Quickie Breakfast : Rava Dosa

As a child I remember having competition with my elder brother as to who would eat more rava dosas. I just love rava dosas and relive those days each time I make rava dosa for breakfast.

This time my hubby topped it up with making a heart shaped dosa for me making this dish even more special.

Rawa Dosa is very simple to make and with a simple spicy coconut chutney, can transport you to seventh heaven.

Preparation Time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 5 minutes or less

Ingredient (Serves 4) :

1. Rawa - 1/2 cup
2. Maida - 1/2 cup
3. Rice flour - 1/2 cup
4. 1 medium onion chopped
5. jeera/cumin seeds - 2 tbsp
6. black pepper corns - 1 tbsp
7. cashew bits or halves - 3-4 tbsp
8. Coriander leaves - chopped optional
9. Oil - 1 tbsp
10. Salt to taste
11. Water

How I made it:

1. Mix the rawa, maida and rice flour with sufficient water such that the water is about 1 inch above the solids. Don't worry you don't need to get this right at first go. You will see as you read through.
2. Leave that aside for an hour or so. The solids would settle at the bottom. Ensure now that the water level is at least 1 inch above that of the solids. This adjusts the thickness of the dosa. More water makes it a paper thin roast.
3. Add the chopped onions, green chillies, chopped coriander, pepper corns. If the cashew bits are roasted, add them as is, else add them in the next step.
4. Heat oil in a takda pan
5. Put the jeera and cashew bits. 
6. Once the jeera is crachling and cashew bits are light brown, add to the dosa batter mix. 
7. Adjust the salt.
8. Now, heat a flat pan or tawa.
9. Pour a ladleful of the dosa mix and swirl it around on the pan, taking care not to let it drop off the sides of the pan/tawa.
10. Cook on high heat till it starts to brown. 
11. Flip it over and cook for about 30 seconds.
12. Serve hot.

Make sure you serve these with a spicy chutney.

Tips :

• If the dosas are sticky, could be that the maida is more so reduce the maida and replace the reduced quantity with rice flour. 

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Carrot and Onion Paratha

So what do you do when both you and your better half wake up at 3am? Well, it is gonna be a nice and sunny day so we decided to go for a trek at Shakespeare Regional Park. The gates open at 7am so since I a little time on my hands, I decided to make these quickie parathas to take with us as trek grub.

Preparation time : 10-15 minutes
Cooking time : 4-5 minutes for each paratha

Ingredients (makes 6 parathas) :

1. 1 cup whole wheat flour
2. 1/3 cup chopped onion
3. 1/2 cup grated carrots
4. 1 tbsp jeera/cumin seeds
5. 1 tbsp kasuri methi
6. 1/2 tsp red chilli powder
7. 1 green chilly finely chopped
8. 3 tbsp oil
9. Salt to taste
10. Water to knead the dough

How I made it:

1. In a pan, heat up 3 tbsp oil.
2. Put in the jeera seeds.
3. Once they crackle, put in the kasuri methi
4. When the methi begins to get brown, don't let it burn, throw in the onions and green chillies.
5. Fry till onions start to become soft.
6. Throw in the carrots, red chilli powder and salt. 
7. Remember to add a little more salt as the wheat flour will also be added.  So when tasted, this mix should taste a little salty - not too salty.
8. When the carrots are turning soft, turn off heat and wait for the mix to cool.
9. When cool, add the flour to the mix and knead into a soft dough.
10. Separate the dough into 6 balls of uniform size.
11. Roll out each ball into a circle and for each circle repeat steps 13 onwards.
12. Heat a flat pan/tawa.
13. Place the circle. Cook for 30-40 seconds.
14. Lower heat to medium and turn the parata.
15. Add a few drops of oil to help the parata cook and remain soft.
16. After a minute or so, if there are enough brown spots on the paratha, turn the paratha and make the heat back to high. 
17. Add a little more oil and cook till there are enough brown spots on both sides. Take off heat.

Serve hot with raita or pickle or pack and carry on a trek. Can be eaten as is.

All packed and set to go.

Here's a pic of the beautiful place - a must visit. Do check out my review of the place which is coming up on the blog soon.

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Classic Combo : Rasam and Pepper Chicken

So a friend of ours is down sick with a cold and bad throat. We were headed towards his house to visit the #RBTGP and therefore decided to drop in on him and give him some rasam. For dinner, we added the pepper chicken to have a classic South Indian Combo : Rasam and Pepper Chicken served with rice. I once again remembered Sushila, albeit she used to serve Rasam with Mutton Chops.

