Wednesday, April 1, 2015

Fish Moilee - Kerala Fish Stew - Step by Step

     Fish moilee is a traditional fish stew from the state of "Kerala". This is a coconut milk based stew, where fish is part fried and added to the stew. This goes very well with plain rice of kushka. We can either use fresh coconut milk or canned coconut milk. This stew is prepared using coconut oil, for a trditional taste and aroma. If you feel the coconut oil is fat, then you can replace half  amount of  coconut oil with regular oil.

Check my other kind of fish curries 


Preparation Time : 10 mins
Cooking time : 20 mins
Serves : 4

Ingredients:
 To marinate the fish :
1.Tilapia slices - 20 pieces
2.Lemon juice - 2 tsp
3.Salt - to taste
4.Pepper powder - to taste
5.Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp

For the Stew :
1.Onion - 1/2 (big) chopped
2.Green chillies - 5 to 6
3.Ginger grlic paste - 1/2 tsp
4.Tomatoes - 1/2 cubed
5.Thin coconut milk - 1 cup
6.Thick coconut milk - 1/2 cup
7.Coconut oil - 1/4 cup
8.Fennel seeds - 1/2 tsp
9.Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
10.Salt - to taste
11.Cilantro - few (chopped)




*  Wash the fish slices and marinate it with lemon juice,turmeric powder,salt and pepper powder. If you don't have lemon juice,we can replace it with vinegar. But add less vinegar compared to the lemon juice. LEt it sit in the kitchen counter for atleast 10 mins. If you have time, we can refrigerate the fish overnight.
* Take a pan, add little coconut oil and shallow fry the marinated fish slices. Dont fry the fish till crisp. The fish should be partly fried.
* Strain the partly fried fish slices on a plate. Now lets start making the curry. The oil,remaining after frying the fish will have so much flavour, so try to cook the stew in the same oil.

* Add the remaining coconut oil and temper with fennel seeds ,green chillies and sliced onion. Sprinkle salt to the onion and let it turn translucent.If you have curry leaves,we can add it to the tempering.
* Add ginger garlic paste to the pan and saute. Let the raw smell of the ginger garlic paste goes off. Add turmeric powder to the onion and let it saute for a while.

* Now add thin coconut milk. If you are going to use fresh coconut milk, then pour the second milk to the paan. If you are going to use canned coconut milk, then take 1/2 cup of thick coconut milk and add water to make it thin. Let the mixture come to boil. This will make the stew to blend all the ingredients. 
* Add the cubed tomatoes and bring it to boil. the tomatoes should not cook completely , it should be just cooked ,it will give a different colour combo to the stew. Now dump in the fried fish slices to the pan.
* When the fish is blended with the stew, add the thick coconut milk to the pan. The stew should not boil after the thick coconut milk is added. Adjust the thickness of the stew according to your wish. If you want the stew to be more thick, add some more thick coconut milk to the stew.


* Cover the pan and let it sit in low flame for atleast 10 mins. At last add salt,pepper powder and chopped cilantro to the stew and turn it off.

                                                    Serve the fish moilee with steamed rice or kushka.

Notes:
*  You can use any kind of fish for this stew.If it is boneless it will be fine, but not necessary.
* We can also add some corinader powder to the stew for thickness.
* If you don't want to use coconut oil completely, you can use half coconut oil and half olive oil.
* While frying the fish, take care not the make it crispy.
* If you don't have lemon juice,we can use vinegar.
* Use less tomatoes,as we have lemon juice in the stew.
* Don't mash the tomatoes, just let it float in cubes in the stew for a colourfull combo.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

Tasty yummy curry☺

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