Fish curry

I used to make this dish with Garnisha Masala Paste which is a low-sodium mild curry paste. Garnisha looks like it has gone out of business, so I just tried making my own curry-paste from the recipe here. I duplicate it here so I can add adjustments and in case the original goes away.

Ingredients:

Curry Paste:

• 2 red chillies - sliced (recipe says birds-eye - I just got small hot red chillies)
• Approx 1 inch piece of fresh ginger - peeled and finely grated
• 5 kaffir lime leaves
• 1 lemongrass stalk - finely chopped
• 4 shallots (recipe says 4 - mine were large bulbs with two "body" sections - think garlic cloves - I used 4 of those sections instead of 4 whole bulbs)
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• 1/2 tablespoon paprika

Fish Curry:

• 2 medium sweet-potatoes (kumara) - peeled and sliced
• 1 eggplant - 1-2cm cubes
• Plain flour or cornflour
• 2 blue grenadier fillets - cubed
• 1 red capsicum - sliced
• 2 440ml cans coconut milk
• Oil

Directions:

Make the curry paste:

1. Chop all ingredients and combine. My kaffir lime leaves were dried, so I soaked them in water first.
2. Put into food-processor/barrel blender. Blend into a paste.
3. I refrigerated the result overnight - I don't know if this helps develop flavours, it did firm the texture a little

Make the fish curry:

1. Slice the peeled sweet potatoes into "discs". Heat a sauce-pan and fry about a table-spoon of curry-paste until fragrant. Add the sweet-potato and enough water to cover. Bring to boil and simmer until just about tender.
2. Meanwhile, shake the eggplant cubes in a bag with the plain-flour. In a large frypan or wok, fry the eggplant in oil until browned. Remove from pan.
3. Fry the remaining curry-paste until fragrant. Add the red-capsicum and stir-fry.
4. Pour the sauce-pan of sweet-potato and water/curry into the frying-pan, add the eggplant and coconut milk.
5. Bring the liquid to a simmer and add the fish
6. Allow to simmer for 2-3 minutes until the fish is cooked
7. Serve over instant noodles or rice.

This is a variation on an old recipe we used before going low-sodium from a pack of Ayam instant noodles. Although their sodium content has increased a little in recent years we still quite like it served on instant noodles.

You can probably skip the simmering of the sweet-potatoes if you don't mind them being a little undercooked.

You can adjust the heat by adding or removing chillies. This two chilli recipe was fine for my 10 year old who is being introduced to spice.