Name: Fried Turmeric Fish with Beetroot Yoghurt Relish
Yield: Serves 4
Cuisine: Indian
Ingredients: 4 × 150 g thick swordfish steaks, cut from the middle of the fish; 2 teaspoons sea salt; 40 ml water; 60 ml vegetable oil; 2 teaspoons minced fresh turmeric; 2 teaspoons mustard powder; ½ teaspoon ground chilli; 1 tablespoon coconut vinegar; 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper; 3 teaspoons sea salt; 400 g thick plain (sheep’s milk) yoghurt; 1 tablespoon minced ginger; 1 teaspoon ground turmeric; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 2 teaspoons minced ginger; 4 red shallots, finely diced; 400 g beetroots, peeled and sliced into fine julienne strips; 12 fresh curry leaves; 1 teaspoon brown mustard seeds; 2 tablespoons fresh curry leaves, deep-fried until crisp; 1 punnet mustard cress, snipped; 1 punnet swiss chard cress, snipped; 40 ml vegetable oil

Preparation info

Serves
4

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Fire

By Christine Manfield

Published 2008

About

A vegetable relish has many guises in Kerala and I fell in love with this beetroot version when it was served to us on the houseboat for lunch one day. Having eaten many different versions of pachadi I had to declare this one the best, and it goes particularly well with fish. Use swordfish steaks if you can get any – they work brilliantly when cooked in this manner – otherwise buy thick cutlets of any white fish such as kingfish, sea bass or hapuku.