Cilantro lime grilled fish (with vegeterian option)

Cilantro blended with ginger, garlic, lime juice and green chili pepper (jalapeno or similar) makes a healthy and flavorful marinade for fish fillets, mushrooms and more.  A light white fish like tilapia,  sole works wonderful for this recipe.  This recipe can easily tailored to vegetarians with portobello mushroom. This pan fried fish recipe when cooked in a non-stick or cast iron pan comes out like it was deep fried in oil, when in reality 1 Tsp of oil goes a long way for this recipe.

Type of Food: Main dish/snack
Makes: 2 servings
Pots and pans: Blender, cast iron or non-stick griddle

Ingredients
1 lime juiced or 2 Tbsp lime juice
2 cups fresh cilantro
1 jalapeno pepper (or 1/2 if you prefer it mild)
3 pods of garlic
2″ inch piece of ginger
Substitute: 2 Tbsp of ginger and garlic paste
Salt as per taste
2 fillets of fish (Tilapia or any light white fish)
Substitute 2 portobello mushroom caps
2 Tbsp corn starch
1 tsp cooking oil (olive or vegetable)
2-4 lemon wedges for garnish

How to make
Marinate the fish with 1 tsp of lemon juice and salt for 10 minutes.  Grind to a smooth paste in a blender cilantro, jalapeno pepper, garlic, ginger and lime juice.  The key to smooth grinding is to make sure there is some liquid around the belnder blades.  So begin with lime juice in the blender. Drain the 1st marindae (salt+ lemon juice) off the fish and apply the ground paste evenly all over the fish.  Let it marinate for 15 minutes to 30 minutes in the refrigerator. Add corn starch  to the marinated fish to absorb the watery content oozed out of the fish.  This procedure will make the marinade thick and provide a nice crust on the fish. Heat a nonstick pan or a cast iron pan with 1 tsp oil.  Place the fish gently on the pan.  DO NOT MOVE it for at least one minute.  After 2 minutes turn the fish to cook on the other side.  Because of a bright green marinade this fish recipe does not have to turn brown in color, rather a slight tint of brown will suffice. Serve with a simple yet fun couscous recipe.

Make it Fast, Fun, and Facile! – Sri

Tips, tricks and alternatives
You could always tweak the proportion of marinade ingredients to make it less sour, more garlicy or more spicy.

Serving ideas
This recipe can be serve on a bed of rice, with couscous, or with tortilla to make fish tacos with shredded lettuce and diced tomatoes.

Mint chutney

This chutney is ideal for kababs, grilled veggies, paneer and meat.  It can be mixed with yogurt for kababs and with cream cheese to use as a spread for sandwiches and wraps.

Ingredients
1 Tbsp cumin seeds
1 bunch of mint
1/2 bunch of cilantro
4 green chillies (add more if you want it spicy)
4″ piece of ginger
8 pods of garlic (peeled)
2 Tbsp dry pomegranate seeds (available in Indian grocery store as anardhana seeds)
2 tsp black salt (available in Indian grocery store as kala namak.  It is pink in color though:))

How to make
Grind all the above mentioned ingredients into a fine paste with very little water. Adjust for salt.

Make it Fast, Fun, and Facile! – Sri

Tips
A huge batch of this chutney can be made and frozen in ice cube trays covered with saran wrap for an hour.  Once it is frozen remove the chutney cubes from the tray and place them in a ziploc bag.  Label the bag as ‘mint chutney’ and the date, so you know  when you made it.  These frozen cubes are ideal to pick just the right portion you will need each time.

This chutney can also be used in tri-colored rice.

Green chutney for chaat recipes

This chutney is very easy to whip and can be used as spreads for sandwiches and in chat recipes.

Ingredients
1 bunch of cilantro
3 green chillies (add more if you want it spicy)
3″ piece of ginger
6 pods of garlic (peeled)
2 Tbsp dry pomegranate seeds (available in Indian grocery store as anardhana seeds)
2 tsp salt

How to make
Grind all the above mentioned ingredients into a fine paste with very little water. Adjust for salt.

Make it Fast, Fun, and Facile! – Sri

Tips
A huge batch of this chutney can be made and frozen in ice cube trays covered with saran wrap for an hour.  Once it is frozen, remove the chutney cubes from the tray and place them in a ziploc bag.  Label the bag as ‘green chutney’ and the date, so you know  when you made it.  These frozen cubes are ideal to pick just the right portion you will need each time.

This chutney can also be used in tri-colored rice.