Kamala Salmon | Salmon cooked with Orange in an Indian Curry

Komola Salmon|Salmon cooked with Oranges and spices

Kamola Katla is a fish dish cooked with fragrant oranges made very popular by the Bengali movie Maacher Jhol. My Kamala Salmon has no relation to our Madame VP and is Salmon cooked with 🍊 oranges in a tangy, spicy Indian Curry

It's been a while since I wrote here. A lot has happened since my last post but I won't go there right now. I just  wanted to write down this recipe so I don't forget. Have you seen the movie? 

If you are a Bengali, you must have seen @pratimdgupta 's famous movie #MaacherJhol. If you haven't, umm...don't know what to say, just watch it. It's either on Netflix or Prime. Even if you are not a Bengali, go ahead and watch it, turn on subtitles. Kamola Katla is a fish dish with oranges made very popular by the Bengali movie Maacher Jhol. 

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So I did not know about *Komola Kaatla* or Kaatla fish cooked with fragrant oranges before this movie. Yes, I probably live under a rock or a world where all our oranges were consumed.

a. As is.

b. In Juice form.

c. In a dessert like Komola Kheer.

.

In fact I had never even thought of pairing oranges with fish in an Indian curry until then!

The idea of oranges and fish seemed like a beautiful fragrant pair to try out. Since Salmon is our fish of choice and orange glazed salmon is pretty delicious I decided to make a Komola Salmon almost similar to the Kamola Kaatla. I have cooked this fish curry a few times now with Salmon. The tangy, spicy fish curry with soft morsels of oranges is really delicious and a favorite with my girls ❤

I cook it several different ways. In one option, I bake the salmon and then add to gravy. In another I directly add the fish to gravy and cook in there. Sometimes I add Green Pepper aka Capsicum, on other days Cauliflower. On good days I sprinkle a few sesame seeds and add more orange juice. On others make do with less

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Possibilities are endless with this one. Any which way it's a delicious fish curry and is pretty simple to make.

 

I prep the fish in one of the two ways:

a. Marinate the salmon as instructed in the recipe, bake it with a drizzle of mustard oil at 250F for 25 mins, then add to the gravy and finish cooking there.

b. Marinate the salmon as instructed in the recipe, then add it directly to the pan and cook in the gravy

Kamala Salmon | Salmon cooked with Orange in an Indian Curry

Prep

Make juice of 2 Navel oranges. From each orange, we get about 5 Tbsp or 1/4th cup of Juice

Salmon -- 6 pieces of salmon 3" x 4"

Marinate the salmon with

1 tsp Turmeric powder

1/2 tsp Red chili Powder

salt

2 Tbsp Orange Juice

Keep aside for 15-20 minutes

While salmon is marinating we will get the onion-ginger-garlic masala ready.

Heat up some oil and sauté the following

Onion - 1 medium chopped in large chunks

Ginger - 2" Chopped

Garlic - 6 cloves

Cool and make a paste. This is our onion-ginger-garlic paste

Start Cooking

In the same pan add some more oil. Not much. We like to keep oil low. I have used Avocado or Mustard Oil in this dish, you can use Olive oil or Vegetable Oil.

Temper the oil with

Green Cardamom - 2

Cloves - 2

Cinnamon stick - 1"

Tej Patta/Bay Leaf - 1

Green Chilies - 2 slit

Add the onion-ginger-garlic paste. Sauté for a couple of minutes.

Add 1 Green Capsicum chopped into small pieces.

Add the spices

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Red Chili powder or Kashmiri Mirch - 1/2 tsp

Sprinkle a little water and sauté until the peppers are softened.

If you are cooking the salmon in the gravy, then now add the marinated salmon to the pan, making sure they are all in a single layer. Cook for about 3 minutes. Gently flip the fish pieces.

Now add about 3 Tbsp of Orange Juice + 1/2 Cup of warm water. Gently mix and let the gravy come to a simmer.

Note: If you have baked the salmon then once the gravy starts simmering, you will add the fish to the gravy

Once the gravy starts simmering add

Sugar - 1-2 tsp

Salt - to taste

Orange segments -- about 8 segments from a clementine

At this point taste the  gravy and add about 1/4 Cup more of orange juice for more flavor.

Cook for 3-4 more minutes until the orange segments are softened.