I've come to realize that I use the terms heavenly food, comfort food for the stuff that is similar to what I have eaten as a kid. No matter how the day, a good bowl of comfort food, and all seems okay. May be it reminds one of the good ol' days. This is one of those meals.

For the rasam :
Cooking time : 15 minutes
Preparation time : 5 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 4) :

1. Tomato - 1 large quartered
2. Garlic - 2 pods crushed
3. Tamarind paste - 1 tsp
4. Water - 2 cups
5. Pepper powder - 1 tbsp
6. Jeera/Cumin powder - 1tsp
7. Oil/Ghee(preferred) - 1 tbsp
8. Mustard seeds - 1 tsp
9. Jeera/Cumin seeds - 1 tsp
10. Curry leaves - 1 sprig
11. Salt to taste

How I made it:

1. In a pressure cooker, heat up one cup of water. 
2. Add the tomato quartered. Cook on high till one whistle and turn of heat. 
3. While the pressure releases from the cooker, heat 1 tbsp ghee in another pan.
4. Add the mustard seeds and wait till they stop spluttering.
5. Add the jeera, crushed garlic and curry leaves.
6. When the garlic starts to brown at the edges, add the tamarind paste mixed with 1 cup of water.
7. Mash the tomato in the water that it was boiled in and add it to the pan.
8. Add the pepper powder, jeera powder and adjust the salt.
9. Turn off heat once it comes to a boil.
10. Garnish with coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or drink as a soup.

For the pepper chicken :
Cooking time : 30 minutes
Preparation time : 10 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 4) :

1. Chicken - 500g
2. Small/Pickling onion - 4
3. Red onion - 1 small
4. Garlic - 8 cloves
5. Ginger - 2 inch piece
6. Oil - 2 tbsp
7. Pepper powder - 4 tbsp
8. Salt to taste
9. Red chilli powder - 1 tsp
10. Coriander powder - 1 tsp
11. Cumin powder - 1/2 tsp
12. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
13. Water - 3/4 cup
14. Curry leaves - 1 sprig

How I made it :

1. Wash and marinate the chicken in salt, turmeric powder and 2 tbsp pepper.
2. Grind the small onions, ginger, garlic, red chilli powder, coriander powder, cumin powder and 2 tbsp pepper powder to a paste with as little water as possible.
3. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a wide pan.
4. Add the sliced red onions alongwith curry leaves and fry till light golden brown.
5. Add the paste and fry until it stops sticking to the botton - usually 7-8 minutes on low to medium heat.
6. Add the marinated chicken and fry till half cooked.
7. Add water. 
8. Adjust the salt. 
9. Cover and cook till completely cooked. 
10. If water remains, cover uncooked till water dries completely. We were too impatient to wait till the water dried and took it off heat in a semi gravy consistency.
11. Garnish with chopped coriander and serve hot with rice and rasam.

This can also be had with rotis.

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LIGHTing it up DOWN UNDER - err a bit late.

It's six months since I set foot in the land of the breathtakingly beautiful New Zealand. Time flies but the rollercoaster ride never ends. Well, things are mellowing down now but the initial settling phase was not as smooth as I had expected it to be. "Ignorance is bliss" is not something I used before but we all do learn and our eyes do eventually open up. No wonder we all look back at those times when we were most ignorant as the "best of times". Confused beings that we are, always wanting the good times but trying hard as ever to get ahead. Ha ha ha!

Six months and we move from my birthday to the birth of my nephew, exactly on Diwali. I smile when I think of the silence back at home on this otherwise unusually noisy day at my house. The hustle and bustle to decide who would go to distribute the sweets and if you had got all the people on the list of people to whom sweets need to be distributed, the packing of the sweets, the visits to the temple, the Lakshmi puja, the Saraswati puja, the Ganesha puja and the best drive around the town to get a glimpse of all the firecrackers for free. (wink)

Now, Diwali is known as the festival of lights but has many reasons for its significance. One is the return of the beloved Lord Ram from exile for which the lamps are lit and the night sky lit up with crackers to provide sufficient light for the returning lord, on a moon starved night. (Psst...Diwali usually falls on a new moon day). Another is to mark the end of another harvest season which brings us to the reason for this post. 

