Kerala style Salmon Fry | Air Fried

Good day to all my dear friends. I sincerely hope you all are doing well and staying safe at home wherever you are during this Coronovirus pandemic. Although 2020 had started off with a bang for us, it's in quite a grim state now, but we are trying to do our best. The last day my entire family went out was March 13th and we've been home ever since. Except for a quick trip to the pharmacy to collect our meds and to pick up online purchased grocery which wasn't home delivered, we haven't stepped out at all. With 2 small kids, we decided it's best to stay home no matter what. So we are staying home, spending time with the family, trying new recipes, working out, playing board/card games and doing our best to keep everyone happy and calm.

I do want to extend our gratitude and thanks to all the front line workers - all medical staff, grocery store workers, the people who did our online shopping and all other essential facility workers who continue to be brave and are helping keep things normal in this suddenly not-normal situation.  Be safe everyone!

With everyone at home all day all the time now and with no eating from outside anymore, I've definitely had to increase my cooking. I've started using several of my kitchen gadgets a lot more now...lol! and one of them is my 'Emerald' brand Air Fryer that I had bought during 2018 Thanksgiving and hardly used much. We do not do a lot of deep fried cooking or use a lot of oil in our dishes anyways, so never felt a need to use the air fryer, but gave it a try to make this Fish Fry which pretty much turned out like it had been deep fried ;-) But I used no oil at all...except for greasing the tray. Salmon by itself has enough oil in the fish to nicely crisp it up.

The recipe is really simple and Salmon fry makes a great side dish with Rice, Carrot thoran or Beetroot thoran and some pulishery...yum!!

Kerala style Salmon Fry | Air Fried

You’ll need

1 Lb Salmon, cut into cubes

For Marination:

1 Tablespoon Red Chilli powder

1 teaspoon Turmeric Powder

1 teaspoon Black pepper powder

1 Tablespoon Ginger-Garlic paste

Lemon juice (as needed)

Salt as needed

Directions:

1. Mix all the ingredients under marination with enough lemon juice to form a smooth paste. The marination paste should not be runny.(Can substitute lemon juice with water)

2. Coat the salmon cubes well with the marination paste and let it marinate for atleast 30mins-1hour.

3. Pre-heat the airfryer for 10mins. The air Fryer I use sets the temperature to 360F for Seafood.

4. Grease the tray/basket of the air fryer and add the salmon pieces making sure to not over crowd the tray. Best to air fry in small batches depending on number of pieces.

5. Air-fry for 20 mins , turning sides halfway for a nice crust.

If not using Air-Fryer:

Heat 2-3 Tablespoons of vegetable Oil or Coconut oil in a shallow frying pan and fry the marinated salmon pieces on both sides until salmon is cooked and gets a nice brown crust.

-Manju

Carrot Thoran...and Happy Onam wishes in advance to all !!

I realise it has been quiet here for a while now. But that's only b'coz I've been out and about enjoying a much awaited vacation with my family. We travelled a lot,  ate so much and walked and explored and enjoyed so much that now I'd actually like a vacation from our vacation...have you ever felt like that? ;-)

The only thing we terribly missed during our vacation was nothing but home-cooked meals. Ofcourse it was definitely a bliss to be away from the kitchen for a while and enjoy free continental breakfasts at our hotel and try several new cusinies and tastes, but every now and then we wished to have something simple, something homemade. Eating from Indian restaurants din't help us much either!

So the first thing we did after we reached home was to prepare a simple yet hearty breakfast. Vermicelli Upma being something that our lil'Appu also loves, we prepared that and you should have seen how the little guy savored it, scooping in forkfull into his tiny mouth. He also missed home-cooked and familiar meals I guess :-) 

And although still tired from all the travel we decided to prepare a decent lunch and thanks to the abundance of our garden veggies, we din't have to run out to the store to buy any veggies and there was some Carrots in the fridge bought from the store a while ago.  So we cooked Rice and prepared Carrot thoran, Pulishery (seasoned buttermilk curry), Vendakka Theeyal (lady's finger /okra cooked in a roasted coconut gravy) and Achinga Payar Mezhukuperatty...the last two dishes prepared using homegrown veggies. I wish I had the recipes for all these dishes on the blog, but I'm working on getting it in here soon. 

Appu loves carrots and we add it to almost everything he eats, be it dosa, idli, sweet or savory dishes and lately he loves all kinds of thoran, including this Carrot Thoran. 
Thoran is nothing but a Malayalee version of veggie stir fry which is cooked until the veggies are almost roasted and dry and finally some grated coconut is added for flavour and texture.

Carrot thoran is a staple side dish at our house. I find grating the carrots easier but you can dice it thinly or make small cubes and prepare this thoran and the way I make it, it has a very mild hint of spice with the lovely sweetness from the carrots and onions. It’s one of our absolute favorite side dishes and tastes just great when eaten with plain white rice or Rotis and is really really easy to prepare.

 Carrot Thoran Recipe

You’ll need
Coconut Oil – 1 tblsp

Mustard seeds – 1 tsp
Dry Red Chilli – 1 (broken in half)
Curry leaves – 1 sprig (about 5-6 leaves)
Carrots (grated) – 2 large
Red Onion (diced or thinly sliced) – 1 medium
Green chillies (slit lengthwise or sliced) – 2
Fresh grated coconut – 2-3 tblsp (I used dry coconut powder)
Garlic clove – 1
Salt – to taste

Directions
1. In a frying pan, heat the oil. Temper by cracking the mustard seeds and then add dry red chillies and curry leaves.
2. Add the diced onions and green chillies, add some salt and sauté until the onions are pink and soft.
3. Add the grated Carrots now and sprinkle a tiny bit of water and cover and cook until the carrots are soft and cooked.
4. Coarsely grind or crush using a mortar-pestle the coconut and garlic and add that to the carrot and cook for few more minutes without the lid until the thoran is dry and the garlic smell wears off.

Few other suggestions:
1. If you do not want to bite into any green chillies by mistake, grind/crush it along with the coconut and garlic in Step 4.
2. You can add some chana dal or split moong dal while tempering for some more flavor and texture.
3. Use Vegetable oil if you do not prefer coconut oil.

See! now wasn't that really simple and easy. And we ate lunch to our hearts content with these simple yet yummy dishes and no restaurant food could have beat that, I say!

Onam is right around the corner (on Sep 16th this year) and I'm sure all Keralites are gearing up to celebrate this popular festival of the south-Indian state of Kerala, with family & friends and the special part is cooking up an elaborate sadhya! 

I wish you all a "Very Happy & Prosperous Onam" in advance. 

Here's a pic of our Vishu sadhya dishes which we prepared for this year's Vishu festival which was in April, just a few a days after we had moved in to our new house. Banana leaves which is traditionally used to serve the sadhya in is missing here, as we din't get a chance to go and buy them, but the sadhya was superb! Just looking at it makes me drool. Burrrp...oops!! Hehe... 

Can you guess the dishes?? :-)

We haven't yet planned our Onam sadhya menu, but we will soon.

Psst: Make this carrot thoran as one of your sadhya sides, lovely color, great taste, easy to make, what else do you want? ;-)

-Manju