Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Rui Posto - Rohu with Poppy Paste



Since morning today the sky outside is wearing a morose look, so much so that, around 7.30 am when normally the sunlight seeps into our bedroom giving us an indication to rise up, today we spinned out our sleep turning off the alarm clock every time it started buzzing, mistaking the gloomy sky outside for the crack of dawn, a tad too early to open eyes and get into our daily grind. By the time we finally woke out of our lazy slumber stretching hands and legs for the morning inertia to wear thin, we noticed the time ticking past 8 o'clock at which my husband jumped out of bed and with a lightning speed got dressed up for office, he had a meeting to attend.


 

Last week during our ritual weekly shopping, we bought a rohu fish, 2.5 kg in weight and about 1.5 feet in length, reason enough for you to check out my space for upcoming rohu recipes...lol....anyway, as I was saying under my supervision the rohu was cut into several curry pieces and then packed into 5 different batches for the benefit of sparing us the labour of sorting for every round of cooking.





Today I cooked the first batch, pulled out the freezing packet and thawed it under water. I was meaning to cook something tried and tested before like Rohu withFennel Seeds or Rohu Kajuri, but then the memory of eating a rohu curry, long back, at a friend's house fixed me on trying Rohu Posto and that my hubby drools over posto added a further impetus to press forward with the dish.


 

To enhance the richness, you may add mustard paste to the curry, but desiring to relish the flavour of poppy paste in its entirely, I gave the mustard paste a miss purposefully.


 
 
Ingredients:                                            Cooking time: 40 minutes
ü  8 pieces of Rohu (scales removed and properly washed under running water)
ü  1 red onion (julienned)
ü  1 tomato (julienned)
ü  1 tsp ginger paste
ü  100 gm poppy seeds (ground into paste)
ü  1 tsp turmeric powder
ü  1 tsp kashmiri red mirch
ü  1 tsp garam masala powder
ü  Salt to taste
ü  1 tsp sugar
ü  4-5 green chillies (ground into paste)
ü  Mustard oil for cooking
Method:
1) Coat the fishes in a sprinkling of salt and turmeric powder and deep fry them in hot oil. (You may throw away the oil if it turns black and burned, but if you fry the fishes on medium heat, you may use the same oil for cooking the curry.)
2) Into the same oil, add onion and fry till onion loses its rosy hue, turning golden brown in color. Dung in the tomatoes and shallow fry. Add ginger paste, turmeric powder, kashmiri red mirch and sugar. Sauté the mixture for 2 minutes.
3) Add the poppy paste diluted with 1/4 cup water and green chilli paste. Add salt and cook covered, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. (If the gravy becomes too dry for your taste, you may add some more water. But keep in mind, the gravy of this dish should not be soupy, rather thick in consistency.)
4) Slide in the fried fishes and simmer away for 2 more minutes. Sprinkle garam masala powder and stir around. Turn off the heat.
5) Drizzle spoonful of raw mustard oil on top and garnish with green chillies.
6) It tastes yummy with rice or fried rice.
 
 


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