A brave woman’s journey

This is the first time I am making crabs in my life. I was (still a little) dead scared of these creatures. First of all, they look so scary and second you need to buy them fresh, oh my god! But I have eaten them so many times, once I ate so much, chewing even on the shells, I got a stomach ache. I just love to eat them.

But then to prepare, eeeewwwww! I don’t like the feeling of being scared. So, I put on my Brave Woman cap and decided to go and buy them. First I thought, I would go alone, I could get someone at the store to help me in getting those live ones into a bag, but then the thought of driving back with the creatures still alive in my car didn’t seem a good idea.

So, I got the help of my dear husband, who was teasing me all the way and even after eating. Grrrrrr! Now that will go down as a story in our family get together. He hasn’t finished teasing me on how I run when I see live fishes on the hook when he goes fishing. Hmph!!!

So what?? Big deal!! At least I prepared it. *sticking out my tongue*

Crab season typically starts when the weather turns colder. I bought blue crabs. I have no idea how to select a good one, but I think the best way is to choose a one that has all the legs and is huge and is alive and kicking. The live ones crawl to the bottom, so it is good to place the bucket in a slanting position to get the ones at the bottom. (Psst, all these I was watching other smarties do at the store :P)

Now pick them up, inspect and drop into your bag. And if you are like me, occasionally scream and jump when someone is doing that for you and get the entire store laughing at you. Very Funny! It is said, the crabs like these voice massages!

Bring them home, get the largest pot that would fit them all and keep water for boiling and add ½ tsp of turmeric powder and one whole lime squeezed. When the water is boiling, drop them all one by one holding each with a lengthyyy tongs. The blue crabs will turn orange and immediately immerse them in cold water. This will make the crab meat firmer for our curry.

Now is the cleaning process, you would really need to watch this live. If I can, next time I will put up a video of someone else cleaning! hehehe.

First break off all the legs, discard the tiniest legs at the end that has no flesh. Then with a knife, take off the orange outer shell by just poking at the bottom and pulling it apart. Clean out everything that doesn’t look right. I think some of it is good, but if you are not sure, except for the large chunks of meat, clean it out thoroughly. Below is the picture of the cleaned crab. If you want, you can cut through the middle and make these into two.

Below is a wonderful recipe for Crab in spiced and fried coconut paste.

This is for 8 blue crabs.
Grated Coconut – 2 cups.
Shallots – ½ cup

Heat 2 tsp of oil, Saute grated coconut until it turns brown in very low heat. Add shallots, 2 sprigs of curry leaves, 7 crushed garlic pods with the skin, 4 tsp of freshly grounded meat masala powder, 1 tsp of chili powder, 1/4 tsp turmeric powder.

Grind to a smooth paste.

Heat oil in a flat open pan, splutter mustard seeds, and add 2 fresh sprigs of curry leaves. Sauté 1 diced onion until brown, add 1 tablespoon diced ginger, 2 tomatoes chopped and add enough salt. Add some hot water to this paste and cook for 5 minutes until it comes to a boil. Add the crabs and the legs. Mix them thoroughly so that the paste covers the crabs, close and cook for some 10 minutes in medium heat.

Serve with rice or bread. You would really need to know the art of eating to eat a crab.

Fish and Coconut balls

This is an easy and tasty appetizer or snack. An instant hit at parties.

Choose a fish that is kind of sticky and thick. Tuna, Mahi-Mahi, Shrimp etc are sticky kind of fish or seafood.

I usually make it with shrimp and this time I choose mahi-mahi.
Mahi Mahi Fillets without skin – 3 cups.
Small onion – 5
Green chilies – 5
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Shredded Coconut -2 cups
Vinegar – 1 tsp
Salt

Use a food processor and crush all the ingredients except the coconut. Do not overdo it and please don’t use a mixie. Now add the coconut and run it for one second.

Now make small balls, making sure they are very tight and firm. Squeeze out any moisture.

Fry them in oil. Brown both sides.


Serve with tomato sauce.

Prawns and Ambazhanga Gravy

When mangoes are not in season and you want some fish curry with mangoes, what do you do? You are not the British Queen to feast on fruits that are not in season. What you got to do is have a June Plum tree in your yard.

