Chettinad Saiva Meen Kuzhambu/Vegetarian Fish Gravy

If you would have gone through my previous post, you might know very well that am running my third week of blogging marathon with a super duper interesting theme called 'Meatless dishes'. Coming to today's post, its going to be a Chettinad Special, this dish is well known in chettinad cuisine and this vegetarian fish gravy or curry goes for a legume based vegetarian fish. For making this vegetarian fish, we need some crotons plant leaf or banana leaf for steaming the legume mixture which is supposed to be the vegetarian fish.But here in Paris,its a hard task for me to get those both leaves,so i used a greased baking sheet for steaming which turned out the vegetarian fish prefectly as much as like those leaves.

Actually this vegetarian fish gravy goes for soaked red chori/cowpeas aka thatta payir which is grinded as bit coarse paste with few spices.After going through a steam cook, this cooked red chori mixture will looks almost like steam cooked fish which is later sliced as fish slices. Then they are fried and added to a tamarind based gravy.This is how this vegetarian fish gravy is prepared, however the cooking process goes for bit time consuming, am sure this vegetarian fish gravy is definitely worth to try.A fingerlicking gravy tastes simply awesome and obviously you wont miss the fish here.Serve this gravy with rice topped with ghee and papads, am sure you will have a super filling lunch.Sending to Srivalli's Side Dish Mela..

For Vegetarian Fish:
1cup Cow peas/Red chori
2nos Dry red chillies
3nos Garlic cloves
1tsp Fennel seeds
Salt

Soak the cow peas overnite.

Next day, take the soaked cow peas in a mixie jar with dry red chillies, garlic cloves,fennel seeds and salt, grind as bit coarse paste.

Grease a baking sheet, transfer the grounded paste to it, flatten them as thin as possible.

Fold the sheet and steam cook for 5minutes.

Once the steamed mixture is bit warm, cut as medium size pieces.

Shallow fry the vegetarian fish pieces until they turns golden brown, keep aside.

For Gravy:
2cups Tamarind extract
15nos Shallots (diced)
2nos Tomatoes (chopped)
5nos Garlic cloves
1/4cup Gingelly oil
1/2tsp  Mustard seeds
1tsp Fenugreek seeds
Few curry leaves
1tbsp Coriander powder
1tsp Chilly powder
Salt

Heat the gingelly oil, fry the mustard seeds, fenugreek seeds and curry leaves.

Add the shallots,garlic cloves and chopped tomatoes and saute everything for few minutes until the shallots gets partially cooked..

Now add the tamarind extract with salt, coriander powder, chilly powder, cook in medium flame for 5 minutes.

Add now the already fried vegetarian fish pieces to cooking gravy, close it with lid and dont disturb it.

Cook the gravy until it turns thick and the oil gets separates..

Serve warm with hot steaming rice and papads.