Fish – Smriti "Simmi" D. Isaac

That’s right, no dietary restrictions needed to have fried fish on the menu; in fact, if you ask me, I’d love to have it any day at all, and the more the better. Well, I would if I could, but the way I like my fried fish requires a lot of time and effort, so it’s not as frequent as I’d like, but here’s some from last week when my mother was visiting.

I did all the marinating the night before– which was the most simple marinade of red chilli powder, pinch of turmeric, salt, lime juice, and garlic. The next day, my sweet mom dusted each of them in rice flour and shallow-fried them in a skillet.

Serve with rice and rasam, and it is a meal fit for a king. BTW, this is catfish cut up as steaks.

Well, if you’re a fish-lover (the eating kind, might I add), and if you happen to have origins in the Indian subcontinent, then you most likely will recognize the name of this fish: Rohu. It is not too dissimilar to the trout, and holds well to a variety of ways of cooking it. Very common where I originally come from, it is certainly heartening to find it here in our local supermarket in a small town in the Upper Midwest of the United States. The Bangladeshi butcher in the supermarket cuts it for me any which way I ask him to. And this time around, I asked for steak-style pieces, only, I wanted those halved. Which is what he did.

Well, regardless of the style of the cut, what’s even more important is how you choose to make it. Last evening, I felt like frying, for a change. And so, first things first, viz. marinating the fish steaks. And what might that marinade be, you say? I used the first five fantastic ingredients for the marinade, the next one to dust the pieces in, and the last one to fry them in. So, here goes:

Haldi (Turmeric)
Lal Mirch (Red Chilli Powder)
Namak (Salt)
Nimbu (Lime/Lemon Juice)
Lassan (Garlic paste)
Chawal Aata (Rice Flour)
Canola Frying Oil

Make a marinade with the first five items, toss your fish into it, and let it rest for atleast a couple of hours. Then, when you’re ready to fry, roll the pieces in a light coating of rice-flour and drop into a deep-fryer and fish them out when they’re golden brown. (yes, I know, I’m good with puns like that!)