Switch off the gas.

Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of Bhaja Masala or Garam Masala.

Add some chopped Coriander.

Add couple of green chilies.

Cover and let the dish sit for about 5 minutes. This helps the flavors to come together beautifully

Serve warm with steamed white rice or pulao.

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Salmon Posto -- Salmon in Poppy Seed paste

Salmon was not a fish I loved when I first set foot on the shores of this country. I liked neither the taste nor the smell. The very thought of ordering a salmon sent me into bottomless despair. "What is this country where the fish does not taste like Ilish or Rui", I would often cry, my patriotic heart wailing for fish from my motherland. It is always about the food and the fish, isn't it?

I was convinced that my husband's Bong colleague who had gone about the office inviting folks in what sounded like "Plish come to my house, I make pish for you" was actually referring to salmon.

But then the only salmon dishes that we had were in the restaurants, which then were very bland for my taste buds. I was also not fond of the skin-on-salmon and had no idea that I could request the fishmonger to take the skin off.

But we live and learn. We adapt. We love new things and then cannot live without them

Learning from friends, improvising and experimenting, searching the web. we have now found many delicious ways to eat Salmon. It is one of the few fish which adapts itself well to Bengali style dishes like "Shorshe diye Salmon", "Doi Salmon", "Salmon er paaturi" or even a Salmon kalia. Our Salmon experience improved for the better when a friend suggested to bake salmon at a lower heat than other fish. It keeps the fish juicy, he said. And by God, it did. It was so much better and moist when baked at 275F.

Salmon is one of our favorite fish these days and we have it often

A couple of days back I made a Salmon Posto. Rui Posto is something that my Mother makes. I love anything with Posto and so to give salmon a makeover, I made Salmon Posto or salmon in Poppy Seed Curry. You can use any other fish like Rui, Kaatla, Bhetki, Swai or Tilapia in this recipe too. The traditional way is to fry the fish before adding to the posto gravy but of course I baked my salmon.

Also do remember, anything with Posto tastes best with white rice, so though the photo has red rice on the plate, if you have white rice stick to it.

Salmon Doi Maach-- Salmon in a yogurt gravy

Doi Maach -- Fish in Yogurt Sauce

Next week school reopens in my part of the world. After 2 and a half months of late nights, later mornings, lazy breakfasts, no school lunches, no worries of homework, unlimited story book reading time and any hour ice cream time, letting go of summer vacation is not going to be easy.

For anyone.Okay, at least not for me.

Sauteing Onions to grind into a paste

Though I was not at the receiving end of those sleep-in mornings and unlimited ice creams, it is my heart that squeezes in this awful manner, thinking of a summer that is slowly gathering up the hem of its laced skirt and preparing to say good bye.This summer has been one of those very laid back kinds, with minimum activities, no summer camps and the girls free to do what they want with their day. Well, for the most part.

Tempering oil with Whole spices

There have been several sleepovers, couple of picnics, multiple park visits, visiting friends in neighboring states, grandparents, beach, water parks, a short trip and a birthday party in the park for LittleSis. Nothing else was planned or chalked out and not once did they say they were "bored". BigSis of course read and re-read many books from Percy Jackson to Harry Potter, from the Malory Towers series that my Ma got to some Agatha Christies. LS learned to read pretty well but is yet to get hooked onto its magic, so she kept herself busy with imaginary games involving complex rules, which take more time to explain than play.

I think they had a good summer, kind of like those I had,only with air-conditioning. Listless, long, timeless.

Add the onion paste

And now here we are, with school starting on Monday. The prospect of two school buses at my doorstep for the two sisters, wrenching my gut. Darn, I am hitting menopause or what.

The supplies have been bought and labeled by BigSis. The bags have been packed. This is always an exciting part of a new school year though in this case there are no new text books involved. Supplies largely consist of  Sharpies, Folders, glue sticks, pens in certain colors, post-its and index cards. For LS it is glue sticks, crayons, glue sticks, color pencils, more glue sticks and did I say glue sticks ? I have no idea what they do in Kindergarten but it sure involves a lot of glue sticks.

