White Fish Coconut Curry

Every other Botanicals Kitchen recipe so far has come out of the oven. This one comes out of a single pan on the hob, and it is the first genuinely savoury main course we have put in this section, which felt appropriate for coconut oil, an ingredient whose everyday life has always had at least as much to do with dinner as with skincare. This is a gentle, fragrant, mild curry built around coconut oil, coconut milk and firm white fish, ready in well under an hour.

Why coconut oil, specifically, for this dish

Coconut oil is unusually well suited to a curry that also contains coconut milk, since the two reinforce rather than compete with each other, and its highly saturated fatty acid profile, examined from a skin and hair perspective in our complete guide to carrier oils, is exactly the same chemistry that gives it good stability at cooking temperatures here in the kitchen. Frying spices in fat, rather than simply stirring them into a liquid, helps release their fat-soluble aromatic compounds far more effectively, and coconut oil does that job well.

Ingredients

• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 1 onion, finely sliced
• 3 garlic cloves, finely grated or crushed
• Thumb-sized piece of ginger, finely grated
• 1 to 2 mild red chillies, finely sliced (deseeded for less heat)
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• ½ tsp ground cumin
• 1 x 400ml tin coconut milk
• 150ml fish or vegetable stock
• 600g firm white fish fillets (cod, haddock or similar), skinned and cut into large chunks
• Juice of 1 lime
• A generous handful of fresh coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• Sea salt, to taste

Method

1. Build the base

   Melt the coconut oil in a large, wide pan over a medium heat. Add the onion and cook gently for 8 to 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until soft and just beginning to turn golden at the edges. Add the garlic, ginger and chilli, and cook for a further minute, stirring constantly so the garlic does not catch and burn.

2. Bloom the spices

   Add the turmeric, ground coriander and cumin, and stir for about 30 seconds, until fragrant. This brief, dry-ish frying stage, sometimes called blooming, is what develops a curry’s depth of flavour; rushing it produces a noticeably flatter, more one-dimensional result.

3. Add the liquid

   Pour in the coconut milk and stock, stir well to combine with the spice base, and bring to a gentle simmer. Simmer uncovered for 10 to 12 minutes, allowing the sauce to reduce slightly and the flavours to come together, stirring occasionally.

4. Add the fish

   Season the sauce with salt, then gently lower in the fish chunks. Simmer very gently, without stirring too vigorously, for 6 to 8 minutes, until the fish is just cooked through and flakes easily; white fish overcooks quickly, so start checking a little before you expect it to be ready.

5. Finish

   Remove from the heat, stir through the lime juice and most of the fresh coriander, and taste for seasoning. Scatter the remaining coriander over the top just before serving.

What to serve it with

Plain steamed rice is really all this needs, though we would strongly suggest making our Coconut Chutney alongside it; its fresh, slightly tart, coconut-forward flavour sits naturally with the dish rather than competing with it, in the way a shop-bought chutney designed for an entirely different cuisine sometimes does.

Variations

Prawns instead of fish. Raw prawns work well in place of white fish; add them a couple of minutes later in the process, since they cook even faster.

More vegetables. Sliced peppers, spinach or green beans can be added with the coconut milk and simmered alongside the sauce before the fish goes in.

Milder or hotter. Leave the chilli out entirely for a very mild version suitable for children, or add a second chilli, seeds included, for more heat.

Storage

Best eaten fresh, since delicate white fish does not reheat especially well, but leftovers keep in the fridge for a day and can be gently reheated over a low heat, stirring carefully to avoid breaking the fish up further.