As a general rule, I prefer to cook with recipes that use measurements that I understand. But once in a while, instead of a teaspoon of this or a half cup of that, one has to be content with the allocation of “some.” Though this recipe is written in grams, I added “some” chili powder, “some” turmeric, “some” black pepper, the juice of a small lime and some very finely chopped ginger and garlic smashed together to form a paste. I salted my cod a bit, rubbed it with the spice mix and tossed it all in a Ziploc bag for about 30 minutes. Maybe you will choose to marinate it longer; but that was my interpretation of “some” time. Then came the revelation: rice flour. Who knew? The incredibly light fry that this flour makes, the way it refuses to stick to the pan, the lovely gold it turned this fish -– seeing this was worth all my worrying. I cooked my cod about 4 minutes a side –- you can cut into it and make sure you are not overcooking.
Ingredients
- 4 fillets of fish (any fish, but firm, flaky white fish like grouper, fluke, u.s. farm-raised catfish or tilapia work well)
- 10gm chilli powder
- 3gm turmeric
- 5gm black pepper
- ½ tsp ginger garlic paste (or equal parts grated ginger & garlic)
- 1 tsp lime juice
- salt to taste
- rice flour to coat
- oil for shallow frying (something neutral with a high smoke point, like canola or grapeseed)
Directions
- Clean, cut and wash the fish. Prepare a thick paste with all remaining ingredients (besides the rice flour and oil) and apply it to the fish. Keep it aside for some time.
- Coat the rice flour into the marinated fish, shallow fry in oil and remove.
