Rohu Fish with Fennel Seeds

This recipe of preparing fish with fennel seeds was published in Sananda, a popular Bengali magazine. There the fish cooked with fennel paste was Parshey, but since I am not quite fond of Parshey fish, I modified it to Rohu and the dish came out to be really mouth-watering.You may try it out at home too.

Ingredient:                                                        Cooking time:1 hour

8 pieces of Rohu Fish

1 cup yogurt

fennel seeds paste (Grind 2 tbs of fennel seeds into smooth paste)

6-7 green chillies paste

1 tsp ginger paste

1 tsp garlic paste

1 tsp coriander powder

1 tsp cumin powder

1 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp chilli powder

1/2 tsp sugar

2 dry red chillies

1-2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp methi or fenugreek seeds

salt to taste

Mustard oil for cooking

Preparation:

1) Rub turmeric and salt on the fish pieces and fry them till they become golden brown in color. The oil should be smoking hot when you will drop the fish pieces into the oil else the fish might stick to the bottom of the pan.

2) Make a paste of fennel seeds. Keep it aside. Then in a blender mix all the ingredients together including curd, ginger and garlic paste, turmeric powder, chilli powder, coriander and cumin powder and blend them into a smooth paste.

3) Heat the oil in a frying pan and add methi seeds, red chillies and bay leaves. When they will begin to crackle, add the fennel seeds paste. Stir well. Then add the paste made from mixing up all the ingredients together in a blender and simmer on medium heat for about 10 minutes.

4) Add salt and sugar. Pour water as much required for making gravy and boil it for about 5 minutes.

5) Drop the fried fish pieces into the gravy now and simmer with lid covered for 5 minutes. Your dish is ready for serving.