Want a recipe that helps you cook some fish food real quick? You can be in a situation where you are too famished, and your paunch is growling non-stop. It needs food right away! Or, maybe you are too lazy or too tired to get into an all-intensive cooking process. But you love to eat fish and wish to prepare something easy in no time. Fish fry is the dish for you! Famously known as the bachelor’s go-to meal, it matches well with all kinds of rice items.
You can have fish fry with Ghee rice, Jheera (or cumin) rice, and even plain rice along with a bowl of hot and healthy simple or tamarind rasam. Or, you can also gobble down one-two fish fries to prepare yourself for a meal. And in that case, a vegetable salad or even sliced onion will add more flavour to this appetizer. So, let’s get started and cook some delicious and spicy fish fries! They surely will leave you with a happy tummy.
Fish fry recipe card
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Cook time: 15-40 minutes (depending on whether you want to shallow fry or deep fry or grill the fish pieces)
- Total time: 45 minutes to 1 hour 15 minutes
- Calorie intake: 201 calories per serving
Ingredients
- ½ kg fish (either in the form of pieces or fillets)
- 2 tbsp (or 2 tablespoons) of oil or as needed
[Note, a fillet is a fleshy, boneless piece of meat. It is obtained from near the ribs or the loins of an animal. Just a bit of information here, 1 tablespoon of oil is equivalent to 15mL of oil.
We will also provide the quantity of each ingredient adequate for one serving of fish fry so that you can accordingly calculate when you cook more than three servings at home.
So for one serving, 0.17 kg of fish is sufficient. And 0.67 tbsp oil will do.]
First marination :
Now, if you want to make your fish fries crispy, then try putting them for double marination.
The first marination is for the fish pieces or fillets to soak in the mixture of spices completely and develop an exquisite taste. And for that, you will need -
- 1 tbsp ginger-garlic paste or in a grated form
- Lemon juice as you find fit
- Salt as per your liking
- ¼ tsp (or teaspoon) turmeric powder
- ¾ tsp garam masala or any good-quality spice powder
- ½ tsp coriander powder (optional)
- ½ tsp red chilli powder or smoked paprika
[Also, if we come to how things go about per serving of fish fry -
0.33 tbsp ginger-garlic paste or in a grated form; 0.08 tsp turmeric powder; 0.25 tsp garam masala or any spice powder; 0.17 tsp coriander powder (optional); 0.17 tsp red chilli powder or smoked paprika.
And 1 tsp of oil measures to about 5mL of oil - a little extra bit of knowledge won’t do any harm, right?]
Second marination :
Why do we marinate the fish pieces a second time? It is to build a thick crust around them. Besan flour or gram flour is the best suited for this purpose, as they help give the fish fries a crispy texture much similar to pakoras. However, if you don’t have them, you can also use cornflour. For the second marination, you will need -
- 1½ tbsp rice flour or all-purpose flour (i.e., made from the wheat grains)
- 1½ tbsp besan flour or gram flour (or, you can substitute corn flour)
- Salt as per your taste
- ¼ to ½ tsp red chilli powder or smoked paprika
- Minutely chopped curry leaves or any herbs (1 sprig)
[And what about one serving of fish fry? It will be as follows -
0.5 tbsp rice flour or all-purpose wheat flour; 0.5 tbsp besan flour or gram flour (or even corn flour); 0.08 to 0.17 tsp red chilli powder or smoked paprika; curry leaves or any herbs (0.33 sprigs).]
Instructions
How do you prepare the fish fry?
- Make sure you clean the fish pieces or fillets carefully. Put them under running water and wash them once or twice. Then, pat them dry and put all the pieces in a strainer to allow the water to seep out.
- It’s time we go about the actual process of the first marination. Add all the ingredients including ginger-garlic paste, red chilli powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, coriander powder (optional), and lemon juice to a plate.
- Mix all the ingredients properly using your hands or a spoon. Taste the marinade. And adjust salt, spices, or lemon juice using your better judgement.
- Now, apply this marinade to all the fish pieces. If you feel it is getting too thick, then add one tsp of water to it. This will allow the marinade to attain a paste-like form. After you have covered every bit of the fish pieces with masalas, leave them aside to marinate for a while, (maybe, 10-15 minutes).
- If you are cooking salmon, make slits on the fillets so that the marinade can enter easily.
- Meanwhile, prepare the second marinade. Take two kinds of flour in a big bowl, (as per the ingredients mentioned). Add some red chilli powder, salt, and curry leaves to it. Mix all together thoroughly. Taste how it wears on your tongue and moderate salt or spices if needed.
- So, the marinated fish is yet to dive again into another round of marination. Of course, this time it would be more and more floury and less about the spices.
- Place the fish pieces in the second marinade (a.k.a., the flour mixture). See to it that the flour coats the fish pieces or fillets well on both of their sides. Leave no portion of the fish uncoated by flour.
- Then, set them aside and let them sit for a while till the flour coating turns moist and sticks to the fish pieces. You may ask, how would the dry flour cling to the fish? Well, the cut pieces of the fish retain moisture, and they impart it to the flour, making it damp. The second marination takes around 10-15 minutes.
How do you cook the pan fried fish?
- Now, take out a tawa, a pan, or a griddle - depending on what you have at home. Heat it on a low flame. Put 2 tbsp of oil onto it and spread that around in mini-circles.
- Get the fish pieces or fillets onto the pan or tawa and fry them till they bear a crusty layer on both sides.
- Be gentle every time you flip the fish pieces lest their masala and flour coverings fall off. Also, if you do things hurriedly, you may cause the oil to splatter and hit you on the face or hands. So, be very careful.
- When it comes to frying, you can do multiple things. You can either pan-fry or shallow fry the fish pieces or you can go with deep fry. All frying techniques will yield the same result. So, nothing to worry about here!
- When all is done, you can serve the fish fry with slices of onion and grated carrot. Remember, it tastes the best when you eat it warm.
- How to make fried fish? Well, now you know! So get going already.
[Note, pan-frying is having a pan hot and ready for cooking, with its inside flat bottom slightly coated with oil.
Shallow frying is when you cook food in a pan which has oil reaching about half of the width of the food. Also, the food touches the pan’s bottom throughout the cooking.
And finally, deep frying is when you have enough oil to cover the food in a pan and allow it to float in the oil completely.]
What if you wish to grill the fish pieces instead?
- After the fish pieces have been in the second marinade for the requisite period, take them out and brush oil over them in generous amounts. Do it gently so that you don’t disturb their masala or flour coatings.
- Preheat the oven at 170°C for 15 minutes, with the broiler pan inside it. Then supply the fish pieces to this pan and grill for about another 25 minutes. In some cases, it may take longer depending on the thickness of the fish pieces or the variety of the fish used.
- You can also use an air fryer to grill the fish pieces. But do follow the regulations that come with the fryer, as many have pre-set temperature systems and time frames for cooking different food items.
- Browser our product Solara Air Fryer to make your cooking life easy, delicious & healthy .
Conclusion
Fish fry can also be a snack sometimes, as it is quite light and doesn’t get your stomach all filled up. Plus, there is no gravy in it, unlike the fish curries.
Think about the times when you wish to invite friends over to your place. Don’t you get confused as to what you should serve them? It should be something that is both a snack and appealing to the tastebuds. At the same time, it should essentially relieve their hunger. Fish fry masala shoots straight in the mind! Isn’t it? There are other alternatives present, but none can match its rich and savoury taste. Moreover, you can carry it conveniently on your picnics or road trips.
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