It is believed that as a sign of success and prosperity one must eat 7 vegetables on this joyful day and as this blog of mine focusses on recipes amongst other things, I made Sindhi Sai Bhaji with Bhuga Chawara. I ensured that I added as many veggies to the Sai Bhaji as possible. Fortunately for me, I got the quintessential ladies finger here in Auckland. Darn this place, you get a quarter of the veggies you get in India and even if you do get some, you have to buy them frozen. Grrr!!! (Ignorance is bliss until you move to a country only to realize what you have gotten yourself into.) Last year I had made Pav Bhaji with as many veggies.

Here's how we celebrated Diwali this year.

The quintessential start to my day - a cup of chai.

Bachpan ke din yaad dilaane waala lunch - sai bhaji and bhuga chawara - recipe below

Preparation Time : 5 minutes

Cooking Time : 12-15 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 2):

1. 1 large onion finely sliced
2. 1 cup of rice
3. 1 stick of cinnamon
4. 4 cloves
5. 1 bay leaf
6. 1/2 tsp red chilly powder
7. 4 tbsp oil
8. 2 cups of water
9. Salt to taste

How I made it :

1. Wash the rice and soak in water
2. In a pressure cooker, heat the oil
3. Add the whole garam masala - cinnamon, cloves and bay leaf
4. Once the aroma spreads, add the onions and fry on medium low heat till the onions caramelize into a nice dark brown colour. Do not burn and the colour is essential for the dish.
5. Add the red chilli powder and fry for a minute. 
6. Add 2 cups of water.
7. Add the rice once the water comes to a boil.
8. Adjust salt. 
9. Cover the pressure cooker and when the steam begins to rise, lower flame to minimum and leave for 8 minutes. 
10. Turn off heat and serve with sai bhaji or dal fry.

A visit to the Diwali Fest held by the Auckland Council - good food and company and some of the best fireworks I've seen thus far.

Gulab Jamoons as they were getting ready

Sandalwood scented tea light candles adorning the corners of my house

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Chocolate Chip Cookies

The course on haute cuisine that I have enroled in had the recipe of nestle tollhouse chocolate chip cookies and explains why you must stick to the recipe and try to exact the measurements specified. So, I decided to give it a try. The first time I made it with the exact directions and it turned out exactly like the cookies that I used to have at the Hilton in Roseville, California. I did feel really guilty eating those as they had loads of butter and sugar in them. I was happy that I had made a small batch of 15 cookies.

I was having two people, whom I am very fond of, visiting us this evening and so decided to make these cookies but decided to give them a little healthy twist. The result was different but good as well.

Preparation Time : 10 minutes
Cooking Time : 11 minutes
Equipment Required : Oven, egg beater/hand mixer
Source : http://allrecipes.com/recipe/original-nestle-toll-house-chocolate-chip-cookies
Ingredients (Makes about 24-30 cookies depending on size):

1. Whole wheat flour - 1 cup + 2 tbsp
2. Salt  - 1/2 tsp
3. Baking powder - 1/2 tsp
4. Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
5. Chopped nuts - 1/4 cup
6. Chocolate chips - 1/4-1/2 cup
7. Vanilla essence - 1/2 tsp
8. Unsalted butter - 1/4 cup melted
9. Granulated white sugar - 1/4 cup
10. Raw brown sugar - 1/4 cup
11. Egg - 1 large

How I made it :

1. Preheat oven to 190 degree C.
2. Prepare the baking tray. I covered a cooling tray with aluminium foil and spread some flour over it.
3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
4. Beat the sugars, vanilla essence and butter for 2 minutes on high.
5. Add the egg and beat well till the mixture is creamy. I beat mine a bit too much such that the mix got quite thick. This gives it a more crumbly texture. 
6. Add the mix from step 3 and mix till well combined.
7. Shape into cookies, press in some nuts and chocolate chips. Now, if you had not beaten the egg stiff, you may have a moist dough. In that case, use a spoon to place spoonfuls on the baking tray and press in some chocolate chips and nuts.
8. Bake for 11 minutes. 
9. Cool for 30 minutes and store in airtight containers.

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Ladies finger and mutton curry

There are a zillion different reasons that you will hear from Pras when asked why he chose to move to NZ and ONE out of all of those is "to eat as much lamb and beef as I can as this country is known for it". Well, how can I deny him his meat then?

So I had some ladies finger leftover from the diwali sai bhaji cooking and decided to use that up along with the lamb pieces that I had bought from the supermarket. Perfect mix of veggies along with meat proteins.

Note : As I type out the draft for this one, the heavenly aromas of the curry fill the air and we just can't wait to dig in. We are waiting for the pressure to release.

We ate this yummy dish with bread but it would go well with poori, rotis, parathas and rice as well.

