Mouri Parshey

(Parshey Fish in a Fennel based gravy)

Parshey is SD’s favourite and everytime the fish is available in the Sunday Fish Market, it would be bought and brought home!

And on most occasions, I make it in the simplest method using kalojeera, shorshe bata etc et…

Today after having marinated (in salt & turmeric paste) for 5-10 minutes and lightly frying the fish, just as I was about to pour oil for proceeding with the gravy, I wondered why not try something different! I dug into my bookshelf and pulled out an almost unused book I’d bought years ago….. ‘Moner Moto Ranna-Sananda Sankalan’ (A compilation of recipes by Sananda…a Bengali women’s Magazine)

Searching for Parshey, I found an uncommon yet easy recipe where I had at home ALL the ingredients!

So here goes the recipe which was for 4 Parshey (I presume they were BIG sized ones). Since I had 500gm of small sized Parshey, I modified the quantities accordingly…..

Ingredients :

1. Small Parshey Fish – 500gm

2. Fennel paste – 2 tbsp ( I used 2 tbsp fennel seeds)

3. Green Chili paste – 1 tbsp (I used 2 long green chillies)

4. Ginger Paste – 1 tbsp

5. Turmeric powder – ½ tsp

6. Red chilli powder – ½ tsp

7. Kashmiri chili powder – ½ tsp

8. Plain curd – 1 cup (160ml)

9. Salt – to taste

10. Sugar – ½ tsp

11. Tej Patta -2

12. Fenugreek (Methi) – ½ tsp

13. Dry red chili (whole) – 2

14. Mustard Oil – 4-5 tbsp

Procedure :

1.Tossed the cleaned fish in a tsp of Turmeric & pinch of salt and lightly fried them and kept aside

2. I used my small chutney jar to make a moist paste with the fennel seed & green chilli

3. I took the plain curd and added the fennel (mouri) + green chilli paste and other ingredients given at Sl.Nos 4-10 (of ingredients). Mixed the curd and masala to a smooth paste.

4. In a wok poured the oil and once hot, seasoned with Tej pata, Whole Dry red chilies and methi.

5. I added the curd & masala mix and fried it well till the oil had separated from the masala.

6. Added the fried Fish and sprinkled about ½ bowl of water. Covered it and cooked for abt 5 minutes (or till it comes to a boil) on medium flame. The gravy should be thick. Garnish with a few slit green chilies.

Serve it witn hot steamed rice!!!

This is my 2nd entry to the Blog event ''THINK SPICE:THINK TURMERIC", hosted for Nov '09 by Sudeshna of COOK LIKE A BONG and the Think Spice event is the brainchild of Sunita of Sunita's World .

The logo for the event is...