Travels for Taste

Tales of travel and food with a touch of spice

  • Home
  • About
    • In the Press, Published Work and Interviews
    • PR and Disclosure Policy
  • Food
    • Recipe Index
      • Indian
        • C.K.P recipes
        • Curry – Meat, Seafood
        • Curry – Vegetarian
        • Sides
        • Chutneys
      • Healthy
        • Soups
        • Salads
      • Quick and Easy
      • Baking
        • Desserts
      • Meat
      • Seafood
      • Vegetarian
        • Salads
      • Vegan
    • Product Reviews
    • Events
  • Travel
    • UK
    • India
    • Around the World
  • Lifestyle
    • Home
    • Kitchen
    • Restaurant Reviews
    • Miscellaneous
  • Giveaways
  • Work with me
    • Meet interesting foodie entrepreneurs here

CKP style King Fish fish curry

June 16, 2014 by manjirichitnis 16 Comments

CKP style King Fish fish curry

Leaving your home country and more importantly leaving behind your near and dear ones is never easy. I sorely miss a lot of things about my life back home and one of the things I miss most is lazy Sunday afternoons at my parent’s place. Like any typical teenager if you do move out from home during college years you would be better off dealing with moving out your parents after you get married but I never lived away from my parents and it was only after I was married that hubster and I moved into our own place, which happened to be very close to my mum’s!

CKP style Seer Fish Curry recipe

So most Sunday afternoons we would make our way to mum’s and Baba would be helping Aai cook our favourite Sunday meal of chicken curry and rice, or sometimes when he was in a mood for seafood he would go Supekar’s fish market and queue up for fresh Surmai (Marathi Surmai /सुरमई चे कालवण, Indo-Pacific king mackerel or popularly spotted seer fish-Scomberomorus guttatus), Pomfret and my fav fresh prawns Ummm!

Fresh Fish Market – Pune, Maharashtra, India

CKP Surmai Kalvan Recipe

This recipe for Surmai/Kingfish /Mackerel curry is his favourite and I love how Aai (means mother in Marathi my mother tongue)makes it so very delicious using a traditional hand me down recipe typical to the CKP community (Chandraseniya Kayastha Prabhu (CKP), is an ethnoreligious community of South Asia). We call it Surmaiche Kalvan (सुरमई चे कालवण) – Kalvan means curry in Marathi. If we were in Pune today I would most certainly have surprised Baba by cooking up a feast for him and Aai. Baba this post is for you and for Aai thank you for being the most parents anyone could ever ask for, the best childhood ever and for believing in us, for being the strong presence every girl wants her father to be. I love you more than words can say Baba and I miss you heaps and tons!

सुरमई चे कालवण

CKP Style King Fish curry Recipe

C.K.P Style King Fish curry Recipe

Manjiri Chitnis
Heirloom reipe for an authentic recipe from Maharashtra, India from the C.K.P community – King Fish curry Recipe
5 from 2 votes
Print Recipe
Course Main Course
Cuisine Indian
Servings 2 people

Ingredients
  

  • 4 medium-sized Surmai ( King Fish/ Seer Fish) fillets
  • 3 tbsp Coriander and Green chilli paste
  • 2 tsp Ginger – Garlic paste
  • 2 tsp Red Chilli powder
  • 1 1/2 tsp Turmeric
  • 4 cloves Garlic cloves with skin on
  • 3 tbsp Grated Coconut
  • 1 small pinch Asafoetida/Hing
  • 2 tbsp Refined Oil
  • 1/4 Lime Juice
  • Salt to taste
  • Fresh coriander a tiny palmful washed and finely chopped for garnishing

Instructions
 

  • Wash the Surmai/Kingfish /Mackerel steaks/ fillets
  • Marinate fillets with red chilli powder, turmeric, salt, ginger-garlic paste, coriander – green chilli paste and set aside for at least 40 minutes
  • Heat oil in a saucepan, add a pinch of asafoetida and then add the crushed garlic cloves with their skins on and as they start to brown
  • Add the marinated fish and toss around in the hot oil for 30 seconds
  • Add the finely grated fresh coconut, stir in enough water to ensure that the curry is the right consistency, not too thick and cook on a low flame with lid for about under 5 minutes.
  • Fresh fish cooks very quickly, do take care not to over cook the fillets
  • Add salt as required bearing in mind that when the fish was marinated salt was used
  • Squeeze the lime juice into the curry
  • Garnish with finely chopped fresh green coriander (cilantro) leaves
  • Serve with steaming hot boiled rice and allow yourself to enjoy this simple yet classic fish curry
Keyword Surmai Curry

