Coconut Fish Curry

Thai-style red curry with black cod in coconut milk

Makes 4 bowls · 556 kcal per serving

Ingredients

• 600 g black cod (sablefish)
• 400 g coconut milk
• 60 g red curry paste
• 12 g coconut oil
• 60 g shallot
• 2 g turmeric
• 100 g red bell pepper
• 20 g fish sauce
• 12 g brown sugar
• 2 g kaffir lime leaf
• 20 g lime juice
• 12 g Thai basil

Method

1. Curry base: Spoon the thick cream off the top of the coconut milk and heat it with the coconut oil in a wide pan over medium, until it splits and goes oily. Add the curry paste, turmeric, and shallot and fry, stirring, until the paste darkens and smells cooked rather than raw, ~3–4 min. Don't rush this; it is the difference between a deep curry and a flat one.
2. Sauce: Pour in the rest of the coconut milk, add the lime leaves, and bring to a bare simmer. Stir in the fish sauce and sugar, then the bell pepper, and simmer 3–4 min until the pepper gives slightly. Taste and balance it: salty first, a little sweet, then the heat.
3. Fish: Cut the fillets into large pieces and lay them in in a single layer. Simmer gently without stirring until they turn opaque and flake at the thickest point, 5–7 min for black cod or salmon, 4–5 min for a leaner white fish. Move the pan rather than the fish, or the pieces break up.
4. Finish: Off the heat, stir in the lime juice and tear the basil over. Serve with rice.

Notes

Reverse-engineered from a coconut fish curry eaten at an Indonesian restaurant, so it leans Thai with a little turmeric for the golden color a gulai would have. Nutrition leaves the curry paste out, since it has no USDA entry: a shop-bought paste adds roughly 300–450 mg sodium per serving.