Recipe : Tandoori Salmon with Indian Spiced Salad & Almonds

Tandoori Salmon with Indian Spiced Salad & Almonds is not a dish you would find on a restaurant menu per se, its something I've been fiddling with for awhile and I'm finally really happy with the results, so I'm sharing it with you.

You can make this in small portions as an appetiser (with or without the salad) or turn it into a main course. It does not need any carb on the side, so this works well for anyone on a no-carb / low-carb / keto diet too

Salmon or trout works best for this recipe, the masalas are too strong for delicate fish.

Tandoori Salmon

4 boneless slices of salmon (see picture for reference)

1-2 pinch of salt

2 tbsp lemon juice

2-3 tbsp tandoori masala

red chilli powder to taste (optional, if your tandoori masala isn't spicy enough)

2 tbsp ginger garlic paste

4 tbsp yoghurt/thick curd

Method:

Clean fish well and descale.

Coat in lemon juice and salt for at least 15 minutes and throw away all the water that comes out.

Marinate in a mix of tandoori masala, red chilli powder, ginger garlic paste and yoghurt/curd.

Keep in fridge as long as you need. I left it marinating for 3 days I think.

Preheat oven to 220C (200C for fan)

I like to line the pan with foil when making fish, so the fishy smell doesn't remain in the pan - I use the same pan for baking biscuits and scones.

Lightly coat the pan or foil with oil and place the fish skin side down.

You need 4-6 minutes of baking time per half inch thickness of your fish slice on the middle rack.

Keep an eye on it. You don't want it overcooked.

If you keep it on the top rack and turn the grill on for the last few minutes, you will get a nice brownish crust.

Kim's Tip:

If you can't be bothered with turning on the oven, or you don't have an oven, just pan fry it in a little oil.

Salad:

The salad here is a simple mix of rocket, watercress and baby spinach leaves with very thinly sliced onions.

250 gms salad leaves

1/2 medium onion sliced and marinated in a tsp of lemon juice. (while you are getting the other ingredients ready)

Dressing:

The dressing is hazelnut (you can use olive) oil, lemon juice, salt, freshly crushed black pepper and 1-2 drops of balsamic vinegar - because I like the sweetness it gives.

1 tbsp oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

pinch of salt

1/2 tsp freshly crushed black pepper

1-2 drops of balsamic vinegar

You can add chaat masala or black salt to the dressing if you want a stronger Indian flavour in the dressing, but remember to adjust for salt.

Assembly :

Mix the salad leaves and onions in a bowl.

Shake or whip the dressing till it emulsifies and mix into the leaves.

Portion out into individual plates.

Lay the hot salmon on top.

Sprinkle with sliced almonds

This is another version of the same dish, plated in a large bowl rather than individually. the dressing here was an onion raita and I used roasted pine nuts in the garnish

Recipe : Kolhapuri Chicken Curry & Dry Kolhapuri Masala

The trick to making Kolhapuri Chicken Curry is in having a good quality Dry Kolhapuri Masala. However, this is difficult to source outside of Maharashtra, but don't worry you can make some yourself. I keep my excess masala in the fridge and use it as a vegetable powder or general spice mix when cooking later on. It keeps well for more than a month.

If you have the spice mix, its reasonably easy to cook this recipe, but be warned, this dish takes a little time. However the end result is worth it.

Dry Kolhapuri Masala
5 dry red chillies (preferably Kolhapuri Chillies or any spicy chillies will do)
3 tbsp red chili powder (for additional heat)
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds (jeera)
2 tbsp dessicated coconut (kopra)
1 tsp white sesame seeds (til)
1/4 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
1/4 tsp nutmeg (jaiphal) grated / powder
1/2 tsp poppy seeds (khus khus)
2-3 bay leaves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1/4 inch cinnamon stick
2 cloves
1/4 cup coriander seeds

Method:
In a heavy bottomed pan,roast each of the ingredients separately (except the spice powders, those are pre-roasted before powdering and will burn) on a low flame, without burning.
Cool the ingredients and blitz in a food processor / grinder.
These quantities should give you about a katori of spice powder.

Ingredients for the Curry:
1/2 kg chicken
2 tbsp oil
2 large onions sliced thin
1 tbsp ginger garlic paste
1 1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves (dhaniya)
1 1/2 cup coconut milk
salt to taste
coriander leaves for garnishing


Marinade
4 tbsp yogurt / dahi / curd
1/4 tsp turmeric powder (haldi)
3 tsp red chili powder
3 tsp dry kolhapuri masala

Method :
Mix all the marinade ingredients to a smooth paste and marinate the chicken in the mixture for an hour or overnight or even a couple of days in the refrigerator. (if you marinate meats over the weekend for the coming week, this is a good one, but remember to bring the meat back to room temperature before cooking.)