Washed fresh fillets of King Fish or Surmai or Seer Fish


This is another fabulous recipe that originates from the western coast of India, the Konkan coastline, dotted by beautiful coconut trees, the coastline is abundantly blessed with fresh seafood and natural scenic beauty read beautiful beaches with soft sands and plenty of sunshine. A lot of people would also add tamarind paste to the curry but we do not. Tamarind trees are also found in abundance

If you are looking for fresh Kingfish in London the best place to find it is at supermarkets like H-Mart. The Kingfish that you will get here is from the North  Atlantic waters. You can also buy Wahoo steaks from Wing Yip but the taste is not as pronounced and the flesh is not as tender, besides wahoo steaks are bigger and need more seasoning and should be consumed on the same day to enjoy flavours which are at their best in a freshly made fish curry. I’d say they taste better in a curry than fried and if you do fry them do add a large squeeze of lime after you have fired them. Since the Kingfish belongs to the Mackerel family, the mackerel will take all these marinade flavours beautifully and works well both fried and in a curry Konkani style.

My traditional CKP Surmai kalvan/curry recipe works well with pomfret too.

EXPLORE MORE RECIPES FROM MAHARASHTRA, INDIA:

  • Valache Birdhe – C.K.P style recipe -वालाचे बिरडे
  • Konkani Pompfret Fish Curry पापलेटचं कलवण
  • Prawn Khichadi – कोळंबीची खिचडी

Filed Under: C.K.P recipes, Food, Indian, Recipe Index, seafood Tagged With: aai, authentic Indian fish curry recipe, baba, CKP, fish curry recipes India, flavours of Konkan, fresh fish recipes, fresh seafood, H-Mart, Happy Fathers Day, Indian recipes, Indo-Pacific king mackerel, Konkan coastline, Mackerel, maharashtra, maharashtrians, Marathi, mother tongue, pomfret, prawns, Scomberomorus guttatus, sliceoffme recipes, spotted seer fish, Surmai, Traditional ckp recipes, travels for taste cooks, travelsfortaste recipes, Wahoo steaks, western coast of India, Wing Yip, सुरमई Curry

Goda Sheera (Sooji Halwa in Hindi, Prasadacha Sheera for Satyanarayan Pooja)

April 4, 2012 by manjirichitnis 6 Comments

I have been planning for ages to make some goda sheera (goda =sweet in Marathi , my mother tongue and sheera stands for a sweet preparation made using Semolina as the primary ingredient ). I wanted to prepare this for Holi but was too lazy to do it but on Gudi Padwa , which is the Maharashtrian New year , I decided to be a good girl and preapre this sweet dish and offer it to my favourite god Ganpati Bappa:)

I love using milk and mashed bananas as it reminds me of the way my elder Sister prepares it and also of the many Satyanarayan Pooja Prasad (Prasad = offering made to god in the form of food etc) that I have greedily gobbled up all my life back home in India. My mother though prefers to prepare this dish using a mixture of sugar dissolved in water to add the sweet taste. Any way you choose to prepare it, I assure you it is a hugely satisfying experience preparing it  and gobbling it afterwards 🙂

It would be unfair to throw Indian terms at my non Indian readers so , Gudi Padwa is a festival wherein we Maharashtrians celebrate the end of the harvest season and welcome a brand new year with the Hindu Calender. Satanarayan Pooja is a Hindu ritual of worship performed to celebrate new beginnings like a wedding, a house-warming or during the annual Ganesh Festival . It requires the Man and the Lady of the house to perform an elaborate offering to god and the beautiful part of the pooja or the ritual is the Katha (Katha simply means story in Marathi) as it takes the listener on a journey through tales that define our religion. The ultimate offering of love for god at the end of this ritual is called a Prasad and is almost always Sheera .Please click on the hyperlinks to enjoy reading in detail about the terms used. I thank all contributors  of Wikipedia for providing such useful and beautifully written information. Oh yes and the most fun part of Gudi Padwa is the Gudi , it is basically a long stick covered in shiny wrapping paper and a decorative piece of cloth is placed on the top and an inverted ”gadoo” or a stainless glass of a particular shape is placed over it or a brass container which is used for poojas and is again a very auspicious piece of the ritual. The swastika symbol is made on it using bright red  kumkum, then this is wrapped with a garland of fresh marigold and bright green leaves of the mango tree and also a garland made from ” Batashe” which is a white leaf like thing made from concentrated sugar syrup and strung onto a string and made into a garland .This is then perched in the balcony and worshipped and kept on display for all to see , it is quite a sight to see colourful ”gudi’s” swaying outside everyone’s windows and balconies .