I am not sure whether June Plum is the real Ambazhanga in Malayalam grown in Kerala. There is another variety similar in shape, size and texture and taste to June Plum known as Hog Plum with a bigger seed and I think that’s the original ambazhanga. This is an excellent substitute for sour mangoes in fish curries.

Actually I have seen ambazhanga only once or twice in Kerala mostly at monasteries. Yeah, we Keralites are good at cutting down good trees like these! I am not sure whether the current generation even knows about ambazhanga.

Anyway we have a June Plum tree in our yard and the best thing about it is it bears fruit through out the year. The tree is only 4 feet or so in height, but the fruits cover the tree.
This link says, Very prolific, it can fruit itself to death. I vouch for that.

I made some prawns gravy with ambazhanga.

3 cups of shelled, cleaned small prawns.
1 cup of ambazhanga cut into bite sizes
1 small piece of kudampuli (depends on the variety of ambazhanga. Ours is not that sour and so I add one small piece of kudampuli as a backup)
1 sprig of curry leaves

3 tablespoons of Corainder powder, 2 tsp of chili powder, ¼ tsp of turmeric powder. Make it a paste

1 tbsp ginger diced, 6 pods of garlic diced, ¼ cup of shallots or onion diced.

Add everything mix well with salt and add 2 cups of thin coconut milk.

Boil and simmer for 10 minutes. Then just before taking off from fire, add ½ cup of thick coconut milk. Take off from heat.

Heat 2 tsp of oil, sauté 1 tsp of thinly diced shallots, 1 sprig of curry leaves, 2 red chili split. Add to the curry.

Serve hot with rice. For curries with coconut milk, storing and reheating destroys the real flavour. So always make them in small batches.

Koorkka Parade

Just 1500 square miles, blessed with the greenest green, richest soil, lushest rains. A semi-metropolitan culture that soaks in everything and integrates like weaving a beautiful saree of different color threads. No matter how many picturesque pictures you see, no matter how much coconut you add to your curries, no matter how much you try to recreate it, you have to live and feel Kerala. Kerala is a country on it's own with every mile giving you a different history and culture. It is not something you can export it to other countries and create a gathering and celebrate. Not even in Dubai where you can find the most number of Malayalee expatriates, you will get the real essence of Kerala.

This is one state where you will find the disparity of income among the rich and poor very low. This is one state where you will find the infant death rate almost nil, where you will find the poorest of the poor has a voice, know their rights, know how to read and write. This is one state where you will rarely see poverty in villages, but pristine villages roads and excellent infrastructure, with the newest home theater systems blasting and resonating on the slanting teak wooden roofs of old quaint houses. A state in a third world country living like a first world country not in luxury, but in thought process. This is why were are called Devils own people in Gods own country. We are known to be devils advocates questioning everything, be it governments, political process or a coke plant.

This might be the only place where students and people came out in support of Mandela or for America's attack on Iraq. Yes, we gather and protest not only for our state and country, but for World affairs. We are not just educated, but aware. You will find instant-intellectuals in the shack tea stalls, talking passionately about Global pollution to Benazir’s death. Do you know even though this is such a small state, yet it has the maximum newspaper readership among people, compared not with just India but with World? 70% subscribe to newspapers. Any surprise we are socially conscious?

Kerala is like tender coconut, you cannot package it. Drink it instantly pure and fresh.

Put aside all that and there is one thing she is best at.
She has one of the tastiest cuisines I have come across and they are so vibrant and rich. She has the choicest vegetable and meat dishes. Her cuisine even has Spanish, Arabic and European influences. The only thing she lacks is in desserts, but we sweet people make up for it :)


To celebrate her, a koorkka parade for RCI Kerala by Jyothsna.

Koorkka in Dal

Cook 2 cups of cleaned and washed koorkka with 1 cup of toordal with a sprig of curry leaves in 3 cups of water

Grind ½ cup of coconut, 3 pods of garlic, ½ tsp cumin seeds, 5 green chilies, ¼ tsp of turmeric powder and enough salt to a fine watery paste.

