Dry baked fish with coconut milk | Neymeen pollichathu | Kukskitchen

Go to Keralan backwaters and the first thing you would want to eat is dry-baked fish in banana leaves - മീൻ  പൊള്ളിച്ചത് . It was hard to get fresh banana leaves in the capital city where I was born and brought up in. My mum would make something that tastes similar to it in a non-stick pan, finishing with  a drizzle of coconut milk.

Last week during my routine weekend cooking I decided to make her recipe. I wondered how it would taste with  a LOT of sliced onions and  some chopped tomatoes and some chillies. It came out so well so well that dear D had only praises to say. The beauty of this recipe is the fresh steamed delicate succulent taste of the onions and tomatoes.

A few things before we start:

• Try and use a firm fleshed fish like king fish (neymeen നെയ്മീൻ ). If using white fish, try something like lemon sole or basa.
•  Fresh coconut milk is the best. However if you can't then use maggi coconut milk powder. It tastes like fresh. Canned coconut milk somehow doesn't work for me. To me it has an artificial taste.

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Keralan dry-baked king fish 

നെയ്മീൻ പൊളിച്ചത്  

Serves 4

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Ingredients:

1- Fish - 500g

2 - Chilli powder - 1 1/2 tsp
     Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
     Pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
     Fenugreek (uluva) powder - 1/4 tsp
     Salt to taste

3 - Onion - 2 large sliced

     Tomatoes - 2 medium chopped

     Green chilli - 2 slit
     Curry leaves - 1 sprig

4 - Coconut milk (thick) - 100ml

5- Oil - 2 tbsp


Method:

• Clean fish and cut them in to medium sized pieces. 
• Marinate fish pieces in 2. Leave them for 5-10 mts or use straight away.
• Shallow fry fish in a non-stick pan.
• After one side is done, turn the fish over and add (3) cover with a lid and let the onions and tomatoes steam. Mix occasionally by twirling the pan.
• When the now bottom side is done, add coconut milk and simmer for 5-10 minutes till the sauce reduces to the desired consistency.

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Cheers
Sherin Deepu