I had to make mine this year using an un-used shower curtain rod, golden wrapping paper recycled from Christmas, a steel bowl instead of the traditional glass and a bright red stole instead of the usual auspicious colours of green or gold !Anyway , this is what it looked like 🙂 , am quite proud of it really !

Below I have chosen 2 images from google which I feel are really good and stunningly clear images and really capture the spirit of the festival , the first of a couple dressed all traditionally and with the beautiful goodi being worshipped using a well decorated thali (plate containing several items for performing the ritual) and the second image is of the sexy Ms.Isha Koppikar looking like a million bucks and the gudi looks lovely as well !

Pic 1: Image courtesy iDiva dot com

Pic 2: Image Courtesy Click here

 

Ok !so now, let me try to put down here the recipe in a simple and easy peasy manner.

Preparation time : Approx 45 minutes Serves :4

Ingredients :

  1. Semolina /Rava/Suji – I use fine rava as it is what I find is best for this recipe. approximately 2 small watis or ramekins.
  2. Ghee – plenty !
  3. Raisins – a handful
  4. Badam/Almonds – again a handful
  5. Saffron/Kesar/Zafran – a small pinch just to add colour and pomp !
  6. Cashewneuts/Kaju/Kajoo – if you like them ,not necessary) – a generous handful without the peel and unsalted .
  7. Milk about 200 ml
  8. One ripe Banana
  9. Elaichi/ Green Cardamom – about 6-8 – open them and crush the brown seeds to make a powder using a mortar pestle and we will also use the green outer cover to add a distinctive aroma to the recipe :),sounds so romantic doesn’t it ( err well …)
  10. Sugar – I use granulated white sugar ,take 2 – 2.5 measures of a small bowl ,actually the proportion is always 2:1 for the Semolina : Sugar for this dish so choose the quantity accordingly.

Method :

  • Boil some water and add into a small bowl, add the almonds , this will make it easy to peel off the skin. Soak some raisins in luke warm water so that they absorb water and can be dunked into the semolina at a later stage.

  • Add the Saffron strands ever so carefully to a small bowl of water so as to  allow the beautiful golden orange colour to disperse into the water .

  • Take 2 bowl fulls of Semolina and add to a pan and constantly stir it until it turns a light brown colour , if you do not keep stirring or put the pan on a very high flame it might burn and we don’t want that do we? Also, I use a rather heavy bottom pan  to ensure that the heat spreads evenly and that the Semolina browns well .

  • This is how it looks before we brown it :

  • This is how it will look after stirring for a while :

  • This is how it will look when it is done and ready for the next stage ,i.e to be added to the ghee :

  • Remove the pan from the flame and keep the Semolina aside .Now take 2-4 large tablespoons of ghee (Clarified Butter) in a vessel and warm it on a low flame, be very carefull when frying with ghee as GHEE heats up very fast and anything unattended inside the hot ghee can char easily. When the ghee is warming up add the cashew nuts first and wait for them to start browning, then add the remaining raisins – not the ones which are kept soaking in water ! The strong aroma of the warm Semolina , the beautiful smell of desi ghee and the in-your-face tasty aroma of the fried cashews will assault your senses in the most pleasant way and fill up your kitchen with an almost auspicious atmosphere, it’s when this happens that one truly feels festive from within and it is also at such moments I have massive nostalgia attacks and realise how deeply coded our childhood memories are and  how much a part of our memories are made up of familiar sights and sounds. I oftentimes find life in the western world paler, less colourful and too quite compared to the pomp , blast of colours and festivity that make up India …sighhhh !

  • The cashew nuts and raisins turn a golden hue as seen in the picture above and the raisins puff up quite a bit due to the heat of the ghee,be careful not to overdo the raisins as they are akin to tiny missiles filled with boiling hot oil and if they burst , you can get serious burns …booooo! The kitchen is quite a dangerous place for the uninitiated isn’t it ?!
  • Ok, while the cashew nuts are being processed , take a small vessel and add the 200 to 250 ml milk on a low flame, add the sugar and dissolve, stirring till it completely dissolves, do not allow the milk to boil but reduce it on a low flame, add the crushed green cardamom powder and the outer green cover. Add some of the saffron and the water in which it was soaked as well, keep some for adding into the mixture later. When this mixture is on the flame , it gives out an unmistakable aroma of sweet sugary milk and I can almost feel my teeth sink into the soft sheera and mentally I am biting into the fried cashews and the yummee soft Banana bits that play hide and seek with my tongue as I devour the sheera – AAHHH , anyway , don’t allow that to happen as it is considered wrong to savor the ”Prasad” before the Almighty is offered some for ”bhog” or in simple words god has been offered the sweet dish and it is assumed that he has symbolically consumed our offering and blessed us with all that we wish and desire for 🙂

  • When the cashew nuts and the raisins have been fried, add the semolina slowly in the hot ghee mixture , stirring continuously to prevent any lumps from forming and also to ensure that the semolina soaks up the ghee properly .