Add fish and sprinkle kashmiri mirch

The start of a new school year was always exciting during my school days too. One of them was the new pencil box, which was a coveted treasure and the one thing where my parents gave in to fancy renditions. So I had those magic pencil boxes where the contents would disappear if you opened it a certain way, the two tier ones with Mickie on top,  the ones where the scale slid on and doubled as a cover and then shiny camel geometry boxes every year.Close second, were the new text books with their fresh smell and crisp pages and the Radiant Readers or Gulmohars with their new stories to leaf through.

In goes tomatoes and green chillies

There was also the act of covering each of them with brown paper. A daunting task which my Mother finished for the most part. While in the last few days of vacation, I would be busy completing the handwriting homework I had conveniently procrastinated, Ma would be sitting down with rolls of brown paper, a ruler and a pair of scissors, neatly covering each of the text books. I mostly covered the notebooks and then patiently drew lines on each of those covers to pencil in my name, classroom and section.

The yogurt which was mixed with half of onion paste, ginger paste, sugar and mixed thoroughly

BigSis has these things called book socks to cover her text books, the books that the school provides for the school year. The books mostly stay in class and are to be returned when she moves up. I don't have to pay for them. They are not new. But they are extraordinarily neat with no scribbles on the margins. However I see, she does not feel the oneness with these text books that I once did with mine. I would worry even as the brown paper cover frayed at the ends and started tearing at the spine and never ever leave them face open or upturned. She keeps the books neat but they are not hers to be highlighted, underlined or to make notes.Naturally so she does not feel for them with her heart either. They are just textbooks for the new school year.

It is the folders, pencils and binders which excite her more. And then there are the glue sticks for LS. All six of them.

Add water and let gravy simmer

Before I go onto the recipe, I must tell you about this wonderful event where my book is a part of the giveaway. It is hosted by Srivalli of the wonderful blog "Cooking 4 all Seasons". You can participate and try to win a copy.
My book is now also available for UK/Europe/Canada on Amazon at the Amazon.uk, Amazon.ca etc. And it is always there on Amazon and Flipkart. If you have read my book, I would also urge you to rate and review it at these sites as well as on Goodreads. It will be a huge help.
Soon, I will be having a couple of giveaways on my blog too. So stay tuned.

Almost ready!

Now to Doi Machh i.e Fish in a yogurt gravy features in my list of favorite dishes. Surprisingly this simple dish varies from one Bengali home to the other in the little nuances they add. My Ma’s Doi Maachh is pretty much traditional with raw onion paste, ginger paste and yogurt in the gravy and that awesome taste is what I grew up with. Then, when I saw my Ma-in-law add chopped tomatoes to this gravy, towards the end of cooking, I was taken by surprise. But her dish tasted just like Doi Maachh and yet was unique with this touch.
When it was my turn, I went further. Instead of a raw onion paste, I started sautéeing the onion lightly and grinding them to a paste which I then used in the gravy. I was trying to shorten the time it takes to “kashao” raw onion paste. Simple. In my book, I have a version of Doi Maachh where I have added even more twists and turns.

Tastes best with some rice

Though traditionally done with fish like Rohu or Carp, I find salmon perfect in this sweet and spicy yogurt gravy. Today, I will share with you my version of Salmon diye Doi Maachh, where the salmon is poached in the gravy and the taste is so darn awesome that my daughters lick it up.

And I am sure you will love this too.

Btw, you can use this recipe for the traditional Rui or Rohu fish too. If the fish is not very fresh I would suggest to saute the fish lightly and then proceed with the rest of the steps.

Salmon Doi Maach -- Salmon in a yogurt gravy

Prep Work

Heat Vegetable Oil in a frying pan

Chop a medium sized onion in large chunks and then saute it until it is soft, pink and translucent. Now cool and make a paste.

Next in a bowl, add about 1/2 cup of thick yogurt. To it add
1/2 of the onion paste
1 tbsp of fresh ginger paste
a pinch of turmeric powder
1/4th tsp of sugar
1/4th cup of water
Beat well

Note for creamier gravy: Soak 2 Tbsp of cashew for 10 minutes and make a smooth paste with little water. Add it to the yogurt above

Clean the fish pieces and lightly rub with salt and turmeric. Keep aside for half an hour. For salmon, I request the fishmonger to get the skin off the filet and then cut the filet into kabob sized pieces.

Note: Btw, you can use this recipe for the traditional Rui or Rohu fish too. If the fish is not very fresh I would suggest to saute the fish lightly and then proceed with the rest of the steps.