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a pan, add the sliced onions and ginger garlic paste. Fry till the onions are browned.
Remove from heat and let it cool.

Once the onion mixture has cooled, blitz it in a food processor / mixi / grinder with the 1.5 cups coriander leaves until smooth.

Heat the other tbsp of oil in the same pan and fry the marinated chicken in this.
(Don't add the marinade to the pan right now, we will add it later)
Fry the chicken for about 10 - 12 minutes in the pan on medium to high heat. Keep stirring gently to prevent sticking.
Add half the ground masala to the pan and fry till it starts reducing.

Then add the remaining masala and leftover marinade.
Cover and cook till chicken is done.
Now add the coconut milk and cook a little longer.
Adjust salt to taste
Garnish with coriander leaves before serving.

Serve hot with phulkas, chapatis or bhakri.
You can also serve it with rice,  and if you want a thinner curry, add more water or coconut milk.

Also in the thali is Maharashtrian Chawli Usal & Groundnut Chutney.

Variation :
You can use this recipe to make egg curry too.
Hard boil 6 - 8 eggs, peel, make 2-4 small slits on the boiled eggs and put them in the marinade.
Don't fry the eggs, the way you would the chicken. (it will make the eggs hard on the outside)
Start by directly cooking the masala and when almost cooked, add the extra marinade and cook till done.
Then add the marinated eggs and give a boil till the raw smell goes.
Now add the coconut milk and garnish with corriander leaves.

Kitchen Essentials: Gujarati Fresh Masala

When reviewing Banu Hajratwala's - Gujarati Kitchen, I decided to cook Chaap Ne Bataka Roast - Roasted Lamb Chops with Potatoes. To make this, I needed 3 tbsp of Gujarati Fresh Masala. This recipe was also included in the book.

While the original recipe (page 45) makes 6 cups of masala that can be refrigerated for 6-8 weeks or frozen for longer, I wasn't sure whether I would be cooking that much Gujarati food to justify grinding such a large quantity.

However Ms Hajratwala had also conveniently included the quantities to make 3 tbsp of masala. Most of her recipes that require fresh masala, need 3 tbsp for a 2 person portion and 6 tbsp for 4 people.

Since I was making such a small quantity, I did not want to bring down my mixi (I have a really tiny kitchen here in Guwahati and there is no space to keep the rotimaker, mixi and other essentials on the kitchen work surface, so these are all stored in high up ladder accessed cupboards to be used only if absolutely essential) So I used my Thai mortar and pestle and it worked perfectly. The Thai Mortar and Pestle somehow manages to grind pastes much finer than any Indian mortar and pestle that I have used.

I substituted the oil in the fresh masala with olive oil and the lemon juice with  apple cider vinegar and it tasted wonderful, I see myself grinding this in larger quantities to use in other recipes too. It tastes lovely and is wonderful as a marinade for any kind of meat. I can use this as frequently as I use my Manglorean staple of meet mirsang.

For 3tbsp fresh masala, I ground together
5 garlic cloves (since my cloves were small)
2" ginger
8 fresh green chillies
1.5 tsp turmeric powder
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice

While I've added the oil and lemon juice in the picture above, before pounding, I always recommend adding wet ingredients last, after the masala is pounded, when pounding by hand - otherwise you will have to deal with a lot of splashing.

Recipe: Manglorean Stew Powder

Stew Powder is a Manglorean staple. Not only is it used in making the famous Manglorean mutton stew, it is often used in multiple other recipes. It is often used as a substitute for pepper powder in recipes, as its main component is black pepper.

This is another powder that mum grinds fresh at home almost every month, except during the monsoons.

Ingredients:
4 heaped tbsp cumin seeds
250gm black peppercorns
5 inches turmeric (I substitute with a tbsp of turmeric powder as it is difficult to grind whole turmeric in my powdering attachment in the food processor)
10 cloves
10" cinnamon

Method:
Dry all the ingredients in the sun for 1-2 days (since we aren't pre-roasting the spices, they need to be properly dried so that your powder will last longer on your spice shelf.

Powder and use when required.

The powder keeps for upto a year or more. I normally have a large bottle in a cool spot in my spice cupboard and take out as much as I need for the month in a smaller bottle.

If powdering freshly at home doesn't work for you, prepare a fresh spice mix each time you need it.

