My Malaysian Fish Dish Recipe

Instead of queuing up for fresh fish and prawns today, and paying a fortune, I cooked this Malaysian Fish Dish curry for dinner tonight for the two of us, and it was delicious, and there are leftovers tomorrow to look forward to. This recipe is a riff on a family recipe I found the other day, handwritten on a piece of paper in one of my Mother's recipe books. 

I'm pretty sure this is one of the dishes she cooked when there was a party being planned or visitors were coming for dinner. It's a cinch to make, using simple ingredients, yet packed with flavour. 

Exotic herbs and spices were hard to come by when I was living at home, a bit like flour, sugar, and toilet paper are now. Instead of making our own curry powder, Clive of India or Keens worked well, and they still do.  However the other two ingredients which give this recipe it's amazing flavour are the Mango Chutney and the dried ginger. I use my homemade chutney however if you don't have any, a good fruit chutney will do. We are also lucky enough to have fresh ginger growing in our backyard and so the ginger we have dehydrated and ground up ourselves is what I use.

I enhanced the earthy curry flavour by adding a handful of fresh curry leaves. We have a large tree growing in our back yard, and I use the leaves whenever I can when I cook. It is an attractive tree and provides a good privacy screen as well, but it does need to be pruned regularly. If you don't have any growing you can easily leave it out of this recipe, however bunches of curry leaves can generally be found at Farmer's markets, or if you know any families living near by who are from India or Sri Lanka, it is highly likely that they have a curry tree growing in a pot or in their backyard as it is an essential ingredient in Indian home cooking. I realise though that now is not the time to approach people uninvited. I also added some fresh tomato to the original recipe which gives a lovely flavour and some colour to the dish.

 Let's cook:

Ingredients:
Serves 4
Preparation time: 15 minutes

1 tin of Pink or Red Salmon (Pink is much cheaper)
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup butter
2 teaspoons curry powder
Handful fresh curry leaves
1 teaspoon powdered ginger
1 teaspoon powdered or granulated garlic
1 chopped large fresh tomato
4 tablespoons mango or other fruit chutney
2 cups full cream milk
1 chopped large red fresh chilli for some extra heat (optional)
White pepper and salt to taste
Coriander or garlic chives for garnish (optional)
Serve with rice

Method:

Melt the butter in a pan on the stove, and add the curry leaves and lightly fry for a couple of minutes. Add the flour to the butter to make a roux.
Add the curry powder, mango chutney, and the milk.
Simmer this mixture on a low heat and stir for 3 minutes while it thickens.
Stir in one chopped tomato.
Add the Salmon, Garlic, Ginger, Pepper and Salt and stir together.
Add more milk if necessary until it is the right consistency.
Season with salt and white pepper to taste.
Serve with lemon wedges, chopped mild chilli and rice.



During challenging times like this simple home cooking suits the budget and makes mealtimes with the family very enjoyable. 
Happy Easter and enjoy whatever it is you are doing at home. 
Thanks for dropping by.

Best wishes,
Pauline