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Saturday night's alright for a fish curry

Joe had been playing football for the school (a creditable 1-0 victory over Ardingly) and we thought that a curry might be nice, but not a take-away.
So we put together this slight spin on Jamie Oliver’s favourite curry sauce from his second book.
The changes are very slight but I think it just adds a little to the finished dish.
Firstly I add garlic cloves to the onions, Jamie’s recipe, rather unusually for a curry, doesn’t seem to have any.
Secondly I like to whizz the sauce with a stick blender (easier than pouring it into a machine although you could do that) to make the sauce much thicker and smoother.
Thirdly we use a mixture of fish including prawns.

We serve it with plain boiled basmati rice, shop bought Nan and popadoms, and coriander chutney
The chutney, also by Jamie is made by blending a handful of coriander, two garlic cloves, a seeded green chilli, a knob of peeled ginger, half the juice of a lime and some salt with a 400ml pot of plain yoghurt. It’s delicious, you can make it ahead of time and it adds a creamy element to the curry.

Ingredients

5 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tsp mustard seeds
1 tsp fenugreek seeds
3 fresh green chillies, deseeded and thinly sliced
1 handful curry leaves (Bart spices at Waitrose)
2 thumb-sized pieces of fresh ginger, peeled and coarsely grated
3 cloves garlic
3 onions, peeled and chopped
1 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp turmeric
12 – 15 small tomatoes, chopped
1x400ml/14fl oz tin coconut milk
Salt
16 uncooked peeled prawns
1 1/2 lbs white fish fillet, we had cod and bream but haddock or monkfish would be good maybe even better.
1 tsp tamarind paste (Bart spices oriental section at Waitrose again)
1 large handful baby spinach
1 good handful fresh coriander, chopped

Method

1. Heat the oil in a pan, and when hot add the mustard seeds. Wait for them to pop, then add the fenugreek seeds, fresh green chillies, curry leaves and ginger, Stir and fry for a few minutes.
2. Using a food processor, chop the onions and the garlic and add to the same pan. Continue to cook for five minutes until the onion is light brown and soft, then add the chilli powder and turmeric.
3. Using the same food processor, pulse the tomatoes and add these to the pan. Cook for a couple of minutes then add one or two wine glasses of water and the coconut milk. Simmer for about five minutes until it has the consistency of double cream, then season carefully with salt. Now get your stick blender if you have one and whiz the sauce around on the highest setting for a minute or so. You will get a much smoother and more satisfying sauce this way.
4. Take this sauce as a base. You can cook it an hour or so in advance if you like
5. Add the fish and tamarind to the warm sauce and simmer for six minutes. Add some baby spinach and chopped coriander right at the end of the cooking time.


The Rice

Read the instructions on the pack to get the right amount per person.
Get a large saucepan of water.
Add a generous amount of salt (half a tsp)
Add the rice
Bring to the boil.
Turn down to simmer
Simmer for ten minutes
Drain thoroughly in a sieve
Bob’s your Basmati

Comments

john said…
you fab fish curry is making another appearance at the quarreys tonight.

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