This lightly curried Cape Malay dish which has a slight sweet and sour taste is one of my favourite and is best enjoyed under the summer sun with a glass of Cape Sauvignon Blanc. In the Cape, we normally prepare this dish with ‘Snoek’ or Barracouta, shouldn’t be confused with the game fish called Barracuda. It is also prevalent off the coast of Australia, New Zealand and South America. I really enjoy it prepared with Cod.
Ingredients
- 1.5kg cod fillets cut into 100g portions
- 3 onions, sliced
- 350ml distilled vinegar
- 250ml water
- 7 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 3 tsp ground cumin
- 3 tsp masala
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 6 allspice, also know as ‘Jamaica pepper’
- 6 cloves
- ½ tsp peppercorns
- 3 bay leaves
- 120g flour
- 2 tsp salt
- 3 tsp caster sugar, or to taste
- vegetable oil for frying
Method
- Mix flour and salt in a bowl.
- Make sure fish is dry and flour each piece of fish in seasoned flour.
- In a pan with vegetable oil over a medium heat, fry fish till it is cooked. Place fish in a baking dish or suitable dish for marinating fish in. Retain pan with oil.
- Place all ingredients, except sugar in a saucepan and bring to the boil. Turn down the heat and simmer till onions are translucent but still have a bit of a crunch, ‘al dente’
- Add sugar to taste.
- Pour sauce and oil from pan over fish and cool down and refrigerate till ready to serve.
We enjoy this with tomato bread and butter