Chettinad Spicy Dry Fish Curry – A spicy tamarind based gravy prepared with dry fish pieces, drumsticks, brinjals and field beans, tastes delicious with plain rice!
It’s been a long time since I cooked Chettinad delicacies in my kitchen. Recently I have been to India for my brother’s wedding and my MIL packed me dry fish pieces, after a long cleaning process, with so much of love. My husband could survive with non-veg dishes throughout a week without any veggies. I can’t even imagine myself in his position. Though I would love to eat non-veg, I can’t have them on all seven days of a week. My MIL will pick fishes after examination, clean them, marinate them with homemade turmeric and then dries them on the terrace. She never used to buy dry fish from stores and this is how she prepares on her own. I bet you, they taste awesome than store-bought. This time, she packed a bag for me too. I can’t wait for myself to try them in my kitchen and her authentic Chettinad recipe came in handy for me.
Dry fish has a lot of childhood memories associated with it. I am very fond of dry fish, especially nethili fish curry and fry. We used to visit my mom’s village – Kumarapuram during our school holidays. That’s our go-to place for every summer. I have spent my childhood summers at my grandma’s place enjoying nativity, evening games with my friends and running along the streets of the village. We had a neighbor aunty who goes by the name – Vijaya, a master cook especially dry fish curry. She never failed to prepare spicy dry fish curry at her house for us. And that’s was our affectionate demand to her. My grandma says Big-NO for non-veg dishes, hence aunty always prepared at her home and invited us for lunch. We ate happily with tears in eyes due to spiciness to out heart’s content. And even now, when I visited her, all I could do is to thank her for feeding me such delicious curry every summer. I had dry fish curry at different places prepared variedly, but none could satisfy my taste buds like hers. Hers was the best and will be the best, ALWAYS. After a scrumptious lunch, we used to play games with the uncle (who cracked jokes and made us laugh to our ears) and spent the evening at her home. At times, I do miss such happy evenings where the only stuff which was disturbing is to win the game against him, unlike now where the mind is loaded with thousands and thousands of worries. Some memories and some people will never be replaced. And some curries too! I wish to meet aunty next time and get her trademark dry fish recipe. But as of now, I could cook authentic Chettinad curry and relish it. Presenting you here is the dry fish curry recipe from my MIL.
Ingredients:
- 1 Cup Dry Fish/Karuvadu – I used nei meen
- ½ Cup Field Beans (Mochai)
- 1 Cup Drumstick, chopped into small pieces
- 1 Cup Brinjals, cubed
- 1 Cup Shallots
- 1 medium sized Tomato, cubed
- 3 tablespoon Gingelly Oil
- ¼ teaspoon Cumin
- ½ teaspoon Fenugreek seeds
- Handful Curry Leaves
- ¼ teaspoon Mustard seeds
- 5 – 6 cloves Garlic
- 1 Lemon-sized Tamarind
- ¼ teaspoon Turmeric powder
- 2 teaspoon Red Chili Powder
- 2 teaspoon Coriander Powder
- Salt to taste
- Water, required amount
Method:
- Clean the dry fish. Wash it thoroughly with water twice or thrice. In a bowl, add a pinch of turmeric powder and soak the cleaned dry fish pieces for about 10 minutes. Wash it again with water. Drain the excess water and spread them on a clean plate allowing it to dry.
- Once it is dried, in a small wok, add a tablespoon of oil and saute dry fish pieces for about 2 minutes. Do not overcook them. Ensure that it is lightly fried. These pieces will be again cooked with gravy. Frying them will hold them intact. If not, they might dissolve with the gravy.
- Wash field beans and pressure cook them with a pinch of turmeric for about 3 whistles. Soaking the beans in water for about 2 hours will help in faster cooking of the beans.
- Wash drumstick and brinjals with water. Chop them into small pieces and soak them in water.
- In a non-stick pan/kadai, add gingelly oil. Once the oil is hot, add mustard seeds. Let it splutter. Add garlic and fry until they turn brown.
- Add curry leaves, cumin seeds, and fenugreek seeds. Cook until they become slightly brown.
- Now, add shallots and cook until they become translucent.
- With the onion, add chopped tomatoes and cook until they become mushy.
- Add field beans, drumstick and brinjal pieces to the pan and fry them for about 5 minutes.
- Add spice powders and cook until the raw smell goes off.
- Soak tamarind in hot water and extract tamarind juice.
- Add extracted juice and a cup of water. Cook with lid covered until the vegetables are cooked well.
- Finally, add fried dry fish to the curry and cook over medium flame for about 5 minutes, until oil separates on the sides. Do not overcook as dry fish cooks faster and overcooking will dissolve them in the curry.
- Check salt and add salt if needed. Always add salt at the end while preparing karuvaadu khuzambhu as they already contain salt in it.
- Adjust water according to your consistency.
- Serve dry fish curry with steamed rice.
If you are looking for other Chettinad delicacies, please do check out – Chettinad Mushroom Biryani, Chettinad Kondakadalai Khuzhambu, Chettinad Poondu Khuzhambu
If you try the recipe, do let me know how they tasted in comments. If you like space, do like and follow my profile at here – Facebook, Google
Yours Truly,
Karthi
