Asian

Here is a dish much beloved by my husband and children. Medium-sized clams may be substituted for the mussels. You may serve this as a first course, as the main course, or as a light lunch with a salad. Indians eat this curry with rice, but you may serve the mussels by themselves in individual bowls.

Goa, on India’s west coast, is tropical, by the sea, and a haven for tourists from Israel, Germany, the United Kingdom, and, indeed, the entire affluent world, which cannot get enough of its easy ways, its sun and sand. Some of the best food in Goa is not in its expensive resorts but in thatched shacks right on the sea. The fish is always fresh, and usually nothing can beat the fiery shrimp (called prawns here) curry, served with a mound of short-grained local rice. Serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and a green or salad of your choice.

Make this curry as fiery hot as you like. That is how it is preferred in many parts of South India. This dish is generally served with plain rice or with the thin, fresh rice noodles known as idiappam. I have given a method of preparing dried rice sticks, sold in Thai and Vietnamese markets, on page 224 (see Thin Rice Noodles). They are the closest to the Indian noodles. I have also been known to serve this curry over thin spaghettini or angel-hair pasta.

Here is a quick stir-fry that you might serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and Corn with Aromatic Seasonings.

Some version of this fish curry is eaten all along India’s long coastline. I like to make it with fillets (with skin) of Spanish mackerel, but any mackerel or kingfish, indeed, any fish that does not flake too easily, will do. This cooks quickly and easily. This dish is perfect with rice. Add a green vegetable and a salad as well.

In Sri Lanka, an island nation, fish is a staple. It is used in salads, as stuffing for savory pastries, as a flavoring in relishes, as a snack food with drinks, and, of course, in hundreds of curries. This particular curry was served to me for breakfast on a sunny patio at Castlereigh, a tea planter’s home turned boutique hotel, along with fresh rice noodles and good, hot tea. On that cool morning in the mountains nothing could have tasted finer. Almost any fish may be used here, as long as it is firm and holds its shape—swordfish, salmon, pompano, sole, haddock, kingfish, and mackerel. I have used swordfish. Serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and Gujarati-Style Okra.

I used a thick fillet of wild sea bass with skin here, cut into 3-inch segments. Use whatever fish looks good and fresh—haddock, halibut, salmon (steaks or thick fillet pieces), kingfish steaks, or even mackerel pieces. This is a creamy curry best eaten with rice. In Kerala it looks red from all the hot chili powder in it, but I have softened the heat with some paprika, which helps with the color. Serve with Plain Jasmine Rice and South Indian–Style Green Beans.

In Bangladesh, the basic diet is fish and rice. It is not fish from the Bay of Bengal, the sea that rules their shores, that the people thrive on. In fact, they hardly touch that. What they love is the sweet-water fish that comes from their estuaries, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Since local Bangladeshi fish are unavailable to most of us, I have adapted this recipe to fillet of flounder. One of the common local seasonings is an aromatic lime leaf very similar to the kaffir lime leaf of Thailand. If you cannot get that, use fresh curry leaves, or, failing that, fresh basil leaves. Serve with plain rice, a dal, and a vegetable or salad.

I first had this sauce, or one similar to it, in the late 1940s. India had just been partitioned, and a refugee family fleeing from what was to become Pakistan had just opened a small, simple restaurant in the center of Delhi called Moti Mahal. It basically served foods baked in the clay oven called a tandoor. There was one sauced dish, however, Chicken Makhani. A tandoor-roasted chicken was cut up with a cleaver and then heated up in this tomatoey, buttery, creamy sauce. I have always loved the sauce. Over the years, I have played around with it, using it with shrimp, and now with salmon. Serve with Swiss Chard with Ginger and Garlic and Rice Pilaf with Almonds and Raisins.

You can use almost any fish steaks here—salmon, kingfish, cod, haddock, swordfish, salmon, trout, pomfret, pompano, or tilefish—depending on the part of the world you live in. Instead of having to look for ajowan seeds (use 1/4 teaspoon, if you can get them), you can use dried thyme, which has the same flavor. When using the blender here, make sure you put the chopped red pepper in first, as that will provide the liquid needed to make a paste. If your blender remains stubborn, add a tablespoon or two of water. You could serve this with Zucchini and Yellow Summer Squash with Cumin, and Bulgar Pilaf with Peas and Tomato.

I used to make this dish with fillets of halibut until the cost, at least in New York, made me look at other fish. Now I use cod or hake. They both flake a bit more but still manage to hold their shape. Salting them ahead of time helps hold them together. I like to use fresh tomatoes even if they are out of season, as they are gentler in flavor. I grate the tomatoes on the coarsest part of a four-sided grater (see method on page 289), which removes the skin but keeps the seeds. Four medium tomatoes will yield roughly 1 3/4 cups of fresh puree, about what you need here. Light and lovely, this dish is best served with rice. I like to add a dal and perhaps a green, leafy vegetable.

