Smelt or Anchovies with Coconut

Netholi is a very small fish and my mom being an ardent fish lover would buy this regularly even if it is a little time consuming to clean it up. Small fishes are supposed to be more nutritious and healthy.

Traditional Names: Netholi vattichathu/meen peera/നെത്തോലി വറ്റിച്ചതു/മീന്‍ പീര .
Smelt, which is readily available in U.S is another form of netholi. Netholi you get back home is actually much smaller in size, but in U.S everything is bigger. I buy the frozen ones which is cut and cleaned. I just have to defrost it and wash it.

Or if you get it fresh, cut off/pinch off the head and clean the inner sides. Cut off the tail portion also little bit. Clean thoroughly. Do the same if you have anchovies.

For 3 cups of smelt, crush together in a stone pestle, 1.5 cup of grated coconut,4 tsp of shallots diced,4 green chilies diced,5 red dry chilies cut into small piece, 5 garlic pods diced, one handful of curry leaves. Crush all of this nicely.

Soak kudampuli in 1/4 cup of water after washing and then cutting it into thin pieces.Now add the fish pieces,crushed coconut mixture, and the kudampuli with the water, add 1/4 tsp of turmeric and salt as needed. Mix all this together with hand.Cook the fish in medium flame. This fish cooks very fast. So add only little water. The water from the kudampuli would be enough. Close and cook until the water boils, then take off the lid and make the water evaporate completely. Add 1 tsp coconut oil when fish is done. Serve with rice. This can be made semidry or very dry. Actually very dry is more tasty.While cooking any fish, my mom never uses a ladle to mix the ingredients while cooking. She holds the pot on both sides,lifts the pot from the flame and rotates the pot both ways. Otherwise the fish pieces will break since it is soft. Sometimes I never get it right and I smash them. But this time I got it right.