INGREDIENTS
Tuna - 500g (any firm fleshed fish such as Yellowfin tuna (Kelawalla), Sail fish (Thalapath) can be used but I have found that the Skipjack tuna (Balaya) works best )
Onion - 50 g, sliced
Fenugreek seeds - ½ tsp
Pepper - 1 tsp, whole
Pandan leaf - 1 piece
Salt - As needed
Water - ½ Cup
Banana leaf - 1 piece
FOR THE PASTE
Cardamom - 6 pods
Cinnamon - 6 tsps, powdered
Cumin powder - 1 tsp
Coriander powder - 1 tsp
Pepper - 1 tsp
Chili powder - 1 tsp
Roasted curry powder - 1 tsp
Garlic - 3 cloves, crushed
Green chili - 1, chopped
Goraka - 5 pieces
Salt - To taste
INSTRUCTIONS
Boil a little water and add 2 pieces of goraka. Boil for about 10 minutes. Let it cool. Keep the water aside.
Grind the softened goraka pieces and all the ingredients in the “paste” section together. (My mother used to hand-grind everything on the heavy grinding stone in the kitchen. But now she just uses the grinder. I do sense a difference in taste though between the two methods) Set aside.
Wash the fish with clean water and a little lime. Combine it with the paste you made and set aside.
Line a large clay pot in the piece of banana leaf. Place the paste covered fish, onions, fenugreek and the pandan leaf.
Add the water that you boiled the goraka in. Cook on high covered on a wood fired stove until the mixture has started bubbling.
Fill another clay pot with live burning coals. Remove the cover of the clay pot containing the fish and keep the clay pot filled with the burning coals on top of the other pot like its lid. The purpose is to create a grill like atmosphere with heat hitting …
Gimme a plate of warm rice, a piece of fish ambul thiyal and a good, spicy vibrant pol sambol and the Gods are appeased.
COOKING TIPS
Choose a firm fish for the dish. Firm flesh fish yields the best results.
Washing the fish with lime helps eliminate the fishy odor and also any harmful parasites that may be living in the flesh.
This is the traditional method of doing the ambul thiyal with the coal pot, the banana leaf and the whole jingbang. You can of course ditch the banana leaf and the pot full of coals and instead cook on low heat with the pot covered. Of course you would not get that smokey banana leaf flavour and the caramalization of the top, but it would yield a descent enough ambul thiyal. In fact, I ditch the coal pot more often than not.
The wood fired stove (dara lipa) yields the best results and gives it that lovely smoky flavour characteristic to the ambul thiyal. But of course you can use a regular stovetop for the purpose. My mother does it all the time and it’s still very, very delicious.
The beauty of this is that you can keep this dish for weeks on end without refrigerating! The goraka and the spices…
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