In India we frequently use a paste of ground mustard seeds. I have simplified matters here and used already-prepared Dijon mustard instead. You could serve this with Basmati Rice with Lentils and South Indian–Style Green Beans.

We sat on cushions at an open-air, rooftop restaurant in Peshawar, Pakistan. As it was winter, we had been offered quilts to cover our legs and small individual braziers to keep at our sides. The glow of tandoor clay ovens just a few paces away offered added consolation. It was from there that this fish dish emerged. It was a river fish caught nearby, cooked whole in the tandoor until its outside was browned and the inside was flaky and soft. It was the spices that gave the fish its kick. I asked the chef for the recipe, and here it is. I have had to make a few changes. Instead of the river fish I have used Spanish mackerel (you could also use filleted trout); instead of quick-roasting in a tandoor I pan-fry; instead of ajowan seeds, I have used dried thyme (both contain thymol); and instead of sour oranges I have used a mixture of lemon and sugar. It still tastes marvelous. In Peshawar, this was served with a simple Vinegar-Chili-Onion Dipping Sauce. That recipe is on page 242. You could serve this Western style with boiled parsley potatoes and some green beans, or with Carrots with Cilantro and Potatoes with Cumin and Mustard Seeds.

Somewhere between the famous Mulligatawny Soup of the mixed-race Anglo-Indians and the soupy lentil-tomato-pasta dish, dal dholki, of the vegetarians of the western state of Gujarat, lies this soup. It is made with red lentils and tomatoes and may be served with a dollop of plain white rice or with some cooked pasta (pappardelle, noodles, macaroni) added to the soup just before it is heated for serving. This soup, plus a salad, makes for a perfect lunch or supper. There are three simple steps to follow here. First you boil up the lentils. As they cook, you sauté the seasonings. Then you combine the two and blend them.

This has always been a favorite soup of mine. I made it very recently with the last of the bell peppers on my plants. The leaves had shriveled already, but the peppers were still hanging on. It was such a cold, damp day that I decided to add some warming ginger to the soup for added comfort.

Gujaratis in western India do not actually drink soups as such. They do have many soupy dishes, which are meant to be eaten with flatbreads, rice, or spongy, savory, steamed cakes known as dhoklas. Here is one such dish. It makes for a gorgeous soup. I serve it with a little dollop of cream and a light sprinkling of ground roasted cumin (page 284), though these are not at all essential. In the summer months, I make my own tomato puree and use that to make the soup. Store-bought puree is perfectly good too. In Gujarat a similar dish is served with homemade noodles in it. It is known as dal dhokli. I sometimes throw small quantities of cooked pasta bow ties or even macaroni into the soup.

Here is a soup that is perfect for cold winter days, the ginger in it providing lasting warmth. The ginger also helps if you have a cold and acts as a stabilizer for those who suffer from travel sickness. Apart from all its health-giving properties (which Indians always have in the back of their heads), this is a delicious soup that can be served at any meal.

I make this a lot when tomatoes are in season. It makes for a simple, nutritious lunch or first course.

Here is a soup that I had in Pakistan’s most famous northwestern city, Peshawar. Many of the grander Muslim families, in both India and Pakistan, offer some form of aab gosht, or meat broth, at the start of a meal. Sometimes it comes in cups even before one is seated and requires just sipping. This is a variation of that and requires a spoon. What I was offered on a rather cold day was a steaming bowl of well-seasoned goat broth in which floated oyster mushrooms and slices of river fish. It was so delicious that I decided to come up with a version myself. I have used beef stock, though lamb stock would do as well. If you cannot get fresh oyster mushrooms, use the canned ones, sold by all Chinese grocers, or canned straw mushrooms. Just drain them and rinse them out.

Here is a soup of colonial, British-Indian origin, born in the early days of the Raj and a favorite among the dwindling mixed-race Anglo-Indian community of India. All the ingredients and seasonings are completely Indian. It is just the way it is served (in a soup plate) and eaten (with a soup spoon) that is British. This soup may be served at the start of a meal, but it may also be offered as the main course for a Sunday lunch, the way the Anglo-Indians do. At such times, plain rice is served on the side, with diners adding as much as is desired to their soup plates, a little at a time so as not to solidify the soup in one go. I like to give my guests individual bowls of rice so that a single large bowl of rice does not have to move around the table like a whirling dervish.