কৈ মাছের টক ঝাল / হর গৌরী / গঙ্গা যমুনা

Ingredients:

1. Koi(climbing perch) Maach(2).

2. Oil(mustard/ refined/ canola/ sesame)

3. Salt.

4. Turmeric powder.

5. Green chillis.

6. White Mustard seeds/ Mustard oil & Sesame seeds.

7. Poppy seeds.

8. Dried ripe tamarind/ tamarind extract.

9. Sugar.

10. Kalonji seeds.

11. Curd.

Process:

Clean the fishes under running water and drain out all the water.

Sprinkle small amount of turmeric powder, and salt to your taste.

Switch on the flame and put a wok to get it hot. Add oil, and deep fry the fishes in medium flame.

Take 1 cup of water in a glass bowl and put 50 grams of dried ripe tamarind in that. Then microwave it for 3 minutes. Now this mix will work as tamarind extract for you. Who are using market available tamarind extract, they can skip this step.

Put half table spoon of oil in a sauce pan, and let it get heated on a oven. Once the oil starts evaporating spread 1 tea spoon of mustard seed/ kalonji seed. Now pour the entire tamarind mix in it.

let this boil, and then add 1/4th tea spoon of salt and 1 table spoon of sugar. Once the sugar is mixed, then switch off the flame for now. Now a big catch here: height of this mix in the sauce pan should not be higher than 6/7 mm, so that when you put the fish in it, fish's one side only can get dipped in the tamarind sauce. If you see, the height is higher than that, then keep heating and stirring until you reach that much height.

By this time your deep fried fishes are ready in other oven. Take those fishes out from oil, and carefully put in the tamarind sauce so that only one side get soaked in the tamarind.

Switch on the flame of the sauce pan in very low mode, and let the fishes soak the sauce.

Option with Mustard seeds:

Take 6/7 table spoon of mustard seeds, and put that in a cup of hot water. let this stay for 15/20 minutes.

Randomly chop 6/7 green chillis and put in a spice grinder.

Add 2 table spoon of curd in it.

drain out the water from mustard seeds, and add those too in the grinder cup. Add 1 tea spoon of salt.

Then grind this mix to a thick paste.

Now few people has allergy to mustard paste/ seeds, for them.

Option without Mustard seeds:

Randomly chop 9/10 green chillis and put in a spice grinder.

Add 1/2 cup poppy seeds, 1 tea spoon of salt and 1/4th cup of sesame seeds. Make a nice paste with these.Add 4 table spoon of mustard oil in this paste, and mix those well.

Now take a frying pan and add 1.5 table spoon of oil in it, once the oil is hot, then switch off the flame, and add 1/2 tea spoon of kalonji in it. Then add either of the paste you opted.

Keep in mind if you are taking Mustard paste based path, then let the pan cooled down a bit more, because putting the mustard paste in hot oil can make the paste bitter.

Now use a tong to take the fishes out from the tamarind sauce, and put the opposite side(the side not having the tamarind sauce) in the other spicy paste in the other frying pan.

Switch on the flame at lowest possible minimum value, and cover the frying pan for 6/7 minutes.

now your dish is ready to serve, you can use a green chilli/ coriander leaf to garnish.