Add to the cooked dal and koorka. Boil and simmer for 10 minutes.

Sauté 2 tsp of coconut oil, splutter mustard seeds, red chili split, and 1 sprig of curry leaves and add to the dish.

Serve with rice or roti. Recipe Courtesty: Daly

Koorkka with Sardines

Koorkka Stir Fry

Koorkka with Beef


Koorkka from the Garden

Koorkka in Sardines Gravy

You thought you can’t add a vegetable to sardines or any other fish, right? Yes! That’s exactly what I thought too. But you can add koorkka to fish. What is the end product? Yummy koorka and you can chuck the fish.

Let alone taste it, I have never even heard about it. So my friend Daly, a fellow Malayalam blogger who is a koorkka fanatic, conducts secret koorkka rituals, told me about this recipe, I surely wanted to give it a try. The only thing I have seen her really passionate about is koorkka and she has testified discreetly she is in love. So she can’t probably go wrong with a recipe that has koorkka in it.

Koorkka holds its shapes and absorbs other flavors and sits tight unlike a potato where if you add a small piece of potato the whole curry would taste like potato. With fish curry, it absorbs all the flavors of the fish and the gravy and you get an exceptional taste of koorkka.

This is supposed to be a Trichur regional specialty.

Sardines are medium sized fatty fish and is easily available and liked all over the World. Clean the fish,thoroughly, make a big slit on the side. Make red fish curry like I had explained before and add koorkka before adding the fish. Cook the koorka until tender and then add fish and cook until done. This actually tasted so good after I refrigerated the fish curry for one day.

Serve with rice or roti.

Note: You get cleaned and frozen koorkka in U.S with the name Chinese potato. They take a little longer to cook. So use a pressure cooker.

Shrimp and Drumstick in coconut milk

There is a giant drumstick tree at our relative’s place nearby and it is a feast for the eyes to see the bunch of drumsticks hanging from each small branch. Drumstick trees are so brittle; the trees often break due to the strong winds here. Yet, they are resilient and they grow back again from the branch with much vigor. It is amazing to see the tree growing around 6 feet in a year.

We all raid the tree, scrape the drumsticks, cut them into bite size pieces and freeze them until it starts to fruit again.

A very delicious curry is made with drumsticks and shrimp. There are many versions of it and mine is a very simple version as usual.

Drumstick pieces scraped and cut and split into two – 2 cups
Shrimp cleaned and deveined - 2 cups

Coriander powder – 2 table spoon
Crushed black pepper – 1 tsp
Red chili powder – 1 table spoon
Green chilies slit – 4
Onion – ½ cup
Curry leaves – 1 sprig
Ginger scraped and crushed – 1 tsp
Garlic pods – 7 diced thin
Kudampuli - 4
Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
Salt enough

Coconut milk thick – 2 cups

Cook drumsticks with all of the above adding salt in 1.5 cup coconut milk and 2 cups of water. When drumsticks are almost cooked, add the cleaned shrimp and cook for 5 or 6 minutes. Turn off heat and stir in the rest of the coconut milk. Adjust salt.

Heat 1 tsp oil, sauté thinly diced 2 tsp shallots (can use onion too). When the shallots turn brown, add two whole red chili (broken into two) and a sprig of curry leaves. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Shrimp with Mango

Note: Yahoo Portal Content Theft Identification Parade. Check it out!.

I really want to break free from this 'curry' tag given to all our dishes. Almost all Indian dishes are universally tagged as 'curry'. No, every Indian dish is definitely not a curry. “We have different names!" Can’t you hear them scream? I can.

So, it is just Shrimp with Mango, Malayalam name for chemmeenum mangayum.

Shrimp is not Prawn. I remember having an argument with my boss at a restaurant and me googling the whole Internet for information. Before I moved to U.S, there existed only one i.e. prawns. In U.S however everything is a shrimp.

Chemmeen, smaller size of prawns is much tastier. Kochi in Kerala, India is very famous for its shrimps, prawns, tiger prawns harvesting. Kerala’s backwaters are perfect for prawn harvesting. However most of the catch is exported and we locals don’t even get to see them. In India, Shrimp or Prawns harvest season is normally from February to March. That’s the only time you get them a little cheap.