Start Cooking

Heat some more Oil in Kadai/Frying Pan.

Add the coarsely pounded whole garam masala
Elaichi or Cardamom~ 5
Laung or Cloves~ 5
TejPata or BayLeaves~ 2
Dalchini or Cinnamon Sticks ~ 1” stick

When they start sputtering add the remaining onion paste. Add about 1 tsp of sugar and fry the onion paste till the oil separates.

Add the fish pieces. Sprinkle 1/2 tsp of Kashmiri mirch  and saute until the fish pieces lose their raw color. Don't overcook or fry the fish too much. It will cook in the gravy

Next add half of a large tomato chopped into small pieces and about 5 slit green chillies. You can also add halved grape tomatoes. Saute for 2 minutes,

Now take the Kadai/Frying Pan off the heat and give it a couple of minutes to cool.

Add the beaten yogurt/curd and mix with the fish. If you add the yogurt directly when the utensil is on heat the yogurt may curdle so you need to do this.

Put back the Kadai/Frying Pan on heat.

Add salt as required .Add about 1/2 - 2/3 cup of water at this point. depending on how much gravy you need, you might need more or less water.

Simmer on low heat till the gravy comes to a boil. Let it simmer till the gravy is thick and smooth and the fish is just flaking apart. The texture of the gravy should be silky smooth because of all that yogurt. Note: the gravy will not dry off totally but will be thick and not watery

Finish off with a little ghee if you wish and a little Garam masala powder. Serve with white rice.

Shorshe Salmon Jhaal -- Tomato Roshun diye

Jhaal in Bengali means hot. Not warm hot. Not "pink hot". But spicy hot.

But "jhaal" when in the name of a dish describes a gravy based dish (should have said curry, but don't want to add to curry culture) usually with mustard sauce that is thicker than a soupy "jhol" but not as rich as a "dalna". Confoosed ? Confused ? Okay forget it.

Jhaal and hot brings to my mind a very funny incident. I know a little girl, a neighborhood friend of my daughter who watches a little too much of Disney Channel. Well probably a lot of Disney Channel. If you are not a parent  or do not subscribe to cable, both good choice, you are probably at a loss here. "Disney" you think is all cutesy innocence, magic kingdoms and animated characters. Well, welcome to the Disney Channel on cable and spend some hours in the evening watching the shows they offer, and then come back and read this post. It is better for young kids  to watch back to back DDLJ than watch iCarly .

So any way this kid who watched a little too much of the channel, one day comes to my home in a new dress and tells me ," BM auntie, you know I am hot".

Being genuinely worried, I touched her forehead and said, "Do you have a fever ? your forehead is cool. You are not sweating either".

Balking at my ignorance, she exasperatedly said "No. Not that hot. Hot -- like in hot pink".

By now I had a grasp of what she had in mind, but knowing her for a long time and her obsession with the channel which probably led her to this imaginary self-obsession, I tried to play it down.

"Actually Hot in English language has only one meaning -- having a high temperature. And in some cases we use it for food which is very spicy. Never have I heard that being used to describe a person," I said, acting innocent.

Seeing that this was going nowhere and probably thinking of me as some bummer from an Indian village, she gave up on me. She also stopped all her preening and twirling and got down to more earthly business. "Can I have an oreo cookie ? Or two ?" she tried to negotiate.

"You can", I said. "But don't you say you are hot unless running a fever or feeling warm. You need to be older to understand different meanings of a word and only then use it".

Don't know if it had any effect on her but she is a good and smart child and I hope the self-obsession was momentary.

What do you do when faced with kids saying "grownup words" or acting "much older than their age" ? Do you give a stern scolding ? Do you sit them down and give them a lecture ? What do you do ?

Back to the food, this shorshe salmon is a quick dinner option on a weekday. All you need to make is the mustard paste. And then the best thing is, you make it different from the regular mustard paste. The way I do it, I make the mustard paste with mustard seeds, poppy seeds, green chillies, tomato and garlic, flavors which go very well with the stronger taste of salmon. If you don't want to do the jhaal,  you use the paste as a marinade and bake the salmon instead.

Else you make the Shorshe Tomato Salmon Jhaal.

