BlubberBeGone

This recipe is from The Best Ever Indian Cookbook by Mridula Baljekar. It serves 4 people and provides 2 servings of vegetables.

Note: Grilling fish before adding it to a sauce helps to prevent it from breaking up during the cooking process.

Ingredients

• 4 cod fillets (or use other lean flaky white fish – see The Chef’s Thesaurus for substitution ideas)
• 15 ml/1 tbsp lemon juice
• 15 ml/1 tbsp oil
• 1 medium onion, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 4 black peppercorns, crushed
• 115 g/4 oz/1 cup mushrooms (any type will do – button mushrooms will make the dish look pretty, but darker varieties will add colour to the dish, take your pick)
• 175 ml/6 fl oz/ 3/4 cup natural (plain) low fat yogurt
• 5 ml/1 tsp grated fresh root ginger (or use prepared ginger in oil from the spices shelf. In the UK Barts does one – lasts forever in the fridge)
• 5 ml/1 tsp crushed garlic
• 2.5 ml/ 1/2 tsp garam masala
• 2.5 ml/ 1/2 tsp chilli powder
• 5 ml/1 tsp salt
• 15 ml/1 tbsp cilantro (leaf coriander)
• green beans to serve (or use any other green veg – tenderstem broccoli or asparagus would go well with this recipe (for best results steam for about a minute until bright green)

Method

1. Remove the skin and any bones from the fish fillets. Sprinkle them with lemon juice, the par-cook under a pre-heated grill (broiler) for 5 minutes on each side. Remove from the heat and set aside.
2. Heat the oil in a karahi, wok or large frying pan and fry the onion with the bay leaf and peppercorns for 2-3 minutes. Lower the heat, then add the whole mushrooms and stir-fry for a further 4-5 minutes.
3. In a bowl, mix together the yogurt, ginger ad garlic, garam masala, chilli and salt. Pour this over the onions and stir-fry for 3 minutes.
4. Add the fish fillets to the sauce and cook for a further 2 minutes. Serve garnished with the cilantro and accompanied by lightly steamed veg (and rice if required).

Nutritional info per portion
Note: this is taken from the book – I don’t know if they’ve included the beans in the calculation. They did not give protein breakdown so I have calculated that by hand.