Finishing a Dish

It's my third day in Sri Lanka and the morning air is suddenly alive with the flash fry of fresh curry leaves. I'm staying at a sleepy hotel on the fringes of the horshoe bay of Hiriketiya and it's breakfast time. Langur monkeys have congregated on the hotel garden wall strategising about their plans to plunder leftovers while magpie robins chirp tropical morning songs. It's an assault on the senses but it's those wonderful curry leaves that resonate the loudest.

Breakfast arrives, perfuming the already fragrant Sri Lankan morning with more smells. Earthy daal subtle with the spices of turmeric and coriander, was accompanied by a punchy coconut sambol, delicate hooper egg pancakes and a delicious oatmeal, creamy with coconut, sweetened with jaggery and given character by those wonderful curry leaves.

I fell in love with curry leaves during my time in India last year. They were everywhere punctuating the air of the little residential neighbourhood we lived in in Goa. Their smell was so complex, notes of anise and citrus combining with a spicy indefinable aroma. Returning to Paxos that spring I was delighted to find that a number of my neighbours had succefully grown curry leaves in previous years. They had assured me that come June, I was free to raid their flower beds if I was happy in return to prepare and share some of the dishes I had come to love during my time in the region.

The sights and smells of my Sri Lanka morning breakfast reminded me of an important moment of clarity I had when trying to finalise a dish that had sat unfinished on menu for quite some time and how central curry leaves and my time in India had been to the finished dish.

Working as a cook it's only natural to try and come up with dishes that are inherently personal. Dishes that reflect your style, tastes and flavour, but even more so your experiences. I am lucky enough to be able to fill the months where I don't work with travel and it is these journeys I find influencing my food more than anything else. It's a joy to be able to return from travelling, back to my kitchen, where I can replicate those experiences and flavours in my own menus.

I have had a starter on my summer menu for quite a few years now and I have never truly considered it finished. The dish itself is an appetiser of cured greek red snapper. The fish is filleted, pin boned and then dry cured in equal parts crystal rock salt and sugar. The curing process denatures the fish, drawing out moisture and intensifying the natural flavour and texture of the snapper. To include aromats in the cure also drives in their flavour resulting in a final product complex in both texture and flavour. 

I have used all sorts of additions in the past, grapefruit, marathos; the fragrant tops of the fennel plant, toasted and ground coriander and fennel seeds. Over time they perfume the flesh, working with the natural flavour of the fish to create a delicate taste. It results in a finished dish that is unique from the citrus hit of the innumerable ceviches and carpaccios that sit expensively on modern greek menus...and for me it's one of my favourites ways to eat fish. Yet despite all its relative merits I remained not unhappy, but perhaps a little troubled that I still considered the dish missing something.

So upon my return from India early last spring I resolved to finish the dish and an idea took hold to incorporate the curry leaves into my cure. The hope being that they would impart that distinctive and unique flavour within the fish, and give the final dish a more south Asian flavour profile than in previous years. I hoped, by reflecting ingredients that I learned to love during my travels, that the dish would finally find it's soul.

In order to achieve this, the dish needed to be a representation and reflection of the time I had spent there, bringing together the tastes and textures of my time in both Goa and Kerala. In the past the dish had been more reflective of Greek flavours with spring mornings spent plucking fresh dill and marathos tops from the garden and toasting fennel seeds to work alongside the citrus of Greek lemons and pink grapefruits. It was time for a change up in it's cultural complexion and instantly I thought back to hot Keralan mornings and the countless fish markets and stands as well as themiriad of spices that hung in there throughout the day.

Back in the kitchen I began by heating up neural oil and once at a toasty 180c the leaves were tossed in. Instantly They reacted, crackling and snapping in the hot oil, curling and twisting on the surface and turning from a garden green to a more vibrant verdant shade as the hot oil activated the chlorophyll.

After a few seconds they were pulled out and laid out on kitchen paper to drain and retain their crisp. They looked so beautiful sitting there, each one different now from their prior uniformity on the branch. The leaves were added to a blender where the high powered blades made short work of them reducing the crispy leaves to a fine green dust in seconds. Removing the lid released a scented smoke heavy with the fragrance of the toasted leaves.

The fine powder was added to rock salt, sugar as well as some toasted coriander and fennel seeds and given a final blend to incorporate everything. The cure was then packed around the portioned fish and wrapped tightly before being placed in the fridge to work it's magic.

Once the fish had been cured and wrapped my attention moved to the other elements of the dish. I wanted the fish to be accompanied by a sauce or puree that would provide the acidity the finished dish needed. In the past I had turned to kefir, buttermilk, and curd but now I felt those all too one dimensional given the spice profile of the cure. It needed something herbaceous, perhaps with notes of citrus and parsley but something that could sit alongside the complexity of the spices. For this I turned to my coriander yoghurt.

Almost every time I make a curry I knock up this quick coriander yoghurt made up of thick Greek yoghurt, garlic ginger paste, green chilli, lime juice, salt and sugar. It comes together so easy and is so delicious drizzled over almost any curry.

After two days of waiting, the dish was ready to prepare. The fish was removed from the fridge and cleaned of it's cure. The flesh now firm to the touch. I started by making half cm slices against the grain, the cells of the fillet now pleasingly distinctive in shape and texture. I couldn't resist a piece and it was exactly what I wanted. The fragrance of the spices and the curry leaves left a lasting impression on the fish and the cure had done it's job. The fish was chewy yet still delicate.

I made a thin sauce with the coriander chutney blending it to a consistency that spread across the plate coating it in a bright green film. The fish slices sat on top of the acidic sweet coriander sauce and the dish was finished with some leftover crispy curry leaves.

The dish really worked and was a useful reminder that some things needs time before they are ready. I had travelled a lot since the Inception of the little appetiser during COVID lockdown but it was the visits to both India and now Sri Lanka that ultimately influenced my love for this dish. It will definitely feature on my summer menu this year and I will remember my Sri Lankan mornings and the pop of fresh curry leaves every time I prepare it. 

The finished dish, curry leaf cured snapper, toasted coriander seeds, mre crispy curry leaves and coriander yoghurt