Smoked Fish Coconut Curry Sauce

Smoked Fish Coconut Curry Sauce as a base is suitable with different meat types. Lightly smoked fish is one protein that will not come to mind. The smell of Curry in the neighbor’s house is always an indication of a dish that is not typically Nigerian. We have come to accept curry as ideal for ‘English ‘ food. Growing up my siblings had a name for foods that were not local and it was “choricho” , don’t ask me what this means.
As always I try to use ingredients that are easily accessible and therefore will motivate to try the recipe. I know how frustrating it feels when I see an interesting recipe but I need to travel round shops or markets to find the ingredients .
The interesting thing about a blog is that you take the strain and financial burden of experimenting with the dishes so that your followers don’t have to waste money doing this. This is exactly what happened with Smoked Fish Coconut Curry Sauce. I had earlier used a curry brand that was dark and the result of the dish though quite tasty as the one I am presenting here but the color was not exactly what I would want to show.So what you have here is hard earned funds used to repeat the dish with a more yellow colored curry.:)
For the coconut milk I always prefer to make this from scratch using fresh coconut. Nothing beats freshly made ingredients. But again I know some of us are time constrained so feel free to use the canned milk or powdered ones. What you will not get though is the strong coconut flavour.  Did I make you feel guilty, not to worry , I guess the final result of the cooking is what matters , so long as ‘tongues can tell ‘ :). For the fish feel free to use fresh, fried or lightly smoked . Since I discovered the lightly smoked black cat fish in some shops in Lagos , I have used it in some interesting ways in some of my dishes.
The tanginess of tomato purée and  the lime juice balances out the sweetness of the coconut milk.
So long as you have the coconut milk ready , this is one dish that will take less than 30 minutes to fix.

Nutri tip: Note all foods containing oil in your ingredients and reduce the quantity of actual oil you use in cooking.

Recipe for Smoked Fish Coconut Curry Sauce 

Ingredients
4 pieces lightly smoked  Fish
1 cup Coconutmilk
1 table spoon Curry powder
1/2 spoon plain Flour
1/2 bulb medium size onion
1 teaspoon Tomato purée
1 cooking spoon Vegetable oil
Yellow pepper (to tolerance level)
Chicken seasoning to taste
Salt to taste
Few Curry leaves to garnish
Cashew nuts to garnish

Method
1, If you are using fresh coconut milk then start by grating , sieving and getting out your coconut milk
2, If you are using the lightly smoked cat fish , place in hot oven to heat up well into the middle of fish, bring out and squeeze on the lime juice

3, Heat up oil in a sauce pan, onion and chopped pepper and fry for 2 minutes

4, Mix curry powder and plain flour and add to the onion and stir fry for about 3 minutes
5, Take the sauce pan off the fire and allow the roe( fried curry/flour mixture) to cool slightly then add the coconut milk. Adding liquid to fried flour when hot makes it lumpy
6, Return pot to burner add tomato purée ,seasoning and salt and boil for 2 minutes

7, Add the fish , and a few curry leaves and cook for 2 minutes .
8, Serve with your Coconut Curry Sauce with rice and sprinkle on cashew nuts.

Cooking tip: When using the nuts do not cook with the sauce, serve it with the meal, no need to cook it.