  • Once all  the Semolina is mixed well into the ghee and fried dry fruit mix it will look like the picture above , then add the remaining  saffron and water in which it was soaked to the mixture.

  • Then add the roughly mashed banana pieces into the semolina mixture.

  • When the sugar has completely dissolved and the milk has reduced a little , it is ready to be added to the semolina mixture. Add it stirring slowly , it will look like the picture below immediately after adding the milk and sugar into it.

  • Stir a bit more and here is what it will look like now :

  • For the smallest possible time , cover the mixture above on the lowest possible flame , it is then ready to be served, now add the almonds to season over the top , peel off the skin , thanks to the warm water they will come off very easily and then just halve the almonds or if you want to be very artistic and have some time cut the almonds into longish thin strips ,anyway which they add a definite crunch to the sweet dish and I love that ,you dish will now look like this :

  • Take some of this beautiful dish and serve into a small bowl to offer to the Ganpati Bappa – who has been made to shine and sparkle for the day and place it in front of him , hands folded ask for his blessings and wait for sometime till you are convinced he’s had some of the offering or ”Prasad”.

Aaah , now just look at the cute Bappa 🙂

HAPPY EATING ALL YE READERS who attempt to make it, do let me know any feedback 🙂 all good of course 😉

Filed Under: Desserts, Food, Indian, Recipe Index Tagged With: add, almonds, aroma, banana, bappa, bhog, bowl, brown, cardamom, chop, clarified butter, colourful, colurfull, desi, dessert, dish, dry, elaichi, festivakl, flame, fried, fruits, fry, ganesh, ganpati, ghee, god, golden, green, gudi, Indian, kajoo, kaju, katha, lord, low, maharashtrians, Marathi, milk, mix, mortar, offering, padwa, pan, pestle, pooja, prasad, raisins, rangoli, rava, recipe, ripe, saffron, satyanaryan, semolina, sheera, shira, soak, sooji, spirit, stir, sugar, suji, sway, sweet, sweet dish, tahli, tasty, thali, waft, zafaran

Food,travel and lifestyle writer. Photographer.

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Categories

  • Baking
  • Breads
  • C.K.P recipes
  • Cakes
  • Chutneys
  • Cocktails
  • Curry – Meat, Seafood
  • Curry – Vegetarian
  • Desserts
  • Events
  • Featured Food and Drink
  • Featured Lifestyle
  • Featured Travel Adventures
  • Food
  • Healthy
  • Home
  • India
  • Indian
  • Kitchen
  • Lifestyle
  • London and rest of U.K
  • Meat
  • Miscellaneous
  • Product Reviews
  • Quick and Easy
  • Recipe Index
  • Rest of the World
  • Restaurant Reviews
  • Salads
  • seafood
  • Sides
  • Smoothies
  • Soups
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Vegan
  • Vegetarian

Featured Blogger on Great British Chefs

GBC_blogger-badge_150x300px    

Need a New Power Blender?

13076814_10154185434898293_7387808474266473605_n

Read Travelfortaste’s interview on Gourmandize UK & Ireland

 Sliceoffme interviewed by Gourmandize UK & Ireland

Travelsfortaste is Featured on Expats Blog

England expat blogs

Read Travelsfortaste reviews on Zomato

View my food journey on Zomato!
Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
Squaremeal.co.uk - Restaurant Reviews

About me

Writer and Photographer. Food,Travel & Lifestyle, Blogger and Digital Marketer. Read More…

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Posts

  • Easy Spinach and Pea Soup
  • Grenada Chocolate Festival – Festive Giveaway
  • Royal British Legion Centenary Cookbook – Cooking with Heroes
  • The Instagram Foodie Bag – Must have for all Food Photographers
  • Restaurant quality meat – Swaledale Online Butchers – a review

Copyright © 2023 · Foodie Pro Theme by Shay Bocks · Built on the Genesis Framework · Powered by WordPress

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT