Cooking Fish with Coconut, Cumin and Tamarind

This is a dish I used to watch my grandmother make around 50 years ago. 

My mom still makes it, usually with much smaller fish, in a clay pot, 

but I'm cooking it my way with some really fresh sea bass!

I prefer to cut the fish myself, 'cos the folks in the store don't do it properly. They chop it. 

Small fish should never be chopped, but cut

I'm actually cooking two different dishes, 

that's why you see two different types of ginger and onions in the photos below.

For this dish, I'll be using the red onions, small ginger, some garlic, 

mustard seeds & Thai red chillies (quite hot).

Other ingredients - coconut oil, grated coconut, turmeric, cumin powder and a particular kind of Tamarind which our friends brought us from Kerala, India. 

The tamarind is put in a cup of warm water for the flavour to effuse into the water. 

See the photos below

For those who don't know, Kerala is known as the Spice Garden of India, and they traded spices with ancient Egyptians and Assyrians 3000 years before Christ. 

Also Kerala is where Saint Thomas, one of the disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, 

took Christianity to India in 52 AD (long before America was even discovered!)

Back to the fish ...

Heat a little coconut oil, add mustard seeds, 

fry the mixture of finely chopped onions, garlic, ginger and chillies,

add turmeric, cumin powder, and a little salt,

then add the grated coconut and fry,

add the tamarind liquid along with the tamarind

add the fish, and cover it with the coconut mixture

Cook on low heat till the fish is cooked

Here's an interesting article on the origin of the Christian fish symbol