Shorshe Tomato Salmon Jhaal 

When I buy salmon fillet I ask the skin to be removed. Then if I am making the jhaal I cut each fillet in 2x2 squares. Okay, maybe some other dimension but small squares or rectangles. Toss the pieces with turmeric powder, pinch of garam masala and salt and keep aside. For this dish I had two fillet of salmon

Soak
1 tbsp Mustard seeds
1/2 tbsp Poppy seeds
in a tbsp water for 30 mins

Make a paste of
the mustard + poppy seeds
2 fat clove of garlic
1 small tomato
2 green chilli
salt to taste 
with a splash of water


Heat 1 tbsp Mustard oil to smoking

Temper the hot oil with
1/4 tsp kalojeere(kalonji) and
4 slit green chilli.

Add the fish pieces and lightly fry till the fish loses its raw coloring.

Next add the mustard paste you made. Lower the heat and mix with the fish till fish is a pale golden color. Do not over fry fish or crisp it. Add warm water enough for gravy, salt to taste, cover the pan and let the gravy simmer.

The gravy should be on the thicker side and clinging to the fish. Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.

Salmon with Cilantro -- Mexican really

Salmon with Cilantro | Mexican Style Salmon

I first had this dish at a Mexican restaurant in suburban Maryland. It was beautiful with high notes of fresh coriander aka cilantro, jalapenos and lime. I do not know if it is an authentic Mexican dish or a creation of the chef at this restaurant as I have not had it at any other Mexican place. This recipe of Salmon with Cilantro in Mexican style is totally my take on the dish. It tastes delicious and that is all that matters

Jump To Recipe

Summer is here upon us, all with its 90F+ temperature and I am lovin' it. As usual summer gets me extremely hyper. With first signs of warmth I start planning outdoor weekend trips which eventually leads to fun weekends but very very tired weekdays.

A couple weeks back we took BigSis and Little Sis to the Philadelphia Zoo. This was LS's first zoo visit and she was very excited. BS's school had a class trip to the same zoo later in the month but we were not sending her there so she was excited to visit the zoo before any of her class friends. The trip was really nice if you can overlook LS's throwing up in the car, there not being enough backup for the incidence which actually happens too often and us stopping at a Wal-Mart off the road to buy clothes, tissue, wipe etc. for LS. An hour long drive took us 3 hour with all the fiasco and the fact that every other parent in the tri-state area had decided to visit the zoo over the same weekend.

Though LS had fun running and jumping around I don't think she was awed by all those animals except the Peacock which kept crossing our path. Oh, and the tiger did scare her.

Over the long memorial day weekend we went to a music event organized by a major Indian publishing group. The arrangement was unprofessional, the seating deplorable and choice of venue very inappropriate.The Food as promised on the website was nowhere in real site.Fortunately the music was very good.

There was a three hour concert by Pt.Shiv Kumar Sharma and Hariprasad Cahurasia. I am not much of a music connoisseur and I have never heard them live. It was a wonderful experience to say the least, would be better with more peace and quiet around. Next up was Shaan and he wooed the crowd as expected. BigSis enjoyed the entire show including the Santoor recital and is now a huge fan of Shaan. LS fortunately slept through the classical rendition and was ok for most part of the later until Dad took her home.

Now few weeks back we were visiting our friend in a neighboring state and food connoisseurs that they are, they treated us to a lovely dinner at a Mexican place. This was not your usual run of the mill Mexican chains that dot the map of USA but was more of an authentic Mexican place. We had a Chicken Mole, my first mole time and I didn't really care for it much. Then came the salmon with cilantro. It was beautiful with high notes of fresh coriander, jalapenos and lime. We were in love with that salmon.

Now usually if I love something in the restaurant I don't try to cook it same way at home, instead I just go back to the restaurant to eat it. In this case though it would mean a 3 hour drive each way.So since the meal we had 3 weeks back, I have been trying to re-create it in my kitchen almost every week.

I am not totally successful. It is close and tastes very good but never perfect like the dish we had. I do not have their recipe and this is totally my creation with huge inputs from D of course.  Also since Mexico is a hop, skip and jump from India (no ?), I have used some Indian spices in the recipe. If you make this dish leave your inputs and idea to make it better. I will <3 you for that.

I am cool or what, I used my first ever heart sign so very casually. And here I did not know what "xoxo" meant until BigSis explained it all. Sigh.


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