Preparation time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 45 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2):

1. Large Onions - 2
2. Mutton/Lamb - 500g
3. Ginger - 2inch piece
4. Garlic - 6 cloves medium sized
5. Red chilli powder - 3 tsp
6. Coriander powder - 1 tsp
7. Garam masala powder - 1/2 tsp
8. Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp
9. Black pepper powder  - 1/2 tsp
10. Coriander leaves  - 2 sprigs with stem
11. Mint leaves - from 1 sprig
12. Medium sized Tomatoes - 3-4
13. Ladies finger - 10-12
14. Thick coconut milk - 1/4 cup
15. Salt to taste
16. Water - 1 cup
17. Oil - 1/4 cup

How I made it :

1. Finely chop the onions.
2. Grind the ginger, garlic, dry powders, coriander and mint leaves together with as little water as possible.
3. Wash and chop the ladies finger into 1 inch pieces. Fry them in a pan with a tsp of oil.
4. In a pressure cooker, heat the oil
5. Add the onions and fry till light golden brown.
6. Add the mutton and fry till it turns colour and becomes lighter.
7. Add the paste from step 2 and fry for about 5 minutes. 
8. Add tomatoes and fry till they are soft and easily blend in.
9. Add about a cup of water, adjust the salt and give 4-5 whistles on high.
10. Once pressure releases, add the fried ladies finger and coconut milk.
11. Boil for 2-3 minutes and serve hot.

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Jo's Yummy Prawn Curry

How can one not try the seafood options available when living on an island? And we've been eating only red meat as NZ is well known for its red meat. I went shopping on my own this weekend and hence decided to pick up some prawns. I did wanna pick up some clams as well but put that away for the next time.

I made this curry in a hurry and with readymade coconut cream. It was delicious nonetheless and a match made in heaven when had with kerala appams. I used the double horse brand ready mix for easy palappams.

Also, please do excuse the lazy me as I continue to take the pics either after we've eaten our fair share for the day and with my humble phone camera.

Preparation time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 25-30 minutes

Ingredients ( Serves 4) :

1. 500g of prawns - cleaned and deveined
2. 1 large onion
3. 4 sambar/pearl/pickle onions
4. 4 cloves of garlic
5. 1 inch piece of ginger
6. 2 tsp red chilli powder
7. 1 tsp coriander powder
8. 400ml of thin coconut milk/cream (or) 200g of thick coconut cream diluted in water
9. 1/2 cup of water + more for the coconut milk
10. 1 tbsp tamarind paste
11. 4 tbsp oil
12. 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
13. A handful of curry leaves
14. Salt to taste
15. Chopped coriander to garnish

How I made it:

1. Grind the onions, pearl onions, garlic, ginger to a fine paste in the mixie.
2. Heat oil in a pan.
3. Add the mustard seeds when oil is hot.
4. When they stop spluttering, add curry leaves. 
5. Add the onion paste from step 1.
6. Fry on medium flame for 10-12 minutes till the fat separates. It takes longer for this step to complete as onion paste takes some more time as well as more oil to fry well. 
7. Add red chilli powder and coriander powder.
8. Fry for a minute and then add the tamarind paste in 1/2 cup of water. 
9. Let it boil for 3-4 minutes and add the coconut milk. 
10. Adjust salt. 
11. Once it comes back to a boil, add the prawns.
12. Cook until the prawns turn pink. Do not cook beyond this else the prawns tend to get rubbery in texture.
13. Turn off heat. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with rice or appams.

Now this is a keeper of a base for any kind of meat curry that needs to be made in a hurry.

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Eggplant/Aubergine Pizza

As part of the cooking course assignment I had to get into the nutritional information of "prepared eggplant". I assumed there would be a recipe too and had bought this big chinese eggplant from the grocery store. There was no assignment but I had some leftover pasta sauce and hence decided to put that together with the eggplants to clean out the fridge. I had seen a similar dish in a colleague's lunchbox and decided to have a go at it. It was yummy and gone in minutes.

I made the aubergine two ways this time. 2 slices as below and the remaining I pan fried with Indian spices after seeing this recipe on a friend's blog. Both were delicious.

This recipe boasts of meeting almost all of one's dietary fibre intake for a day while being low on the calorie intake.

