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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Chettinad Meen Varuval (Chettinad fish fry)


Chettinad is known for its spicy curries especially the non vegetarian gravies and curries. The chettinad fish fry is no exception .The special masala applied for marinating gives the special taste. Since there is a little bit of extra masala in this recipe on the fish, if the fish is fried in a tawa or sauce pan the taste of the masala will be fully retained. If the fish is fried in oil some of the masala is likely to be lost in the oil. But either way the taste will be awesome.
While buying fish, make sure that it will be good for frying since some fishes stick to the tawa and break while frying.Such fishes will be good only for the gravy.I have used Vavval (Silver Pomfret )here.Vanjanam,Varal and sheela are some fishes that I know which are good for frying.



Ingredients for Marinating
Garlic-8 pods
Small onion-8
Small jeera-1 teaspoon
Fennel seeds-1 teaspoon
Pepper-1 teaspoon
Chili powder-1 tablespoon (can be decided according to quantity of fish)
Coriander powder-1 tablespoon (this also depends on fish quantity)
Salt-1 tablespoon



Grind all the items with little water and apply the masala on the fish pieces carefully one by one and marinate for 2 hours.If you have the time and patience fry them in a tawa.For that keep a flat bottom tawa in the stove .pour 2 teaspoon oil and when it gets heated tilt the tawa in such a way that oil gets spread evenly in the tawa. Now layer the fish pieces in the tawa.Keep the flame in medium. After 2 minutes pour little bit of oil over all the fish pieces. Keep the flame to low. After 5 to 6 minutes, with the dosa ladle slowly turn back the fish pieces. Pour little oil on top of the pieces again and fry for another 5 minutes.
If you have the luxury of taking fried food items then no need of any such strain. Keep 5 tablespoon oil in a small frying pan and deep fry the pieces one by one in medium flame.

16 comments:

Divya Palani said...

Awesome ! I made it and we loved it amma.

Solai Chidambaram said...

Thankyou dear.

Jothiranjini said...

I tried it and loved it.

lakshmi senthil said...

aunty all mouth watering recipes.. great job i will try all your recipes.. which will help to give traditional recipes to my husband.

Unknown said...

Hi.. can I make this recipe with cod? we don't get indian fish here in the U.S.

Solai Chidambaram said...

Give it a try Jupiter.

Sri said...

My husband and i made this today - and loved it! We ate it at lunch and dinner on a rainy day! Thank you so much for your blog- as a non tamilian married to a tamilian -your blog is my go to place for his favourite recipes!

Abhirami Muthu said...

Dear achi,
I would love to try your fish fry recipe.
What device do you use to grind the masala?
The blender (Kenwood brand) that i use requires a lot of water to grind everything into a smooth paste. Can you tell me what brand you use? Thank you

Solai Chidambaram said...

I use Butterfly mixi,Abi.If you add little water to the masala also wont cause any trouble.Marinate with that little watery masala.Any Indian brand will be fine.

Abhirami Muthu said...

Thanks for the reply achi, I am going to make it today with salmon.

Madhu Pravin said...

Prepared dis with Katla fish variety Aachi. It wasnt as tasty as Vanjaram.

Unknown said...

hai aachi,
thank u for posting tasty and healthy dishes. we belong to vegetarian family and we are in uae. but my husband will eat nonveg now and then in hotels. we want to feed our 2 years son with sea food. we want to give him sardine(mathi, salai)fishes. but whats the main problem is mull in the fish we both dont know how the remove that fully. in sardine i can remove the central spine easily but there are numerous mull near the skin of the fish and i dont know how to remove that. please tell me how to easily remove that after cooking or shall i feed that fish with that small mull to my son(he cant chew food he will just swallow)

Solai Chidambaram said...

chitra,There are a lot of fish varities with the centre bone alone.If u want to feed the baby then u have to go for those fishes.be careful while giving fish to the young one.Nicely feel it between your fingers to see there is no mullu before feeding the kid.

Unknown said...

Aachi I tried this today, the smell was really awesome but the masala didn't stick to fish. It was so greasy and after frying I felt the fish was so soft and in some places it was white. Can u tel me Wat mistake I did

Solai Chidambaram said...

Nottie,i think shallow fry will suit your taste.Try shallow frying the fish.

Natarajan said...

I tried it on two varieties of fish - cat fish -the taste was amazing in this kind not a lot of thorns, swai fish - this wasn't great as the fish got cooked faster than the masala around and the fish started breaking