South Indian Fish Curry

This is a lovely dish that we discovered on a trip to Cochin buying and sourcing spices, we have been back many times and always choose this dish, we make it at home using monkfish and/or prawns, but it will work well with most firm white fish.

To serve 4 people I would use a whole monkfish tail and about a dozen fresh raw large prawns.

Hawkshead Relish Hot Garlic Pickle

Hawkshead Relish Mango Chutney

1 Onion Chopped

1 Monkfish tail cut into bitesized pieces

12 whole large fresh prawns

1 carrot chopped into small batons

handful of small green beans - trimmed

6-10 curry leaves

1 tin of coconut milk

It is very quick to make this recipe, you can prepare the sauce and leave it at the point where you add the fish so that when you are ready to eat you can heat the sauce and the fish and serve.

Blend a little oil with a couple of teaspoons of the Hot Garlic Pickle (if you don't want it to be too hot just use one teaspoon), make it into a soft paste. add the onion and allow the onion to take on the flavour of the spices and soften but not brown, add the carrot and the beans and some curry leaves if you can get them, don't worry if you can't.

Once all the vegetables are coated add the coconut milk and allow the pan to simmer for about 10 minutes for the flavours to blend and the carrot to soften.  (At this point you can cool the sauce until you are almost ready to eat.)

Add the prawns and the monkfish, if you have kept the monkfish in larger pieces I would add this first and let them start to cook before adding the prawns, the monkfish will go white when the flesh is cooked and the prawns will turn orange, don't let either of the fish overcook as they will become rubbery, 3-4 minutes cooking time should be enough.

Serve with Basmati Rice, Naan bread and Hawkshead Relish Mango Chutney