Preparation Time : 10 minutes
Cooking time : 40 minutes

Ingredients (serves 1) :

1. 1 large Aubergine/Eggplant
2. 4-5 button mushrooms
3. 1 small sized onion finely chopped
4. 2 cloves of garlic crushed
5. 4 tbsp chopped bell peppers - I did not use this as my pasta sauce was a roasted bell pepper sauce
6. 1/4 cup pasta sauce/tomato sauce - I used Roasted Peppers Dolmio Pasta Sauce
7. A handful of grated cheese
8. Salt to taste
9. Pepper
10. Olive oil - a drizzle

How I made it :

1. Preheat oven at 180 degree C.
2. Slice the eggplants lengthwise with the slices being about a cm thick.
3. Slice the button mushrooms and mix with onions, garlic, pasta sauce.
4. Adjust salt and pepper.
5. Spread atop eggplant slices.
6. Sprinkle with cheese.
7. Place eggplant slices in ovenproof plate/pan.
8. Drizzle olive oil on top of slices.
9. Bake the eggplant slices for 30 minutes.
10. Serve hot

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Quickie Soup

There are days when you feel like you've eaten a very heavy lunch and are not too hungry for dinner but you still would like to have something light. This quickie soup is just the answer to those tiny rumbles in the tummy.

Preparation Time : Nil
Cooking time : 10 minutes

Ingredients (serves 2) :

1. Vegetable stock - 2 cups - I used the water remaining from boiled chickpeas and some veggies that I had boiled for cutlets.
2. 1 egg
3. 1 dry red chilly broken into two
4. 1 clove of garlic crushed
5. 1/2 tsp vinegar
6. 1 tsp olive oil
7. Salt to taste
8. Pepper to taste

How I made it :

1. In a pan, put in the oil, red chilli and garlic.
2. Turn on heat and fry till garlic starts to turn brown at edges
3. Carefully pour in stock.
4. Add vinegar.
5. Adjust salt and pepper.
6. Let this come to a boil.
7. Beat the egg and pour the egg into the mix while stirring the soup.

Hot, wholesome soup is ready to be served.

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Kerala Kadala Curry

Both Pras and I are morning people and so I'm always on the lookout for quickie breakfast recipes. I believe breakfast is a very important part of the day and should not be missed. Back in India, it was easier to manage breakfast with idlis, dosas, bread, cereal, oats and the occasional parathas on a weekday. Here, in Auckland, the idli and dosa batter is not available ubiquitously, the breads is quite different from what we get in India and hence the hunt for breakfast recipes is on.
Many people told me about the breakfast biscuits but nah, they aren't to our liking.  For a while I made rawa dosas and ran out of rawa/semolina. It takes some planning to get to the other side of town to purchase "Indian" groceries from the Indian supermarkets.

Anyhow, I decided to experiment and made this kadala curry to be served with thai rice noodles as a replacement for idiyappam. Except for the little bite to the noodles, it went quite well. So here's a big tick to this breakfast item.

Kadala curry is mainly made of chickpeas which are a high source of proteins. Since this recipe calls for the use of a pressure cooker as well as not discarding any of the water used, you should get the full benefits of the protein content. Serving this as an accompaniment to a rice based dish makes it a source of carbohydrates as well.

Preparation Time : 5 minutes if using store bought coconut milk, excluding time to soak the chickpeas
Cooking Time : 30-40 minutes

Ingredients (Serves 4):

1. 1 cup black/dark chickpeas/kadala - washed and left to soak in water overnight
2. 1 bay leaf
3. 1 stick of cinnamon
4. Water to boil the chickpeas
5. Turmeric Powder - 1/2 tsp
6. Salt to taste
7. 1 medium sized onion chopped as finely as you can, need to go to extraordinary lengths
8. 2 green chillis - slit
9. Thick Coconut milk - 1/2 cup
10. A pinch of asafoetida
11. Red chilli powder - 1/2 tsp
12. Coriander powder - 1 tsp
13. Black pepper powder - 1/2 tsp
14. Curry leaves - a stick or two
15. mustard seeds - 1 tsp
16. Oil - 1tbsp

How I made it :

1. In a pressure cooker, put in all ingredients from 1 to 6. The water level should be about 1 inch above the chickpeas.
2. Cook on high for one whistle and then low for 4 whistles.
3. While the pressure releases, in another pan, heat 1 tbsp oil
4. Once the oil is hot, put in the mustard seeds and cover till the mustard seeds stop spluttering.
5. Add the curry leaves and split green chillies.
6. After 30 seconds, add the onions and fry till they turn pink.
7. Add the red chilli powder, pepper powder, coriander powder and asafoetida.
8. After 30 seconds, add the chickpeas and any remaining water.
9. If there is too much water, allow it to boil till the water reduces to required quantity.
10. Add the coconut milk and once it comes to a boil, adjust salt and turn off the heat

Serve hot with idiyappam, appam, puttu or like me thai rice noodles.

