Surmai Fry-Tawa Fish Fry

Surmai Fry is an absolutely delicious Fish Fry recipe that can be a show stealer dish at your next party. Dig into some Malvani fish fry this weekend.

Born in the fishing capital of Maharashtra (I just made that up), Ratnagiri, means that we are born with inherent genes that makes eating fish our second nature. We Konkani love fish and swear by our fish Preparations.

Fish is the primary source of our protein intake since an early age. No wonder that a newly-wed Konkani bride is judged by her fish cooking skills.

Recently, my friend expressed her dismay over her fish frying abilities. Each time she had put that batter coated fish to fry on a skillet, it had come out skinless with the fish skin adamantly hugging to the skillet. Having met the same fate each time, she had, frustratingly given up on fish fry.

I was amazed with that conversation as I had never thought that frying fish could be such a challenge and it prompted me to write this post with few guidelines and tips that could help avoid this particular problem. Next few hours, I ended up reading as much as I could on this topic and here are the few guidelines that will help you prevent ‘fish-sticking-to the-skillet’ phenomenon

If you follow these carefully and patiently, you would end up with nicely fried fish on your plate- a delicacy and a comfort food for a Konkani.

Tip 1: Ensure fish slices are pat dried after you clean it. Use Kitchen Napkin

Tip 2: Ensure the temperature of fish is brought to room temperature before frying (If you are using frozen fish)

Tip 3: Oil must be sufficiently hot before frying. To check if the pan is hot, put a mustard seed and it must immediately splutter. If it takes few seconds to splutter, then the oil is not hot enough.

Tip 4: Never follow the frying time given in the recipe literally. Check after the given time. If fish leaves the bottom of the pan, then you are good to flip the fish else wait for 30 seconds before trying again

With these tips in your arsenal, here’s how you would make Surmai (Seer Fish) Fry. Surmai Fry is an absolutely delicious fish fry recipe that can be a show stealer dish at your next party. Dig into some Malvani fish fry this weekend

Here’s another version of Surmai Tawa Fry that would please your taste buds

Let’s go through the recipe now

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Surmai Fry-Tawa Fish Fry

Rating  5.0 from 1 reviews

Prep time:  1 hour 15 mins

Cook time:  8 mins

Total time:  1 hour 23 mins

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients

• 500 grams Surmai/Seer Fish Slices
• Cooking Oil
• ½ Cup Rice Flour
• ½ tsp Turmeric Powder
• Salt
• 4-5 rinds of Kokum (substitue: small marble sized tamarind ball)
• 1 tbsp Kashmiri red Chili Powder
• 1 tsp Whole Coriander Seeds
• ½ Cup Fresh Coriander Leaves
• ½ inch Ginger root
• 10-12 Cloves of Garlic

Instructions

1. In a large flat plate (Parat), put turmeric powder, Salt and mix well. Coat fish slices in this first marination. Allow 15 mins of marination
2. We will grind a masala paste for second marination. In a grinder jar, put ginger, garlic,Whole Coriander seeds (if seeds are not available, you can use coriander powder), Kokum rinds, Red Chili Powder and Coriander Leaves,Salt to taste.
3. Grind into a fine and thick paste. (use as little water as possible). We have used 3 tbsp Water.
4. After 15 mins of 1st marination, gently apply this masala on fish slices (both sides).
5. Refrigerate slices for an hour (Don't keep in deep feeezer).
6. After an hour, remove fish slices from refrigerator. Masala coat is well set due to refrigeration.
7. Let's make a dry batter. Put Rice flour. Masala paste has salt content , so I am skipping adding salt to rice flour (you may add some salt if you like)
8. Place fish slice in this dry batter and coat from both sides.Dust off excess coating and keep aside
9. Heat 2-3 tbsp Oil in a pan.Reduce the heat and put a fish slice in the pan. Cook on each side for 3-4 mins. (Do not overcook). Over cooking makes fish less tender, flavorful and moist
10. After 4 mins , flip over to cook from other side.
11. Cook underside for 3-4 mins. Remove fried fish from the pan

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