Shallow fried Surmai / King Fish

Everytime I visit China Town in NY city I cannot stop but marvel at the variety of vegetables,fruits,groceries and all the other exotic green stuff they display on the carts by the road side. I love the hustle & bustle and their chatty lingo which is almost impossible to decipher.  I mostly get lucky and find  fresh  fish(Indian variety) which is hard to find  even in the Indian grocery stores. This time my catch was Surmai a k a King fish. I was very excited and was already thinking of ways to prepare this fish while Mahir was driving us back home:) Dad used to love surmai and I have grown up eating various Sindhi preparations made with surmai , I had picked up a little less than 4 pounds and I knew I would fry some as a side dish and prepare the rest in gravy. So I came up with the simplest of all the recipes I could remember and I choose this because the shallow frying along with the marination of different masalas brings out the best in this fish. I will be posting the recipe for the same fish in gravy too ,so stay tuned for that:)

Here is what you will need for preparing it :
King Fish/Surmai : 1 pound- roughly 4 pieces
Lemon Juice: 2 tbsp
Salt: 1 tsp

ginger paste: 1 tbsp
garlic paste: 1 tbsp
mango powder: 1 tsp
Turmeric: 1/4 tsp
Oil: 4 -6 tbsp for shallow frying

Spices to be roasted & ground to fine powder:
Coriander: 1 tsp
Cumin: 1 tsp
Dry kashmiri Chilli: 3 
Black pepper corn: 10-12


Method:
take the fish,wash it thoroughly and pull out any coagulated blood from the cavities( this can make the fish taste bitter)
Rub a tsp of salt along with a tbsp of lemon juice. Keep it aside for 30 minutes & then wash it and pat dry on a paper towel.


Take the roasted spices powder along with ginger , garlic ,mango powder & turmeric & some salt and rub it  all over the fish. Let the fish marinate in this for at least 1 hour preferably in the refrigerator.


Take a heavy bottomed skillet and use 3 tbsp of oil,if you are going to fry the fish in 2 batches. If you have a big pan and it can fit all the fish you will fry than you can add 6 tbsp of oil in one go. Let the oil heat well. take the fish and let it shallow fry on 1 side till done on medium to low flame,you can initially cover the skillet,to avoid the oil from spluttering all over. Now flip the fish and let it fry on the other side. Let the  fish fry for the last 5 minutes  without any cover to give it a crispy texture. 


Squeeze some lime juice before serving along with some sliced onions. You can serve this with some daal & roti's or enjoy the fish with green chutney & some wine that goes well with Indian spices.  

Note: Fry the fish for the first couple minutes on high flame covered ,then turn the flame to medium or slow.