7

Kumara and Chickpea Patties/Cutlets

This is one of my own experiments since I got "Down Under". It has been a hit with both friends and hubby alike. The best part - it is easy and Kumara aka Sweet Potato is of really good quality here.

P.S. I am yet to fully settle in to cooking in a smaller kitchen, so please excuse the lazy picture taken with my phone. But I urge you to try this recipe as it tastes really good.

Prepation time : 5 minutes
Cooking time : 10 minutes excluding time to pressure cook the chickpeas and kumara

Ingredients ( For 10 medium cutlets):

1. 2 medium sized Kumara/Sweet potato
2. 1/3 cup boiled chickpeas - soak overnight and boil in salted water, may be 2 whistles on high and 2 whistles on low in a pressure cooker
3. 1.5 tbsp ginger garlic green chilly paste
4. 1/4 cup finely chopped onion
5. 1tsp garam masala powder
6. 1/4 tsp amchur powder
7. Oil for deep frying/shallow frying
8. Salt to taste

How I made it :

1. Boil the kumaras - 1 whistle on high in a pressure cooker will do.
2. Peel and mash the kumaras.
3. Add all the ingredients listed from 3 to 7 and mix well.
4. Lastly add the boiled chickpeas.
5. Shape into cutlets and shallow or deep fry as per preference. When deep frying, please ensure that the oil is very hot else it will just split.

You could serve these as a snack or make sandwiches or use them in pita pockets. Versatile and tasty.

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Hoki Fish Curry - no coconut

Hoki fish is a part of the backbone of the NZ fishing industry. Unfortunately, it is one of those over fished varieties thanks to the corporate giant McDonalds. Now, though I may feel sad I can not control Pras who is like every other mallu, an ardent seafood lover. We had bought 500g of this beautiful fillet of hoki when we had gone to the super market and since I could not think of eating another sandwich (we've been eating a lot of bread these last few days), I decided to give it a go in fish curry.

I've seen my mother-in-law and co-sister make a similar curry except I did not have the quintessential kodumpuli for it. I used normal tamarind paste that I got at an Indian store here called "Cooking Without Mess" which is kind of true when it comes to extracting the tamarind paste.

Hubby's verdict : "Tript ho gaye baalak" which translates to "I'm content". I keep saying this to him after I have made something that reminds me of my childhood.



Cooking time : 20 minutes
Preparation time : 15 minutes (lesser if you multitask, explained below)
Equipment Required : Mixie if you don't have a mortar and pestle to make the ginger/garlic paste

Ingredients : (Serves 3)

1. 500g fish 
2. 1 large onion
3. 2 large country tomatoes
4. 1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
5. 1.5 tbsp tamarind paste
6. 2 cups of water
7. 1 tbsp red chilli powder
8. 1 tbsp coriander powder
9. 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
10. 1/2 tsp pepper powder
11. 1 tsp fenugreek seeds
12. 1 tsp mustard seeds
13. A few curry leaves
14. 1 green chilly
15. 1 tbsp oil
16. Salt to taste
17. Coriander to garnish

How I made it :

1. Chop the onions fine.
2. Heat oil in a pan. 
3. Add mustard seeds and fenugreek seeks to hot oil. Cover, lower flame and let them stop spluttering
4. Once they stop spluttering, add curry leaves and 1 sliced green chilly.
5. After 30 seconds, add the chopped onions.
6. Lower the flame and get to cleaning the fish. Chop into 2 inch pieces.
7. If you are using fresh ginger and garlic, use your mortar and pestle and smash them well. You could alternately, grind the ginger, garlic, red chilly powder, coriander powder, pepper powder, turmeric powder with a little water. 
8. Once the onions are soft, takes about 5-6 minutes, add the ginger garlic paste.
9. After 30-40 seconds of frying, add the powders and a little water.
10. While this is frying on low flame, chop your tomatoes and add them to the pan.
11. Fry till the tomatoes are well cooked and soft. 
12. Add the tamarind paste in 2 cups of water.
13. Adjust salt. 
14. Let this boil till you can see a kind of froth or oil floating on the top.
15. Put in your fish pieces. Ensure they are well covered with the water. Add more water if required. Cover and cook on low for 5 minutes or until the fish is cooked. Usually fish does not take long to cook. If you want a thicker curry, do not cover. As you can see mine is a little thin.
16. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves and serve hot with rice.

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