Easy Version:
Mix together
4 tsps pepper powder
1/2 tsp cumin/jeera powder
a pinch of turmeric powder
a pinch of powdered cloves
2 pinches of powdered cinnamon
4 tsps

Kitchen Essentials: Meet Mirsang (Salt Chilli) Paste / Puli Munchi

Meet Mirsang is to Mangloreans, what Bottle Masala is to East Indians and Reichado to Goans. Ginger Garlic Paste doesn't even begin to compete. Every Manglorean Catholic household has their own recipe for Meet Mirsang and will always have a buyaon (Earthen-Ceramic Jar) full of it sitting in a cool corner of the kitchen or larder. The Manglorean Bunt Community has a similar masala called Puli Munchi which serves the same purpose.


The masala is ground without a drop of water and hence will keep for months on end, as long as you take the same precautions with it, as you do with home made pickles that are stored in cool cupboards.

The best Meet Mirsang is ground fine on a traditional grinding stone. I remember doing this as a child in my grandmothers house. This was the only masala for which I was forbidden to use my hand to scoop the masala back into central bowl (a technique essential to grinding on a traditional grinding stone) and had to use a katti (dried coconut shell) or a spoon.

The 2nd best option for grinding this paste is a tilting mixer grinder which still manages to grind the paste quite fine. The 3rd option which is sub-optimal but manageable in a modern kitchen is to soak the chillies in the vinegar overnight, so that it moistens the skins and seeds and makes it easier to grind in a regular mixi (food processor) in the morning.

Since the husband is not too keen on us lugging a 80-100 kilo grinding stone contraption across the world every year (he gets transferred practically each year), I survive by getting mum to grind me enough to last me for a couple of months, until my next trip home. (I hope to buy a tilting mixer grinder soon, but haven't yet found a good brand in Delhi.)

As I mentioned before, each family does have its own proportions and recipes, but basically this masala is a combination of red chillies, salt, vinegar, jeera (cumin) and turmeric.

Kashmiri Chillies turn the masala a lovely dark red and local Kundapuri or bedgi chillies are used to make the masala spicy. Again, the proportion of chillies used depends on each household. We love spice, so mummy uses about 95% spicy chillies and 5% chillies for colour.

The recipe below is just to give you a general idea of the proportions, but go ahead and tweak it to suit your own palate.


50 red chillies (dried - Kashmiri/bedgi or any other variety of your choice)

3 tbsp sea salt (or regular salt if you cannot get your hands on sea salt)
1 tsp jeera (cumin seeds)
1.5" turmeric or 1-2 tbsp turmeric powder
About 500-750 ml vinegar

Make sure all implements to be used are completely dry including the storage bottles.
Grind all the ingredients to a fine paste (consistency of ginger-garlic paste), slowly adding vinegar as needed.
Bottle and store in a cool corner of your kitchen and use when required.

Note:
Synthetic vinegar will preserve the masala longer, but you can substitute it with any organic/wine vinegar of your choice.
I know a friend who grinds this masala with tamarind (imli) instead of vinegar and stores the masala in the fridge.

Instant Meet Mirsang
If you just do not have the option to grind masala or have run out of meet mirsang and need it in a hurry.

Take 4 tbsps chilli powder
1/2 tsp jeera (cumin) powder)
pinch or 2 of turmeric powder
1/2 tsp salt
Mix well and slowly add vinegar till it forms a smooth paste (regular salt will dissolve in the vinegar)

This instant masala cannot be stored for too long, because the ingedients tend to seperate on storage, so mix just as much as you need and use it up immediately.

Meet Mirsang Fry
I will soon be posting recipes requiring this masala. But in general, it is used as a marinade for frying fish, sea food, chicken or vegetables (plaintain, jackfruit, breadfruit, brinjal). Apply masala on slices/pieces as required, marinate for awhile and then deep fry or shallow fry.

Meet Mirsang Coconut Curry
This masala can also be used as a base to make a coconut curry (when you don't have time to grind a fresh masala).
Saute some cuttings (any combination of onions/tomato/ginger/garlic/green chillies)
Add meet mirsang masala and fry for awhile, then add meat/fish.
When cooked, add coconut milk, give a light simmer and serve hot with rice or polis.

Caution:
Do not marinate vegetables for too long, they might turn too salty or sour depending on the potency of your masala and quantity used .
Meat can be marinated even overnight.
Too much vinegar and too much masala could potentially split coconut milk, so be aware of the tartness of your masala.

Further Reading:
How Grinding Stones are made around Mangalore

Kitchen Essentials: Tamarind (Imli/Puli/Amsan) Paste

There are some items, I just HAVE to have in my kitchen. Tamarind Paste/Pulp is one of them. Mum extracts fresh paste (from a tsp or so of tamarind) each time she cooks. But for me it makes more sense to pulp an entire ball (2-3kilos) and store it in the fridge.

