How to ask us to cut your fish
Steaks, curry pieces, fillets, butterfly or whole: the words to use so your fish arrives the way you cook it.
Seer, pomfret or karimeen: choosing fish for the dish
Which fish to buy for a fry, a red curry, a moilee or a pollichathu, and how much a family of four needs.
At the counter, the question we hear most is not which fish is fresh but which fish suits the dish. Here is the guide our staff use.
For a fry, choose firm fish that holds together in hot oil. Seer, or neymeen, cut into steaks of about 1.5 cm, is the classic choice. Sardines and mackerel fry well whole, with cuts on the sides. Allow about 150 g of steak per person. For a red fish curry with kudampuli, choose oily, strong-flavoured fish: sardines, mackerel, or pieces of tuna or seer with the bone in. The bones and skin give the curry body. Ask us for curry pieces of about 4 cm. A family of four needs roughly 750 g.
For a moilee, the mild coconut milk curry, you want a delicate white fish: pomfret, seer fillets or pearl spot. Pomfret is best whole or in large pieces; ask us to leave the skin on so it does not break. For pollichathu, the fish wrapped in banana leaf and roasted, karimeen is traditional. Choose fish of 150 to 200 g each, one per person, and ask us to scale and score them for you. Crab masala needs live mud crabs, cleaned and cut into quarters at the counter. Prawns for a roast or fry should be medium or large, peeled and deveined with the tail on. If you are unsure, tell us what you are cooking when you order on WhatsApp, and we will suggest what landed well that morning.
