Chilli Fish

I had been contemplating making this Indian Chinese dish for a while but was not getting a chance to cook in the kitchen before 9pm. One of my girlfriends said "If we are cooking after 9pm when the kids are asleep, we are doing just a chore, its not a creative art anymore." So, I decided not to let that happen and instead used cooking as a way of entertaining my little one.

Ingredients:

3 fillet of cod fish - thawed and cubed
Ginger, green chillies, garlic - ground
Green bell pepper - de-seeded & sliced
Canola oil
Balmasic vinegar
Soy sauce
1 egg
Cornstarch
Salt & pepper

Before playing with daughter last evening, I ground the garlic cloves from 2/3 of a whole garlic, 5-6 green chillies and 2" ginger together in my magic bullet grinder. Daughter in one-hand and optimizing the other one, I added this paste to the fish with soy sauce, salt and balsamic vinegar. A point to remember here is that soy sauce is salty, so be cautious with the use of salt. I left the marinade to be happy and went to give full attention to my daughter, who by this time, had developed immense liking to the dish that was going to be cooked and wanted to eat it :-)

It is amusing how a sizzling pan or boiling curry can instantly engage a toddler's mind. They seem to know that this is the real stuff and enjoy watching the action very much. I must confess I often use this tool to keep my little one calm. And if you let her touch the spatula even once, you are a hero!

I returned to the marinade an hour later and added some egg & flour to it. After this, we (I say we because my daughter now wanted to be part of the action) heated some oil and fried the marinaded fish pieces for about 2-3 minutes. I always use low heat for cooking, especially when the little one is around, as this is less hazardous and buys me more time for the next steps. Now, cod fish is very tender, so frying for 2-3 minutes will cook the fish half-way through. Using a slotted spoon, we transferred the fried fish to a baking dish and sauteed some sliced bell peppers in the same oil and kept that aside. Using the remaining garlic-chilli-ginger paste, I fried that on the remaining oil until there was no more smell of raw garlic. We added salt, soy sauce, vinegar, pich of sugar and powdered black pepper to the pan and added water and let it boil.When this boiled, we addded some cornstarch in water to the sauce and let it thicken.

To the fish in the baking dish, I added some chopped (or torn) cilantro and green onions and poured the sauce. It is important to ensure that the cilantro and green onions do not rise to the top as they will get burnt during the baking. We baked the fish for about 25 minutes to a preheated oven at 450F.

The bell peppers were added as a garnish. I decided to serve the fish with white rice. There chilli fish was ready! And yes, it was yummy.