Hi, Ray here again.
I’ve tried out some good curries recently from the great range of curry recipes on the Curry Focus website. In the spirit of democracy, this week I asked Wendy what curry she would like. On reflection this was a silly question. Wendy loves fish and requested a fish curry. Knowing how much salmon and tuna she ate, I should have guessed that a fish curry would be on the menu this week.
We checked out the untried fish curry recipes and decided to try the Monkfish Curry recipe. Not many ingredients in the recipe and a really simple recipe to follow. I prefer simple recipes so my limited cooking brain can kick back and relax a little.
I picked up a couple of monkfish fillets during the weekly Saturday shop.
Sunday saw me checking the recipe again and I saw that the preparation would take about 5 minutes whilst the cooking would take about 15 minutes. Normally I would expect fish to cook in a shorter time than this but the monkfish fillets were pretty thick so needed more cooking time than a fish with thin fillets would.
I prepared the ingredients, including rubbing the spices over the monkfish, just before the curry tasters arrived for dinner.
Once the tasters had arrived, I cooked the curry and microwaved the rice. Nothing untoward happened (I told you that this was an easy recipe) and then I served up the Monkfish Curry on basmati rice.
It was a disappointing curry. It took a big stretch to say that this was actually a curry – it was more like fish in mild spices. The tamarind and ginger gave a bit of flavour but, really, this was a bland meal. I must admit that I’ve never really understood the concept of a fish curry. To me, fish either has a strong (meaty) taste of its own (like salmon and tuna) or it is pretty bland/mild and has no real strong taste. I understand the nutritional benefits of eating fish but fail to see how you would get a great fish curry.
I was not alone in saying that this was a disappointing curry and it received a taste score of 6 out of 10, with a heat/spice level of “Mild”.
Next week I will not be as democratic as to let somebody else choose the curry – I’ll choose a curry recipe myself and I can say for certain that it will not be fish.