My tamarind has always come from grandma's kitchen garden. At the right time of the year, tamarind pods are taken off the trees, the flesh is seperated from the pods and seeds and the flesh is then rolled into tight balls which dehydrate and become tighter as the days pass.

Grandma rolled some of the tamarind in salt, so it would keep longer. These balls were then distributed to her children and grandchildren when requested.

I prefer making my tamarind pulp from this to using store bought paste for the obvious reasons - purity & avoiding preservatives.

Its better to do this on a day when you have a few hours free to keep going back to your tamarind.
 
I prefer to pulp the whole ball at once, because it speeds up my cooking process.(I forgot to take a picture of the ball before starting. But its normally the size of  a cantaloupe.)

Place the ball of tamarind in a bowl (preferably non-metal), heat water in another bowl (if using tap water, boil thoroughly to kill as many micro organisms as possible and then cool)

Pour the hot water over the ball of tamarind to half its height. Let it soak for awhile. Then with a spoon try to disintegrate the ball. The more surface that is touched by water, the faster the process will go.

You may have to check on it multiple times to get the ball to completely split up. Add more water if you feel that it is getting too thick. When you have a reasonably thick pulp, strain the mixture through a seive. Bottle the strained pulp.

There will still be a lot of flesh attached to fibres. Put all this back in the original vessel and pour some more hot water on it. Repeat seive and water process till you feel you have extracted as much as you can from the tamarind.

The pulp should be the consistency of chocolate sauce or thicker as you can see above. If it is too thin, it could ruin the consistency of the dishes you add it to (ok, for curries, but not stir fries) And what is to be discarded will be completely dry.

If your last extract is very thin, then use that to make rasam or keep aside to use in a curry. Don't dilute the whole batch.

Bottle in a glass jar with a glass or plastic top (tamarind will react with anything metallic) preferably vaccum packed, especially if you have more than one bottle.

I keep this paste for 6months to 1 year in the fridge without any trouble and use as needed. If your tamarind ball doesn't have any added salt, you can add some to help lengthen the life of the Paste/Pulp.

The dry roughage/ waste of the tamarind is extremely good for polishing brass and copper items.

This is why I normally keep aside a whole day for making tamarind paste as I normally follow it up with a polishing session. Its as good or better than any store bought polish (+its natural +gentle on your skin +no breathing in harmful chemicals.)

Here is a Before after Picture :)

It needs just a little elbow grease.

Recipe: Nana's Sambhar Powder

This is my grandma's recipe. I actually haven't been able to cook any of her recipes since she passed away last year. I just feel incredibly sad and tears still roll down my cheeks when I remember her. I actually haven't cooked any Manglorean dishes as such, since she passed away. Its still too painful to refer to the notes I made when watching her cook. Food and cooking are so tied up with her and her memories.

So I've been using powders from my favorite flour mill back home which I carry with me after each trip home.

But this is Nana's recipe.

Ingredients:
7 kumti mirsang (long red chillies - crinkled) or 2.5 tbsps chilli powder
1 dessert spoon dhaniya (corriander) seeds or powder
1 tsp jeera (cumin) seeds or powder
1/2 tsp methi (fenugreek) seeds or powder
small piece turmeric or 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1/2 tsp mustard seeds or powder
1 sprig curry leaves or powder


Sambhar powder will taste best if you use the fresh seeds and powder them, but knowing how sometimes one doesnt have the time to powder everything fresh, she also gave me the substitutes.


The quantities are minute because she would prepare fresh powder each time before she cooked the dish. You can increase the quantities if you like. Because the ingredients are fried in oil, it may not last too long outside, better to keep it in the fridge if leftover.


Method:
Fry all ingredients in a little oil (just enough to provide a little lubrication) for 10-15 minutes till it lets out an  aroma
(if using powders put them in just before turning off the heat otherwise they will burn)

Powder in a mixi or coffee grinder

Grand Snacks and Sweets, Chennai

Totally inspired by the masala (blend of spices) given to us by our Tamilian friends Lux & Moorthy, I sent a shopping list to my mom who was visiting Madras for her visa. The parcel has just reached me. YIPPEE!

Karakuzhambu paste, onion thokku, pepper rasam masala, and that tamarind thing - is it Pulikachal?

Also she has sent me a bit of sambhar and rasam powder of theirs to try out.

I don't need to cook anything other than rice for the next one month. Hahahahaha

I'm so kicked with myself. Already tasted all of them. They are awesome!

If you want to buy some yourself or get it shipped to you, the address is:
#24
2nd Main Road,
Gandhi Nagar
Adyar
Chennai - 600020

Phone: 044-24914213

Read more about Grand Snacks & Sweets in The Hindu