Food talk
Fish fervour

Pushpesh Pant brings us the magic of the healthy pan-seared or grilled machhali ki katali

WE have made this confession before and are not shy to repeat it once more that we discovered the joys of fishy repast much too late in life and never lose an opportunity to make amends. The notorious ‘bones’ scared us in childhood and hypochondria kept us off this healthy food in adolescence — avoid fish in months that don’t have the letter ‘R’ in their name etc.

Only with the onset of middle age and in company of Bengali and Coastal Kannadiga, Govan and Malayali friends we learnt what we had been missing. Scales fell from our eyes and we began appreciating even the strong smelly species. Often the smell teases and prepares the palate for what is to follow.

Remember the mythical King who traded his throne to marry Matsyagandha — a beauty who exuded an aroma like a fish — mermaid if you please — and could be ‘smelt’ from hundreds of leagues away. But we digress.

The long and short of this is that a whole new world opens up when you stop worrying about disguising the smell of a particular fish or to douse its intrinsic taste with a strong masala that makes everything tastes the same.

The aficionados the world over kiss to make their fish a bliss. Different spices — often minimal — combined with least intrusive cooking-steaming or pan searing wrapped in leaf or gently simmered in stock works magic. For us, the nutritional aspects are a bonus and the quick cooking of the fish is sheer delight.

We have made it a habit to have at least two meals a week when fish is the main course. And let’s assure you we don’t binge on fried Amritsari or Awadhi Kaliya. (Fish fingers, naughty things, do curl up and lead us astray once in a while but we manage to resist most of the time and stay faithful to recipes like the healthy pan-seared or grilled machhali ki katali that we share with our readers this time.

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