Apollo Fish the Nizaami Version

This is a Hyderabadi dish that we ate at a famous Dhaba in Hyderabad called the Deewan Dhaba (map). We had almost turned it into a ritual to drive 30mins down to this place on every new year morning. These Dhabas are on the Medchal road just outside of Hyderabad. Other than the Deewan all of them are named based on Indian television channels and goes like Zee, Sony etc.
Even though this is called a Dhaba the “ambience” doesn’t really match that of a real Dhaba as there are no char-pais (cots) to sit/laze on, neither do they serve the Punjabi Lassi. However, the food is awesome and mostly capable of killing people who are not used to the Hyderabadi spices. Anyways coming back to the recipe. Apollo Fish can be cooked with a variety of fishes but my choice is cod or bhetki. Given that I now live in the US I tend to use cod as it’s more easily available.

Ingredients

• 1-2 lbs. of cod fillets or bhetki fillets cut into cubes
• 1 inch ginger finely chopped
• 2cloves garlic finely chopped
• salt
• Lime juice-2 tbsp
• Red chili powder-1/2tsp (or 10 if you are a true Hyderabadi)
• Corn flour-2 tbsp
• All purpose flour-1 tbsp
• Freshly ground pepper powder-1 tbsp
• Onion -1 big
• Bell pepper-1 small
• Green chili - 4
• Cilantro - 1/4 cup
• Curry Leaf - 10

Procedure

• Marinate the fish with salt and lime juice for 15 mins. Add equal quantity of all purpose flour and corn flour to coat the fish.
• Take oil and heat it. Add fish and shallow fry it till both the sides are golden brown .
• Remove the fish. If required take little more oil in the pan.
• Add finely chopped ginger and garlic and sauté it for 1 min.
• Add finely chopped onion, bell pepper, green chilies and curry leaf to it. Fry it in medium heat.
• Add the fried fish and 1/2 tsp of red chili powder to it.
• Take a bowl, mix 1 tbsp of corn flour and water and add it to the fish
• Add salt and simmer it in medium heat for 1-2 mins.
• Garnish it with freshly ground pepper powder, finely chopped cilantro and spring onion.