Recipes - November

Niall's Fish Curry

prep: 10mins; cook: 30mins; difficulty level: easy; serves 4- 6

Ingredients

• 1kg Gurnard, cut into 5cm chunks
• 60ml vegetable oil
• 1 tbsp yellow mustard seeds
• 1 tbsp white pepper crushed
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 3 good-sized garlic cloves, finely crushed
• 1 thumb-sized fresh ginger
• 30 fresh curry leaves
• 2 tps Kashmiri chilli powder
• 2 tsp cayenne powder
• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp turmeric powder or thumb of grated fresh
• 400g chopped tomatoes (alternatively use 1 tin chopped tomatoes)
• 100ml lime juice
• 2 green chillies (use less if going mild), sliced lengthways into 6 pieces
• Bunch fresh coriander leaves
• 1 tsp salt

Method

1. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan over medium heat.
2. When hot, add the mustard seeds and fry for 30 seconds until they start to pop, then add white pepper for 20 seconds, add the onion and garlic and fry gently for about 10 mins until softened and slightly golden.
3. Add the curry leaves, chilli powder, cayenne powder, coriander and turmeric and fry for 2 mins.
4. Then stir in the tomatoes, lime juice, green chillies and salt and let it simmer for about 10 mins until rich and reduced.
5. Add 200ml of water.
6. Add your fish chunks and cook for a further 5 mins or until the fish is cooked through.
7. Stir in fresh coriander leaves and season with salt and lime. You may want to add a little sugar depending on your taste and the tomatoes you used.

To serve

Boiled basmati rice works well with this, especially when flavoured with toasted desiccated coconut and fresh coriander leaves. If you want it with an Irish touch, boil your favourite potatoes and serve them with this curry.

To garnish

Niall likes to garnish his dish with a few more bits and bobs to elevate it. He recommends a dollop of créme fraiche and toasted almond flakes as well as crispy onions. Yum!

Side Salad

Niall likes to have a little salad with this curry. Typically, he dices up tomatoes, onion and cucumber and seasons with shredded fresh mint, chopped up coriander stems, chilli flakes, salt, pepper, cumin, lemon juice and rapeseed oil.

Niall's tip:

If you can't find gurnard, any meaty white fish will make a good alternative such as monkfish, sea bass or small cod and haddock.
I like the fish cut on the bone as I eat with my fingers and love getting messy. Plus the bones add a depth of flavour and also thicken the sauce.

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We completed our archival work to identify historical, local seafood recipes of the Dublin coast communities. We searched through the archive of the National Library of Ireland on Kildare street in Dublin, and visited the National Folklore Collections at University College Dublin (UCD). To optimise our outcome we listened to sound archives from the Urban Folklore Project carried out by UCD in 1979-1980. Even though our archival work is officially completed now, we keep our ears and eyes open for any seafood recipes that may have been commonly used in Dublin up to the 1950s. If you have a seafood recipe from your Nana or parents or greatgreat grandparents, please get in touch with us. We would love to hear from you!

At the end of our project, we'll have twelve reimaginged historical recipes that are the flagship of Food Smart Dublin. we will publish these recipes in the form of a Food Smart Dublin recipe book including the stories surrounding each seafood, the nutritional values as well as the organism's natural habitat and lifecycle.