Vanjaram fish fry or Surmai Fish Fry or the king fish fry is a delicious and tasty fish fry recipe. The king fish is known as surmai in Urdu and Vanjaram in Tamil. It is a very very popular fish in Tamil Nadu or for that matter, anywhere that there is fish available in the world.
It must be called king fish for a reason. There is nothing like it in taste. You will be forgiven to think that sometimes it tastes like chicken. The taste of this surmai or vanjaram is just unbeatable.
The surmai fish or the vanjaram fish comes in two sizes. One is small fish, about a foot long and the others are really big. We buy both sizes, depending upon what I am going to cook.
If I am planning to bake, I like to buy the big one and make fillets of it. But for the fry or curry variety I prefer the smaller one and make it into slices.
Having been born and brought up in chennai which is a coastal city in south Indian state of tamil nadu, I was pretty much accustomed to the fresh sea water fishes. And this was the top most favorite fish for me or rather the only fish that I used eat during childhood.
I was never fond of other variety of fishes or prawns for that matter. Even though in Chennai we get the most fresh sea fish, I have never been fond of it even though lot of fish variety would get cooked at home. My taste buds were severely limited to the vanjaram meen or the surmai.
And after marriage, coming to Dubai, another coastal city, it was just like another jewel in the crown.
We get the most fresh fish from sea here. You can even see some live fish at times. It is that fresh out here.
And the surmai or the vanjaram meen is no different either. Though now that I have improved my taste buds to other varieties, but the surmai or the vanjaram meen still tops the rank. Ok, a joint first with salmon perhaps.
In our recipe of the surmai fish fry or the vanjaram fish fry we just apply some basic spices to the king fish and fry them to perfection.
The fry of vanjaram or the surmai fish will entirely depend upon your preference. In my home, Ammi used to fry it till just when the fish would easily fall off and you can easily cut it through with a spoon. That’s how I prefer my Vanjaram Fish Fry / Surmai Fish Fry / King Fish Fry too.
But my hubby prefers the Vanjaram Fish Fry / Surmai Fish Fry / King Fish Fry more crisp and deeply fried. What I do is I remove my pieces when they have attained my preference and let the other slices in the pan for frying for some more time for him.
The Vanjaram Fish Fry / Surmai Fish Fry / King Fish Fry is pretty easy and simple to make. Not a big list of ingredients is what makes this a winner in my book.
Let’s get started with the Vanjaram Fish Fry / Surmai Fish Fry / King Fish Fry
Vanjaram Fish Fry, Surmai Fish Fry, King Fish Fry
Ingredients
- 500 gms Vanjaram / Surmai / King Fish slices
- 3 tsp ginger garlic paste
- 1 tsp red chili powder more if you like it spicy
- 1/2 tsp turmeric powder
- salt to taste
- 3 tbsp besan / gram flour
- oil for shallow frying
Instructions
- Mix the ginger garlic paste, red chili powder, turmeric powder, garam masala, salt and besan in a flat dish. Add some water and make it into a smooth batter.
- Apply this to the fish slices one by one and refrigerate for half an hour.
- Heat oil in a pan and fry the slices till golden brown on both sides.
Signing off until next time,
Fareeha.
Help us provide you with more recipes by sharing this recipe with your friends. Please don’t forget to like and comment if you enjoyed this post.
For more such easy recipes try out the following
Fish Fry Masala recipe, Fish Masala Fry
Leave a Reply