A south Indian home style fish curry – Simple and finger licking good! 🙂
Kuzhambu means curry in Tamil and Meen means fish. There are different styles of meen kuzhambu. But this one is simple with nothing to grind and feels like home. Some dishes are really comfort food. It differes from person to person. But I guess for many, it is biryani and meen kuzhambu. Fish curry is very spicy and it has rich flavor. Traditionally it’s cooked in clay or earthen pot, where the fish is cooked in spicy gravy of onions, tomatoes, tamarind and spices sautéed in sesame oil. It’s a classic dish with intense flavors. Eating this would never stop them from licking their fingers Really!!!!
Cooking this dish in earthen pot is the highlight of the dish and it really enhances the taste. But I don’t think I can do that from Canada. So if you are from India or any place where you can do with the earthen pot, please do so Clay pot will absorb the excess water and that clay pot will make sure that anything you cook in clay pot is not spoiled. You will know the difference once you start cooking in clay pot, it makes great difference.
The dish is usually rested for some time and then eaten as it helps the fish in absorbing the flavors into it and makes it more juicy and soft. On healthy note, fishes are rich in iron, calcium; provide good vitamins with less carbohydrate and cholesterol. It makes wonderful addition to any nutritious diet and is always better than eating meat or poultry.
I made this in the weekend with the coconut butter chicken roast for my friends who came home. 😀 It was so easy to make. I have one more fish curry – Chettinadu fish curry recipe which is really tasty too but I have to grind few ingredients. So this one was more simple and easy to make.
Taste great with spinach with lentils (Spinach dal). Take a cup of hot rice and warm fish curry, mix well and serve with fish fry as side dish or spinachdal or spinach molagootal.
- Sesame oil – 4 tbsp
- Mustard seeds – 2 tsp
- Fenugreek seeds – 1 tsp
- Red chilli whole - 3
- Curry leaves – 2 springs
- Shallots – 15, chopped finely
- Tomatoes - 2, chopped finely
- Green chillies – 3, slit
- Garlic – 4
- Tamarind paste – lemon size (use 3 cups of water)
- Turmeric powder – ½ tsp
- Chilli powder – 3 tsp
- Coriander powder – 5 tsp
- Coriander leaves – 1 bunch
- Crushed peppercorns – 3 tsp
- Coconut milk – ½ cup
- Jaggery – a tsp.
- Salt – as needed
To Marinate: - Fish – ½ kg
- Turmeric powder – 1 tsp
- Lemon juice – 2 tsp
- Soak tamarind in warm water (3 cups), extract pulp and keep aside.
- Clean fish and marinate the fish in turmeric, salt and lemon juice under “marinate” section. Keep aside.
oimg src="https://www.relishthebite.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Fishcurry-1.jpg"] - Add oil in a pan, add mustard seeds, and allow it to splutter. Then add fenugreek, red chilli, curry leaves, asafetida and sauté well. Now add the onions,green chillies and garlic. Sauté for two - three minutes, then add the tomato and sauté till the raw smell leaves.
- Now chilli powder, turmeric powder and coriander powder. Sauté for a minute till the raw smell leaves.
- Now add the tamarind pulp when the masala is thick. And add required salt. Allow it to boil for 20-25 minutes.
- When oil gets separated and it is thick, add the marinated fish pieces. Allow it to boil for five minutes. Make sure you add the fish only when it is thick.
- I usually don’t boil for more than five minutes. Now add the crushed pepper. Add little more curry leaves and coriander to garnish.
- And add the coconut milk and jaggery, and in a minute when it boils, you switch off the flame.
- Serve after an hour at least. That will help the fish to get cooked well.
- Garnish them with coriander leaves.
2. Give resting time for at least an hour or two. It even taste better the next day.
3. Try to use sesame oil as it gives great flavours to this curry in specific.
Have this with hot rice with side dish as fish fry, spinach stir fry or chicken fry or pepper egg roast.
That pot is beautiful! It sets off the stew so well and it’s interesting to read about the benefits of cooking in clay.
Thank u 🙂
Hey Suki – I’m in Germany. Any particular boneless fish you suggest. Also instead of using shallots. Can one use red onions and if so how many? Thanks!
I am not sure about the names 🙂 I have tried salmon & tilapia only 🙂 yeah surely you can use red onions. However shallots give you special taste.
Thank you so much
Howdy! This article couldn’t be written much better! Looking through this post reminds me of my previous roommate! He constantly kept preaching about this. I’ll send this information to him. Pretty sure he’s going to have a very good read. I appreciate you for sharing!|
I went through many different Kuzhambu recipes, but this one is the easiest and good. It is not easy to get fresh coconut here in Japan so that using coconut milk is far easier and also provides stable result when I repeat.
Thank you so much :)!
Feels yummy from the very sight
Thank you Bhagya 🙂
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Thanks a lot for the step by step directions. kuzhambu turned out yummy.
What fish do you cook with?
Each time I cook with different fishes. Even salmon or any fish works well with it!
I’m not a great cook typically, but this turned out so good! Thank you 🙂
🙂 Cooking is not rocket science 🙂 You can surely do great job always 🙂 Thank you Jerusha
I was hesitated to add jaggery but just give it a shot n added lesser pepper but turn out good. Thank you for the post.
Thank you so much ANu for trying 🙂 glad you liked it 🙂
Wat abt the tamarind..how mch amount do u soak?
Hello Noorunisa, I have used a lemon size with 3 cups of water which is like i found say 3 tbsp of tamarind paste in 2 cups of water.
I tried cooking fish curry for the first time. An excellent recipe that impressed my wife and my in laws…. Thank you so much.
Thank u so much 🙂 glad you liked it
Superbbbbbb….
Thank you!
Wow, this was absolutely amazing, haven’t had a better fish curry, love the spiciness of this dish, thank you. Just a few tips for others, I have used Gernurd and Hake as my fish, works perfectly. If you can’t find Jaggery you can use Palm Sugar as a substitute. If you struggle to find Shallots a good substitution is 1 medium size onion and a teaspoon of garlic to replace every 4 Shallots. 🙂
🙂 Thank you ross for the extra tips 🙂
hello Suki thank u for sharing such a wonderful recipe
it is very easy to cook
Today I made this curry it is very yummy
my papa liked it
can you share crab curry as well I really liked the way you have described the recipe
thank u so
HAPPY NEW YEAR TO U AND UR FAMILY 2018 dear
Thank you Dimple. 🙂 Sure 🙂 even I wanted to make crab curry for a long time!!! 🙂 I will try to do it soon! 🙂
what a fantastic recipe. i tried myself .cameout nicely.taste was superb. i used to make assam fish curry kerala fish curry and was looking for authentic tamilanadu fish curry. it is so simple and easy .even bachelors can make it. one important thing is even my mother praised the taste because she makes very tasty fish kolambuzhu.
Thank you so much 🙂 Siva. Thanks for letting me know 🙂 Yeah..I know 🙂 Hard to get appreciation from Mom’s.
After 10 years of marriage and different recipes of Fish Curry, both my mum and husband have given thumbs up for this recipe!
Thanks and really enjoyed the fish curry 🙂
Thank You Sharm 🙂 !!! Glad your family loved it!
Most awesome curry. Thanks for sharing the recipe. Made it several times. It’s always a hit!