This shellfish is a delicacy everywhere in the World. It is said to be a little high in cholesterol. Clean shrimp. Take out the outer shell, pinch out its head and tail. Cleaning shrimp this way is called as chemeen nulluka or pinching shrimp if translated from Malayalam. This phrase is also used to tease Christians who miss the head and tail of a Sunday mass. Try to pinch the head and pull out the dark vein that runs through the middle. Or, just part the belly and take out the vein. Wash thoroughly.

For 3 cups of cleaned shrimp,
Mango slices (I buy frozen mango slices from Delight Brand, since it is difficult to get sour green mangoes in U.S) – cut into 2 inch. Mango should be sour. – 1 cup

Grind together 1 cup of fresh grated coconut, 1 tsp fenugreek seeds, 3 tsp red chili powder, 2 tsp coriander seeds, ½ tsp turmeric powder with enough salt. Grind to a fine paste with 1 cup of water.

Add the coconut paste to the shrimp and mango. Add 6 tsp of garlic diced, 3 tsp of ginger grated, 1/4 cup of shallots diced. Add enough salt and cook everything until it boils. Adjust to medium heat and cook for another 5 or 6 minutes uncovered.
Do not overoook shrimp.

1 tsp mustard seeds, 1 shallot diced thin and round, 1 spring of curry leaves, 2 whole dry red chili split into two. Sauté in 2 tsp of coconut oil when hot. Sauté until the shallots turn brown. Add to the dish.

Serve with rice.

Kovakka Thoran

Kovakka, Tindora, Ivy gourd – This vegetable has many names, but the fact remains is that it doesn’t taste as good as the other vegetables. Yes, Yes, I am on an honesty trip here.

Kovakka is malayalam for Ivy gourd.

First of all, ivy gourd when cut has a light film of sap (?) which makes it a little bitter/tough to munch on, fresh. Even if you bombard it with all your spices your hands can get, kovakka doesn’t absorb the flavors and would still taste a little bland.

But why eat it then? It is so good for you, there are even claims it is good for diabetes patients. It is a good source of beta carotene as well. In Thailand, this vegetable is promoted to grow in homes to control the vitamin A deficiency.Ivy gourd is termed an invasive weed in U.S. One of our friends tried to sneak in the plant from India and the customs got him. So he acted as if he doesn’t understand English when the U.S customs officer questioned about the plant.

Customs officer being an Indian himself, told him straight to his face, “Until now, I heard you speaking good English to your wife Sir, how soon you got amnesia?” hehehehe

So, there you are, don’t sneak in the plant to U.S territory. :-) . Don’t ask me, whether I have it, then you would have to explain and define the word “is” (Courtesy: President Clinton).

Anyway, one friend gave me this wonderful recipe which will make any kovakka-haters swoon over it.

Wash the kovakka thoroughly in running water, cut off both the tips. Make two lengthwise cuts and then cut the kovakka into half making it eight pieces.

For 3 cups of cut kovakka,

Crush together, kudampuli or tamarind (1 inch size), ½ cup coconut, 6 shallots diced, 3 garlic pods diced, 4 green chilies, 1 sprig of curry leaves, ½ tsp turmeric powder and enough salt. Don’t grind it, just crush them in a pestle.

Mix this with the kovakka and add ¼ cup of water and keep in medium flame. When it is half cooked, add 2 cups of cooked small shrimps, mix it and cook again in low flame.

You can completely avoid the shrimp part if you are vegetarian, but non-vegans out there, the shrimp makes it too good :-)

When the mixture is dry, heat 2 tsp pf coconut oil, splutter ½ tsp of mustard seeds and add to this.Serve with rice.

Fresh Catch - Fish Fry

So, did you get anything? – I asked

Yeah – he said with a wide grin

My husband loves fishing. He is like a 10 year old boy when it comes to fishing. He would gladly resign from his job if he could and would do fishing every day. He and his friends wakeup at 3 a.m in the morning and would go fishing during certain seasons near a beach here. They catch so much fish, it lasts almost a year for us.

