Cookbook Cooking- The Bangala Table By Sumeet Nair, Meenakshi Meyyappan

 

Mustard Sauce Marinated Sauteed Pomfret from my kitchen for you. It’s a Monday today and happy to share a recipe from an Indian Cookbook “The Bangala Table-Flavours and Recipes from Chettinad” By Sumeet Nair, Meenakshi Meyyappan. You must have understood by now that the theme for this Monday is #cookbook-cooking.

With extensive insight about the Chettiars and their history at the very beginning, “The Bangala Table” had gotten me further to go through every single page of it to do away with my curiosity about the rich and diverse delicacies of Chettinad which reflects the rich heritage of the Chettiars.

An honest confession, even if I have quite a few traditional Indian cookbooks as part of my favourite cookbook collection currently, I feel I must be the laziest person ever to have even go through the recipe index except for three of them.

Cookbooks with events and memories are definitely the ones I enjoy reading the most. You can visualize the stories mentioned as you continue reading and remain glued till the end. You instantly get connected with the Author through the book.

I hardly remember getting fascinated by Ima’s collection of cookbooks because I had proudly collected and owned stock of the Sunday Graffiti, The Telegraph, India once way back in the late 1990s with recipes from one of my favourite Chefs a renowned person of that period.

The stock that had collected dust for many years were sold off by Ima one fine  day to the waste paper collector after I had left home to pursue higher studies more than two decades ago.

Getting back to today’s recipe that I have for all you fish lovers out there, with a lazy Sunday, I prepped up for a simple and easy cookbook recipe after going through this favourite cookbook of mine.

The original recipe  Fish Barbecued with Mustard Sauce was tweaked into my own version of a sauteed fish keeping in mind the hubby’s palate. What interested me in selecting this easy dish from the book was the inspiration drawn from Bengali cuisine and food from the British Era that had resulted in this popular recipe of The Bangala.

Even if the name says barbecued in actual the fish is sauteed. Instead of the freshly prepared English mustard sauce meant for dressing in the original recipe I prepared my own mustard sauce and marinated the fish in it. I have opted out the Chinese chilli garlic sauce, and sugar meant to be added in the sauce from my recipe.

Recipe Source: The Bangala Table (by Sumeet Nair, Meenakshi Meyyappan, Jill Donenfeld).

Mustard Sauce Marinated Sauteed Silver Pomfret

Total Time 25 minutes

Serving 1

Ingredients

1 medium Silver Pomfret, cut into fillets or kept whole

1/2 Tbsp Black Mustard seeds

1 Tbsp White Vinegar

1/2 tsp freshly extracted Ginger juice,

2-3 Green Chilli Pepper, slit and halved

1/3 tsp Turmeric powder

1/2 tsp fresh Lime juice

1/2 Tbsp white Oil or Butter

1 small Onion, peeled and sliced in rounds

Method

1.Add and soak the mustard seeds, green chilli peppers in the vinegar for 10 minutes in a glass bowl.

2.Wash the fish and cut into equal size fillets(discard the head and cut off the tail portion) or keep it whole with 2 to 3 transverse incisions on both sides of the fish. Cut off both the side fins and keep on a non-metallic plate.

3.Grind or crush the vinegar soaked mustard seeds, chilli peppers and make a paste. Add in salt, turmeric powder, fresh ginger juice, fresh lime juice, a tsp of water and mix to a sauce like consistency.

4.Rub the sauce onto the fish, cover and let it marinate for 7 minutes.

5.Heat a skillet or a shallow fry pan on medium flame, add oil or butter.

6.As the oil is hot or the butter melts place the marinated fish, saute and fry the fish on both sides until golden brown.Remove and arrange on a serving plate.

7.Put the onion slices into marinade and add into the fry pan. Saute in the leftover fat until soft and translucent.

8.Top the fried fish with the onion slices and a drizzle of the remaining fat from the pan. Serve it hot.

Note:The original recipe had used Basa fillet.

You can use any firm white fish.

Adjust the chilli pepper and lemon juice as per your taste.

This Mustard Sauce Marinated Fried Pomfret is part of our #80th FoodieMonday Bloghop event.