If you follow my blog regularly, you must surely know how much I love fish! Fish comprises of 70-80% of my protein for the week. Luckily my whole family loves fish! What about you? Do you like fish? Even if you are not a big fan of fish, I strongly suggest you try this recipe! Fish pieces marinated with green cilantro chutney and then coated with batter and shallow fried. Crispy on the outside and soft flaky on the inside! These are the perfect fish fritters or fish pakoras as they are called in India. These are the Indian equivalent of the western ‘Fried Fish’ but so much more flavorful because of the addition of spices. Btw, this recipe is proof of the fact that I am constantly improving and improvising my recipes. I have posted a similar recipe before which was quite good too however the texture of this one is totally different and hence I decided to do a separate post instead of updating my previous recipe. Besides that one is also good in itself 🙂
Traditionally fish pakoras are made using chickpea flour (besan) batter and I have posted my recipe of those before. Since I cannot do legumes now, I had to improvise and cassava flour to the rescue! Actually, this recipe comes pretty darn close to the traditional one!
These pakoras I think pair perfectly with a salad. Or you can have them with some sautéed or roasted veggies on the side. Or may be even with cauliflower pilaf. My kids love these pakoras and always remember to make a big batch as these are gone pretty quick! These also make a great appetizer if you are entertaining!
You can watch my video of this recipe to make sure you get all my tips!
Although the best way to have fish is by cooking it minimally and so I usually bake them or make fish curry, these fritters are so delicious that they are also going to be on regular rotation on my menu! Hope you try these and please let me know how you like them by dropping me a comment below!
Some other fish recipes from my site hat you might like:
Spicy Baked Fish in Banana leaves
- A generous bunch of fresh cilantro leaves (about ½ a cup)
- 1 large garlic clove (or two small cloves), peeled
- 1 inch by ½ inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 2 tsp water
- About 4 flounder filet pieces or any other white fish each about 4 oz, cut into 1 inch by 2 inch pieces
- ¼ cup Otto's cassava flour
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- ¼ tsp turmeric
- ¼ tsp kashmiri red chilli powder (omit for AIP)
- ¼ tsp cumin seeds or ground cumin (omit for AIP)
- ¼ tsp ajwain seeds or carom seeds (omit for AIP)
- ¼ cup plus 2 tsp water
- Coconut oil for shallow frying, about 4 tbsp
- In a food processor, grind the cilantro, garlic, ginger, sea salt and water. (It's ok if the mixture is somewhat chunky - A small food processor jar like Magic Bullet works best). Keep aside.
- In a medium size mixing bowl, place the fish pieces. Dab them using a paper towel to get rid of excess moisture. Then add the marinade to this bowl and using your hands coat each fish piece with the marinade. Keep aside.
- In another mixing bowl, add all the batter ingredients and mix using a fork to get a smooth mixture. Mixture will be quite thick.
- Heat a stainless steel or non stick frying pan on medium heat for about 3-4 minutes until it is hot and then add about 2 tbsp of coconut oil to it and let heat for about 1 minute until the oil is hot.
- Now add about 6-8 pieces of fish to the batter bowl and then one by one take each piece of coated fish and place on the pan. Shallow fry the fish on medium heat for about 2 mins and then flip and cook for 2 more minutes on the other side until you get a crispy golden color on both sides. Transfer to a plate lined with paper towels.
- Repeat process with remaining fish.
- Serve the pakoras hot as they will lose their crispiness upon cooling.
