A selection of New Year’s Eve recipes would not be complete without a curry. This is not a Durban curry, but a Keralan fish curry that’s adapted as an easy to make traybake. This means that it’s easy to cook and very easy to serve whether you’re having a sit-down meal or a buffet-type affair. To make this a meal, serve with rice, warm chapatis and poppadoms.
Prep time 20 mins/Cook time 50 mins/serves 12
Ingredients:
3 onions, peeled and finely-sliced
4 garlic cloves, peeled and finely sliced
5cm (2 in) piece of ginger, peeled and finely sliced
2 fresh red chillies, finely sliced
1 bunch of fresh coriander (about 30g [1 oz]), leaves picked and stems finely chopped
1 red bell pepper, de-seeded and sliced into thin strips
1 yellow bell pepper, de-seeded and sliced into thin strips
olive oil
2 tsp brown mustard seeds
2 tsp fenugreek seeds
2 tsp fennel seeds
1 handful of curry leaves
1.5kg (3 lb) fish (either mixed fish or firm fish such as salmon) skin on, scaled, pin-boned
300g (2/3 lb) ripe cherry tomatoes
28 large raw peeled tiger prawns
2 x 400g (14 oz) tins of light coconut milk
4 lemons
Method:
Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC fan/325ºF/gas mark 3).
Place your largest roasting tray on the hob over a medium heat, and drizzle in 1 tbsp of olive oil. Add the spices and curry leaves and fry for 2 minutes, then add the chopped veg, garlic and coriander stalks. Cook for 15 minutes, or until softened, stirring occasionally.
Place the fish into the tray, skin-side down. Season with sea salt and black pepper, and drizzle lightly with oil. After 1 minute, carefully turn the fish skin-side up, then place the tray in the oven for 20 minutes, or until the fish is almost cooked through.
Quarter the tomatoes, and run the tip of a knife down the backs of the prawns and pull out the vein, meaning they’ll butterfly as they cook.
Remove the baking tray from the oven and preheat the grill (broiler) to its highest setting. Carefully peel the skin off the fish and place onto a piece of tin foil.
Stir the tomatoes, prawns and coconut milk into the tray, then finely grate over the zest from 1 lemon and squeeze over the juice. Gently simmer on the hob over a medium-low heat until the prawns are just cooked through.
Place the fish skin under the hot grill for 5 minutes, or until lovely and crisp, then set aside to cool.
Break the fish into big chunks. Season the sauce to taste with salt, freshly-ground black pepper and a squeeze of lemon juice, then break up and scatter over the crispy fish skin.
Sprinkle over the coriander leaves and serve with lots of lemon wedges for squeezing over.