What is happier than getting it fresh? Making a fish fry instantly! It reminds me of my trips to the beautiful Kaveri Dam where street vendors with small kerosene stoves sell you fresh fried fish. Yumm…This is a very delicious recipe for fried fish.

Fresh caught fish - 2. Yeah, no compromise! (hehehe, rubbing some salt, eh?)
Clean the fish, pat dry and cut across lightly for the marinade to get into the fish.For two fish, Grind 2 tsp chili powder, ¼ tsp turmeric, 1/2 inch ginger, 2 sprig curry leaves, enough salt and 1 tsp lemon juice. Marinate the fish and keep aside for half and hour.Heat a pan, add ¼ cup oil, and keep heat in low to medium. Fry fish on both sides.Serve with lemon wedges. My husband loves it just like this as a main dish, so it reminds him of his favourite Bharat Seafood Resturant at Mumbai.

Sorry dear friends, I first had problems with Blogger Beta which made me crazy so wanted to take a break until it got resolved. But then, got lazy ;) Needed some days, when I didn’t have to worry about the camera or about a write-up to eat food :)

Fish and Mango Curry

Time for some yummy fish, folks?This was supposed to be my entry for the first Jihva for Mangoes.

If there is a dish that imparts the exact flavour of raw unripe mangoes, it is Fish with Mango Curry. People make this with sun dried unripe mangoes too. Yummm…that’s another taste altogether! Just like sambar, when you make fish curry, you need a little sourness to the curry. Some add tomatoes, kokum, kudampuli or something as wonderful as sour mangoes.I don’t know how many times my Dad has said this, but if he is at home when it rains in April, he would tell us kids, “You know at my home in our village, when it rains, the small mangoes would fall on the tiled roof and would create a lovely music note…tapa tapa…tapa…” and he would longingly look at the rain outside to immerse himself in nostalgia…and we kids would look at him with our wide open eyes and ask…"Really, then what happened?” He would instantly snap back to real life and would say, “Then? Then, nothing! The rain stopped”...and he would brush us off.
For 3 cup fresh fish slices, take 1 cup Mango Slices (Make sure they are sour) peeled and diced.

Grind together 1 cup of coconut, 2 tsp of coriander powder, 2 tsp of red chili powder, 1/4 tsp of fenugreek seeds, 1/2 tsp of turmeric powder to a smooth paste.

Mix this with the mango and fish slices. Add 6 or 7 green chilies diced, crushed ginger pieces 2 tsp, crushed garlic ¼ cup, 3 sprigs of curry leaves. Add salt.Add 2 cups of water to this and cook in medium flame.

The curry should be very thick. So add water accordingly.Heat 2 tsp of coconut oil, sauté 3 green chilies split, saute1 sprig of curry leaves and sauté 1 shallot diced very thin until it browns.Add this to the cooked fish curry.
Serve with Rice.

Tips: While making fish curry, select fleshy fish and scrub the skin with lemon juice and salt. Keep aside in a strainer for sometime. Also, always make 'thick' fish curry.

Momma Meme

“My mom is not a great cook...”

If she ever reads that, she is gonna kill me, literally, with one scornful look. haha. Hell hath no fury like my mother scorned :).

She would make sure we kids ate all kinds of vegetables, no fussing over that. She uses only the freshest vegetables and cooks them in minimal oil. She is very meticulous about it, almost like a nutritionist. If we ever say, “We don’t want this”, pat would come the reply. “I am not running a hotel here for you to order. Eat what I give you."

She is a super fast learner in everything from cooking to even using an instant messenger. She just looks at a dish and tries to make it, since too proud to ask someone for a recipe. Sometimes they are a big flop (but she would never admit it), and sometimes they are a major hit. If we ever say it is major hit, then she would try to teach the person who first made it. Hehehe.

She was a stay at home mom, but yearned to go out and work. She was brilliant in academics, but chose to take care of us little devils. She would wake up early at 4 in the morning and work, work, work until 12 midnight for us. But she made sure, we would hear about it every single day, especially at dinner time. She won’t let us waste a bit of rice or curry and we would have to completely wipe the plate clean.

