Red Snapper Fish Curry | Sankara Meen Kuzhambu | Fish Gravy

Red Snapper Fish Curry, a delicious tamarind based spicy fish curry made with Red Snapper Fish. Here in US, we initially found it very hard to get the fish that suits to our taste. Most of the fish fillets available in the grocery stores are suitable for fish fry only. Later we found out this red snapper fish which taste so similar to sankara meen that we used to buy in India and it tastes great for any indian curries, but here red snapper is quite big in size, each fish weigh minimum 1lb, but in India, for 1 lb,we can get atleast 3 to 4 fishes. Though google says that both red snapper and sankara meen are same, i'm not sure about that.

Now coming to today's recipe, this is my favorite fish curry. We have been making this fish curry in our family for decades without a little bit change in the recipe. It's one of the delicious curry that you can make with very few ingredients.By looking at the ingredients list, you might knew that.But the key here is you have to know how to balance the seasoning, the tanginess from the tamarind, spiciness from the chili powder and the salt should be balanced well. If you achieved that ,then your fish curry would be out of the world !!! Here in the recipe, i have tried my best to give the exact measurement of ingredients to achieve that perfect balance of taste in the curry. Again every brand of tamarind, chili powder differs, so it's little difficult to achieve the perfect taste even with precise measurement. So my advice here is soak little extra tamarind, add 3/4 of tamarind juice, then add chili powder, salt & coconut paste. Taste the curry once the oil floats on top before adding the fish, if it's need more tanginess or spiciness, add at this stage and again simmer the curry till the raw smell leaves. Make sure that the seasoning should be perfect before adding the fishes.  By saying all this doesn't mean it's a very difficult dish to make, i'm just sharing all the things that i have learnt so far. If i can make delicious fish curry, then any one can make it for sure :-)

Red Snapper Fish Curry

Preparation Time : 30 mins | Cooking Time : 20 mins | Serves : 2 to 3 
Recipe Category: Curry | Recipe Cuisine: Indian

Ingredients
Red Snapper - 1 lb
Pearl onion - 15
Tomato - 1(small)
Tamarind -  a small lemon size
Turmeric powder - 1/4 tsp
Red chili powder - 1 &1/2 tsp
Salt - to taste
Oil - 2 tbsp
Curry leaves - few
To grind
Coconut - 1/2 cup
Pearl onion - 3
Garlic - 2 

Procedure

First soak the tamarind in water for 30 mins. Clean the fish and keep it ready. Take the pearl onions.Peel the pearl onions and cut into small pieces, similarly cut the tomatoes into small pieces. Heat the kadai with oil.Add the onions and saute till it became translucent and then add the curry leaves.Then add the chopped tomatoes into kadai and saute for 2 mins. Extract the tamarind juice from the tamarind and add into the kadai.Add turmeric, chili powder and salt.Mix it all well together and bring into boil. In the mean, grind the ingredients listed under "To grind" into smooth paste.Add the coconut paste, mix it well and let it cook until oil floats on the top.Add the fish, mix it gently with the curry. Cover the kadai with lid and let it cook for 5 mins in the medium flame. Tada, Delicious Red Snapper Fish Curry is ready. Serve it with some hot rice and rasam.

Notes:

• Pearl onions gives great taste to the curry,so highly recommend to use it.
• Once the fish is added into the curry, the curry tends to become little watery. So cook the masala until it's really thick before adding the fish to get the consistency that i got here. Otherwise you would end with watery fish curry. If that's fine for you, go for it.
• Cook in medium flame once the fish is added into the curry. Vigorous boiling makes the fish to disintegrate into curry.
• At the end, garnish it with coriander leaves if you like. Mostly we don't add coriander leaves to fish curry, so i skip that.
• You can use king fish/vanjiram meen also for this curry.
• Salmon fish also taste good with this curry.