We have been trying to make fish a regular ingredient in our food, primarily due to it’s health-related benefits like rich protein, Omega-3 etc. So far, I have tried tilapia, catfish and salmon. (Those who don’t know about these fishes, please don’t ask for translation as I don’t know). For the first 2 years in US, I din’t have any courage to try any fish here. Whenever we tried any fish dishes in restaurants here, we didn’t get to like them. Coming from coastal India, where we always get very fresh fish, it was a bit of let down.
But finally I took that one step of trying a catfish. We liked it, so next time, we tried salmon. For the first few of times, we really loved it. But it is a very smelly fish, so we don’t like it in any Konkani dishes. Then one fine day, someone told V about tilapia. It does not have any smell at all. After we tried it once, now we are hooked to it. I use it for all Konkani fish curries and it comes pretty good.
This is something I cooked over the weekend. I had one fillet of tilapia left. It was a last minute fix, got ready in 15mins flat. I loved it :).
Ingredients: 1/4 lb tilapia 1 tbl spn coriander seeds 1 tea spn cumin seeds 2 tea spns chilli powder A pinch turmeric 1 tea spn chopped ginger 1 tea spn chopped garlic 1/4 tea spn tamarind extract Oil 10-12 curry leaves Salt
Method: Roast cumin seeds and coriander seeds. Make a paste of ginger, garlic, cumin, coriander, tamarind, turmeric, chilli powder, salt with very little water. Heat a little oil and fry the paste till the raw smell goes off. Now add 1/4 cup water, and add tilapia (cut into 2×2 inch pieces). Add the curry leaves cut into two. Cover and cook till done.
Serves : 1-2 Preparation time : 15mins
I had mentioned about my love for the panini at panera bread . I had to try making it at home. I had mentioned in the above mentioned post that I had frozen 1/3rd of the dough. So, yesterday night for dinner, I made these paninis . Since the bread was just out of oven, these were crispy and very very tasty. I think I will make this often now. This is not exactly same as panera bread version, but was definitely very good.
Ingredients: Small loaf of bread(any bread will do) Mozzerella cheese Few tomato slices Sun dried tomato pesto : 1/4 cup sun dried tomatoes 1 tea spn freshly chopped garlic 1/4 tea spn chilli flakes 1/2 tea spn dried basil Salt
Method: Grind the pesto ingredients (do not add water, if necessary, add olive oil). Cut the loaf horizontally. Spread the pesto on one side. Keep fresh tomato slice on it. Then spread mozzerella cheese. Cover with the second half. Grill it in panini press or on a normal grill(Keep the bread on grill and keep a heavy weight on top) till it gets marks from both sides. Serve hot.
PS: Fresh basil works better than dried one in this. If you can find it, add the chopped leaves to panini instead of including it in pesto. For melting the cheese faster, broil it in oven for few minutes and then grill. The quantity of all the ingredients is not mentioned as it is a mix and match dish.