“Your dad and I work hard for it.” Then one of us smarty pants would remark, “But you don’t work!”. Instantly, the person who made that smart aleck comment would realize, it would have been better, if he or she were born dumb.

She would never let us skip a meal. We can be mad and angry at the whole World and the outer World too, but she would spank us, if ever refused to eat. “Do you know how many kids are there on the streets waiting to get at least a morsel of this?” We were never ever allowed to even say, “I am not eating food today” at our home.

Food from outside was a big No at our house. “You don’t know how they make it. They sometimes spit in it”, she made us kids believe that for a long time. But still sometimes, we would love to have something from outside especially during train journeys. When a vendor approaches, we would longingly look at him and then our mom, like watching a tennis game. This will continue (sometimes the vendor also joins in) until he leaves and then she would make a face and roll her eyes at us.

She makes the best tea I have ever tasted and never been able to replicate. She loves teas, and she drinks up to ten glasses a day. It is like alcohol for her. If she is sad, she drinks tea. If she is happy, she drinks tea. That was the only thing she let us have from outside. “How come?” and the retort would be, “Tea is very hot, even if they spit, the water is boiled.

”She never served any alcohol, even wine, at our house. Even though all her brothers and other families enjoyed alcohol, it was a big na na at our home, only at our home. I too extracted that promise from my husband during the initial days of our marriage, much to the dislike of his and my friends. It is so hard to stay like that especially in U.S. So, it is official that, “No drinking at L.G’s house” :-), even though I have to listen to lengthy sermons from our friends on the benefits of it, during every party at our house.

The first thing she asks when we call her up is, “Mole, what did you eat?” I have this habit too and unconsciously ask my friends the same.

She makes the best fish curry in the World. We used to have fish curry in the morning (even with idlis), lunch and dinner. She was crazy about fish. She would say, “Malayalees and Bengalis have the most beautiful skin and eyes. Why? Because we eat fish!” Since we never saw anyone other than a Malayalee, we believed that until we all went outside Kerala :-)

She always waits for us all to finish eating (even now) and then sits down on the floor with her legs folded towards her chest (I have never seen her at the table) with her food in a steel plate with all the left overs. Usually, she gets the fish head or the bone part, since she would forcefully make us all eat the best parts. Then she slowly mixes the fish curry and rice with her fingers and instantly we all would circle her and ask, “Can I have one urula amma”. That is the best food I have ever tasted in my life.

My dad would scold us, saying. “Your mom hasn’t eaten anything from the morning. Stop digging in her meal.” and she would say with so much love in her eyes.
“aargghh....Daddy, they are kids. Never ask them to stop eating.”

This is my mom’s recipe for the best fish curry in the World. (Any objections to the word ‘World’ is overruled!)

Fleshy fish cut into 2 inch pieces – 3 cups
Shallots diced – ½ cup
Green chili diced – 4
Ginger diced – 1 tsp
Garlic diced – 6 cloves (if small Indian garlic, use 12 cloves.
Red Chili Powder – 2 tsp
Coriander Powder – 4 tsp
Black Pepper powder – 1 tsp
Turmeric – ¼ tsp
Kudampuli - 3 (Kudampuli is not kokum)
Curry leaves – 2 sprigs

Add salt and mix all the above in a pan along with the fish. Let it sit for 10 or 15 minutes.

Cook the fish in medium flame by adding 2 cups of thin coconut milk (or coconut milk without the cream).

Do not cover. When fish is cooked, take off from flame and add ½ cup of thick coconut milk or cream of the coconut milk. Cover.

Heat 3 tsp of coconut oil; splutter 1 tsp of mustard seeds, 1 tsp of diced shallots sautéed until brown and add 3 red chilies split and ½ tsp of fenugreek seeds. Add to the fish curry.Serve with love.(All the time I read about memes, I wanted to do one badly and when I was finally tagged by couple of people, I got so lazy...:-))

Thank you all (Garam Masala, Nabeela, Priya Bhaskaran, Vineela) for tagging me. Many thanks to Garam Masala for this meme

I have no idea whom to tag this. I wanted to tag Sarah at least, but she also was tagged. No chance to tag for late comers? Can I declare the meme ends here? :-)

Vanilla flavored shrimp

Yes, you read the title right.

