Vanjaram Meen Varuval / Seer Fish Fry

Ah I love my granny's cooking. There are few recipes of her's which I love and one of them is her FISH FRY! Its just salt, chili powder, turmeric and lemon....easy peasy lemon squeezy! And I prefer tava frying the fish rather than deep frying them, thats another version of my mum's! Now about the chili powder used, we always always use Homemade Chili Powder. Never the Kashmiri ones. Because the home made chili powder is less hot and it gives a lot of masala which when fried with fish is super tasty. The kashmiri ones are hot hence you can use them in excess thus giving you no masala. But its not mandatory to the homemade chili powder. I have used Seer fish / king fish / vanjaram meen for this but you can use any type of fish actually. 

And I don't have a pic of beautifully presenting one large slice of fried fish with pickled onions and a wedge of lemon on the side. Oh hell with it I was already salivating and who needs a final picture! 

My granny's Fish fry coming straight from the frying pan!!!

My granny massaging the fish with masala

You Will Need:

A kilo of Thinly Sliced fish, Cleaned and pat dry

Oil required for shallow frying

For the Marination:

1/4 tsp of turmeric powder

2 heaped Tbsp of Homemade Chili Powder (Adjust according to your spice requirement)

Juice from 1 Lime

Salt to Taste

The Cooking:

Mix together all the ingredients for marination. Rub the marinade evenly over all fish slices. Let them marinate for an hour at least. Heat oil for shallow frying on medium. Once hot place 2 slices at a time and gently shallow fry giving 2- 3 mins per side. Fish cook faster hence frying them long will make them tough.

Serve with a squirt of lime juice!

Note: There will be a sediment of masala in the bottom of the frying pan after you fry each batch. Do not throw away the masala. Serve them along with the fish fry.

Happy Cooking!