remaining on the veggies. Make sure all the veggies and fish are coated with it. Let it marinate for 15 mins.

Now grease an oven safe tray with very little olive oil and place the fish in the center and veggies all around and bake for 20-25 mins and broil for 2 mins.

Enjoy!

Note:
Once you finish baking for 20mins check with a fork if the fish is cooked if not bake for few more mins and then broil once the fish is cooked.
While using veggies ensure you use veggies which cook fast as root veggies like potato etc. may take longer and may need more time than the fish. So it's better they are in separate dishes while in the oven. So you don't overcook the fish.

Surmai Fry

We love fish at home and Surmai (King fish) is one of our favorites. Every time we get it we make a curry and we fry some. We got two big pieces of surmai and decided to just fry them and eat with plain dal and rice. So I decided to marinate the two pieces in different marinades/masalas.

The first picture is of surmai masala fry here I used a simple marinade and added some sambar powder for a different flavor:

mix 1 tsp kashmiri red chilli pwder, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1 pinch asafoetida/hing, 1 tsp sambar powder, 1-2 tsp ginger -garlic paste and salt mix with a little water to make a thick paste and apply on the fish and leave for atleast 30 mins to an hour or more.

Heat some oil in a pan and fry the fish 5-7 minutes on each side.

The second picture is of surmai rava fry. Here I used: 1 tsp red chilli powder, 1/2 tsp turmeric powder, 1 pinch hing, ginger-garlic paste & salt made a thick paste with some water and applied to the fish and kept it aside for an hour.

Now while frying I took some rava/semolina (2 tblspn) and rice flour (1 tblspn) in a plate and mixed it well. Heat a pan add oil add 1/s tsp ajwain/caraway/carrom seeds when they sizzle roll the fish in the rava mix, make sure its coated well on both sides and fry in the pan 5-7 minutes on each side.
Enjoy with dal & rice or just by itself with chilled beer.