Barabara's Spice is Right II challenge, was really interesting I put on my thinking cap, which I use very rarely.

I very much wanted to participate in Indira's JFI:Mangoes, but I was stupid. I thought I had to create the recipe on May 1st itself. And May 1st was such a bad day for me, if I got mangoes that day, I would have thrown at someone, instead of cooking with it.

So, this challenge I couldn’t just let it go. C'mon I said and I started to think of a spice. Yes! I hit on vanilla. I had some beans left from my last India trip.I am really hesitant to make a fool of myself and the last thing I like is to experiment with ingredients or 'create' recipes, since my past experiences haunt me still.

Vanilla is not native to Kerala. But it is now widely cultivated in Kerala for the past 15 or so years and it grows well in Kerala's climate. When Madagascar, the original world of Vanilla, flooded, Vanilla made many Malayalees instant millionaires.

It was pricier than Gold, and young men started to advertise in matrimonial columns as "Looking for bride, age 20-24, fair, brought up in a vanilla farm"(hehehe. Just kidding!)

Anyway I thought no one can even think of make something savory with vanilla. Well I was wrong as always. Just like I thought cinnamon can never be used as a sweet spice. I had to just google vanilla savory recipe and though not a lot, there were few I could find.

This recipe asked for king fish, I didn’t want to destroy an expensive king fish steak. I got shrimp for 5$.

And with shrimp I knew I couldn’t go wrong. If it doesn’t work, I know I can convert the shrimp to something else.So, here is the recipe I 'created'.2.5 cups of shrimp shelled, deveined and cleaned

Crushed dry red chilies - 8 dried red chilies or use as you prefer it (Don’t grind to a fine powder, just crush them in a coffee grinder)

Garlic pods diced thin - 4 tsp
Shallots diced thin - 4 tsp
Ginger diced thin - 1 tsp
Vanilla beans - 1 cut into pieces (Or use vanilla flavor – 1 tsp)
Balsamic Vinegar - 1/4 cup with 1/2 cup water
Tomatoes - 3 small diced
Heat 3 tsp olive oil, sauté garlic + ginger and shallot in that order.

Add tomatoes and vinegar and water. Cook the tomatoes. When tomatoes are cooked, add crushed chili and vanilla beans or flavor. Add shrimp and mix everything. Add salt.

Cover and cook until it boils and then open cover and let the vinegar water evaporate completely. This is a dry dish. Let everything get coated nicely on the shrimps.The thing is, the flavor of vanilla is so overpowering, the typical ginger garlic taste everything gets absorbed by the flavor of this vanilla, though I couldn’t find much taste difference.

It turned out real good. Hope you could see my delightful glee!This is an excellent appetizer or side dish. Serve with wine or some carbonated drink.Since I added a good amount of chili, it tasted hot, a little sweet and a little sour. The combination of balsamic vinegar and vanilla makes the aroma of vanilla a savory kind. (I think it is similar to cinnamon, how the aroma changes with sugar.)

The best part of the dish is the heavenly aroma which makes your husband get up from the couch and visit the kitchen (a rare thing!).

Red Fish curry (Kottayam Style)

Kottayam in Kerala is known as the land of lakes, letters and latex. To me, this beautiful town is all about ‘the red fish curry’ and Arundhati Roy.

This dish is a Kottayam or a central Kerala specialty. My mom however hates this fish curry. First reason is she doesn’t know how to make it, second we all love her 'special coconut fish curry' too much!

But, my dad loves this fish curry. He is nostalgic about it, since his mom used to make it and one time, one rare time, my mom tried this red curry but it flopped miserably. So I was on a mission to learn how to make this red fish curry to prepare it for my dad. Now, the hard part was, everybody makes it differently...add a little that too, they would say and it changes the fish curry completely.

Anyway I tested this fish curry umpteen times, I was brave enough to serve it to my dad, last time I went back home and he loved it! Well, that’s all it matters and that’s the recipe I am going to write. He told me “Just like my mom used to make" What more does a daughter need in life?

