Karimeen Pollichadhu – A kerala fish recipe

My husband likes to go to tour often. He visited many places before our marriage with his friends, and he used to say me that his favorite place is Kerala. He said he had this awesome dish in a restaurant along with kerala rice(Brown rice) and he said he instantly fell in love with this dish. Now, after marriage he was insisting me for a long time to do this recipe, and Yes!! I got a time to do it.

Wowwww.. Really it was awesome with that coconut oil and the banana leave flavor, the coconut milk taste with the fried fish, O…M…G… It was so delicious. It was so filling and very tasty. Believe me you will definitely love this dish.

After that attempt, once when both of our parents came home recently, I prepared it and they wowed me!! lol… Everyone liked it soo much.. If you are a fish eater, you MUST try the recipe at least once.

Karimeen is a type of kerala fish. It is called as Pomfret Pearl Spot in english and vaval/ patta meen in tamil. This dish can be done with any type of fish but it will add taste if you use the traditional karimeen.

Let us see how to make Karimeen Pollichadhu. Welcome to my kitchen!!

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4 main steps to prepare this recipe:

1. Fry fish – Explaining the quantity of ingredients for 1 fish
2. Prepare Gravy
3. Fold in banana leaf
4. Cook the whole dish

Ingredients:

Step1 : For Fish fry Marination:

1. Chilly pwd – 1 tsp
2. Garam Masala – 1 tsp
3. salt – as required
4. turmeric pwd – 1/2 tsp
5. Lemon juice – 2 tsp

Step2 : For gravy:

1. Onion – 1 large chopped finely
2. Tomato – 1 large chopped finely
3. Chilly – 1 chopped finely
4. Galric – 3 pods chopped finely
5. Ginger – 1 inch chopped finely
6. Chilly pwd – 1 tsp
7. corriander pwd – 1 tsp
8. turmeric pwd – 1 tsp
9. Salt – as required
10. coconut milk – 1/4 cup thick, first milk
11. Lemon juice – 2 tsp
12. coconut oil – 5 tsp
13. kadugu/Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
14. Jeeragam/ cumin seeds – 1 tsp
15. curry leaves – 1 string, chopped finely
16. corriander leaves – a handfull, finely chopped.

Step 3 : For folding in banana leaf:

1. Prepared gravy
2. Fried fish
3. Banana leaf(Cut into pieces to suit to roll/tie your fishes individually)
4. Thread – to tie all together

Step 4: To cook the parcel

1. A non stick pan with lid or dosa tawa with something to cover it.
2. Prepared parcel from step 3.

 

Method:

1. Marinate the fish with the ingredients mentioned above in “Step1 : For Fish fry Marination:”. Keep it aside for 1/2 hr to 1 hr. Lets prepare the gravy in the mean time.
2. In a vast kadai, add 3 tsp of coconut oil, kadugu, jeeragam, curry leaves, onion, green chilly, ginger and garlic one by one and saute till the onions are cooked.
3. Add the finely chopped tomatoes.
4. Once the tomatoes are mashed and cooked well, add chilly pwd, corriander pwd, turmeric pwd, salt, garam masala and saute till the raw smell goes off.
5. Add little water (very little, we need the gravy to be thick) to cook the masalas together.
6. Once done, add coconut milk and saute for few min until it becomes thick.
7. Finally add 2 tsp of lemon juice and finish the cooking with the remaining coconut oil. Saute well till u get a tick gravy.
8. Once the gravy is ready, fry the fish in a tawa on both the sides and keep it ready.
9. Now that our fish fry and gravy are ready, we are going to pack it as a parcel.
10. Take a  banana leaf (According to your fish size, you should be able to cover the whole fish with the banana leaf without gap)
11. Heat the leaf on the stove top with minimum flame, so that the leave is now soft enough to be folded. (If u skip this step, the banana leaf will break when u fold the leaf over the fish. we dont want that, so better heat the leaf before folding)
12. Take the leaf.. Place some gravy in it… Place the fish over it… again keep some gravy over the fish(so that the fish is completely covered in gravy)… Close the leaf like a parcel (pottalam, like mom used to prepare during long journey)… Tie it with the thread.
13. Heat the non stick tawa and just place this parcel in it (no need of oil or water). Cover the tawa with it’s lid. Leave it for 5 min.
14. After 5 min, open the lid, turn the parcel to the other side and close the lid. Let it cook for 5 more min.
15. Switch off the stove, cut the thread and serve along with the banana leaf.

We were very hungry and eager to eat it, so had no time for elaborated picture. I will take a clear pic next time and I will replace this one. Thanks for your understanding 😀 😀 😀

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