South-Indian Style Pomfret Fish Fry | Vavval Meen Varuval

After a long search process I found an Asian store which sells all live fish. I got so excited to see the store which has most of the fishes from almost all the countries. Last Sunday I bought one pomfret along with one golden thread fish. Pomfret, here they also call it has Golden Pompano. In Tamil it is called vavval meen. It doesn't have much bone, so it is easy to make steaks. It needs just a sharp chef knife to make the job easier. TH does the job for me making thin steaks and I cleaned the fish later.

 In this recipe I just used spice powders and tamarind juice to make the fry. This is the easiest masala which also suits any other fish too. I personally like the flavor of onions and tomatoes along with this masala. You can do that by adding little of onions and tomatoes paste to the fish with the powders. TH doesn't like this flavor so I avoided using it.

I also have a fish fry recipe with the chettinad flavors. Checkout the recipe here. I served it with Meen Kuzhambu along with rasam.

Preparation time: 1-2 hours

Cooking time: 20-30mins

 Ingredients

500gms Pomfret/Vavval Meen

2-3tsp chilli powder (adjust accordingly)

4tsp coriander powder

¾ tsp cumin powder

¼ tsp fennel powder

¼ tsp pepper powder (optional)

1tsp turmeric powder

Salt (to taste)

1 marble sized tamarind

Oil

How to make it

• Clean the fish and flush off all the blood stains. Cut off the head and the tail. Remove the side gills and the scales on top. Make thin steaks and clean in running water, add some turmeric powder and wash off again.
• Soak tamarind with 1tbsp of water and extract a thick juice from it. If u have tamarind paste (store bought) use ½ - 1tsp of it.
• In a mixing bowl add all the spice powders along with salt. Make a paste of the powders with tamarind juice. Make a thick paste with the juice. Add teaspoon by teaspoon and make a paste.

• Marinate the fish with the paste and keep refrigerated for 1-2 hour.
• Heat a pan and grease with oil. Place the steaks in the pan and start cooking in medium-high flame.
• Flip to the next side to cook completely. Once it is cooked completely, transfer to a serving plate and serve hot.