He wanted me to prepare it for next day lunch also. But, the next day something happened to our kitchen sink and the water had stopped. But my dad told me, "If you will make that fish curry one more time, I will carry the big syntex water tank to the kitchen"...Well...well...well...My envious sister is trying to learn how to make this now…hehehe...Red Fish curry Fish slices (Use fleshy ones like king mackerel/king fish, mackerel, pomfret, pompano, snapper etc). Cut into 3 inch pieces. (At our fish store here, they will cut into "curry pieces", yes, that’s what they ask, "steak or curry")

Wash the fish 5 or 6 times in water and rub with salt and keep aside for 15 or 20 minutes so the water will run from the fish pieces. Discard the water and wash the fish again. Some people take the skin out of every fish, but I don’t. I just rub it really really clean with a sharp knife and rub salt nicely on the pieces.

For 4 cup of fish pieces , (I got fresh pompano,which looks like a fatter version of pomfret)
Red chili powder - 1.5 tsp
Paprika - 1 tsp (Now don’t ever buy Laxmi brand paprika, it is a total waste). I don’t use paprika anymore, I get the Waynad brand red 'piriyan' chili which is bright red in color but is not that hot. Or grind to a fine powder, the outer skin of dried chilies without the seeds. This is for the bright red color for the curry.
Pepper – ¼ tsp
Fenugreek – ¼ tsp (Roast dry and powder)Kudampuli – 4 pieces sliced and immersed in 1/4 cup of water
Red onion – 1/2 cup diced thin and short
Ginger – 1 tsp
Garlic – 5 tsp
Curry leaves – 3 or 4 sprigs.

Slice and crush ginger and garlic. Mix together the chili powder, paprika, pepper powder, fenugreek and ¼ tsp turmeric and add little water to make it a thick paste.

Heat 2 tsp of coconut oil, sauté the onions well, sauté ginger and garlic, add the paste and in low flame, sauté the paste for 3 minutes. Add the kudampuli with the water; add the curry leaves and the fish pieces. Mix the pieces with the paste and the mixture. Add 1 cup of water. It is very important you prepare in a shallow pot or a mannchatti so that you don’t need to add water. Add salt and adjust.

Remember you have rubbed the fish pieces with salt,so dont add too much salt.

Cover and cook until the water boils, then simmer the heat until the fish pieces are done. There should not be much gravy for this curry. Rotate the pot once or twice, while cooking, so that fish pieces will be covered with the gravy.
Serve it with rice. Yummy! This curry actually tastes excellent the next day. So if you are planning for dinner, prepare it in the morning.

For that fishy smell in your hands,this is really good. I tried. It is available at Bed,Bath and Beyond too. I have no idea how it takes the stink out of your hands.

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.

Mussel Fry

Names: Mussel Fry/ Kallumakkay varattiyathu / കല്ലുമ്മക്കായ് വറുത്തത്/ kakka erachi ulathu?

My mom used to make this Mussel fry regularly at home and we all used to love it so much. Then one fine day, my brother had an allergic reaction to it and there goes this lovely dish out of the window and my mom never made this, even when we, rest of the kids pleaded. Need any other reason to hate your brother?If you are from Kerala you would love fish in any forms. Mussels are very sensitive creatures and any impurity in the water, it will die. So it is said that the water is very good where mussels are growing abundant.

Here in U.S, I buy frozen mussels, since fresh mussels are so expensive. If buying fresh mussels, make sure you don’t buy any open ones. Open ones should be discarded.Immerse and boil the one bag of mussels (one bag has two packets or around 50 mussels) of mussels have two with the shell in water with 1/4 tsp turmeric powder, 2 tsp vinegar, and salt.

After they open or in boiling water for 7 to 10 minutes, take out and discard the shells and take out only the flesh from inside. It will come up to one cup.Heat 3 tsp of any frying oil, splutter mustard seeds, sauté 2 tsp ginger and garlic crushed, curry leaves, one red onion(until brown) and 3 green chillies diced , add mussels, and then on to it, add 3 tsp freshly ground pepper, one tsp meat masala, 1 tsp oil. Sauté for 5 or 6 minutes until dry.You can add thin slices of coconut if you want to. Sauté them after onion.