Palak Pathrani Machchi

 

'Pathrani Machchi' as it is popularly known is originally a Parsi and Bengali delicacy. It is a must-have on every Parsi table during their festival 'Navroz'.

 

Traditionally, it is fish wrapped in banana leaf and steamed. But, my experimental brains and passion to tweak traditional recipes and give it a twist led me to this dish and honestly speaking, it is better than the banana leaf version. Not only does the flavour of spinach contribute to the dish, but here, it can be consumed along with the fish. Yum Oh!

 

This dish essentially has three components- the fresh green masala, fresh pieces of fish and fresh spinach leaves. It is this freshness that makes every dish delicious...rather... "dollycious"!!

 

Serves: 2-3 persons 

 

Ingredients:

 

Note- Pathrani Machchi is made with fresh pomfret fish. It is sliced, marinated and wrapped in banana leaves. Here, I am using boneless fish so that it can be wrapped in the spinach easily and also eaten neatly as a starter (in one/two bites).

Boneless Fish (sole fillet/hammour/any white fish)   500 gms

 

Spinach leaves (Palak)                                                as required

 

For the green chutney:

 

Garlic cloves                              3-4 cloves

Ginger                                        1 inch piece

Coriander leaves (with stems)   1 bunch

Pudina leaves                             1/2 bunch

Grated coconut                           3/4 cup

Green chillies                             2 nos.

Coriander powder                      1 tsp

Pepper powder                           a pinch

Salt                                             to taste

Oil                                              to roast

 

 

 

Method:

• Wash the fish, pat it dry with a kitchen tissue, cut into fairly large chunks (approx 2 or 3 inch piece. The size of the pieces would also depend on the size of your palak leaf). Sprinkle with some salt and crushed black pepper and keep aside.

• Wash the palak leaves individually and make sure it has no dirt or sand on it. Cut off the stems and wipe the leaves dry. Keep aside.

 

 

• For the chutney- heat little oil in a pan and fry all the mentioned ingredients well, including the coriander powder, salt and pepper powder. Fry till the raw smell is gone and you get a nice aroma. Cool and grind this to a thick, coarse paste, but make sure the ginger-garlic are minced well and there are no pieces. Add very little water as possible or no water at all while grinding.

Note- Be careful with the salt because spinach leaves can be quite salty.

 
• Take out in a bowl.

 

 

• Next, on a plate, take a leaf of spinach, put a little bit of the paste on it (like a glue), place a piece of fish on it and put around a teaspoon or more of the paste on the piece of fish to coat it completely, without getting the palak leaf too wet.
 

 

 

• Next, carefully wrap the leaf over the fish. Almost like you are wrapping a gift or parcel.

 

• The wrapped fish will look like this.

 

 

• Similarly, prepare all your parcels and keep it in a single layer in a steamer.

• Steam for 20-25 minutes on medium heat.

• When you see that the spinach leaves have become soft, carefully insert a toothpick into one parcel to check if the fish inside it is cooked. If the toothpick inserts easily without any resistence, you know the fish is cooked.

• Using tongs, carefully lift each parcel and serve on a plate.

• You can either serve it wrapped, or unwrap it and serve.

 

Note- Because spinach leaves soften when cooked, do not use a toothpick to seal the parcel while wrapping. Just wrap it using a little bit of the chutney to seal it if required. However, if you are using a banana leaf, you may have to use a toothpick to seal the parcel.

 

 

Tweaking tips:

• The same recipe is used while wrapping the fish in the banana leaf. That becomes Pathrani Machchi.

• You can use small/medium/large sized prawns (shelled, de-veined and tail removed) instead of fish. Reduce the steaming time to 15-20 minutes in case of small prawns.

• If you are not a seafood lover (well..too bad for you I must say) you can still make this dish. Try using boneless chicken. Cut into chunks- sprinkle salt and pepper- steam or slightly fry in a pan (par cooked). Apply chutney and wrap it in the leaf and steam just like the above stages. Try it and let me know! ;)

 

 

 

Happy Cookin' & keep it stylish!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Mutton Cutlets- served with stir fried snow-peas and a shot of tambuli!

Before you get intimated by the name of this dish, relax! This dish is no rocket science, just my way of presenting a couple of simple dishes together as a gourmet platter and getting a little bit of style and variety onto your plates.

The day I put this dish together, my mom had prepared delicious 'tambuli' using 'sambrani leaves', plucked fresh from our tiny garden in the balcony. 'Tambuli' is basically like cocum or sol kadi and it is quite popular in Mangalore, Karnataka (that is where I come from).

Traditionally, 'tambuli' is supposed to be eaten with hot, steaming rice. But I like it more as a drink- it is refreshing, healthy and activates my taste buds. Now, coming back to the inception of this dish- mom had prepared tambuli and I do not prefer eating it with rice. Moreover, I was in mood for some light, yummy gourmet style food- the result of which, is this dish.

 

 

I served the tambuli in a shot glass, just to make it look elegant on the platter. It complimented my juicy mutton cutlets very well and some snow-peas on the side- adding greenery to the plate and healthy too!

 

Let us get to the recipe of each component now.

 

Serves: This platter is one portion. If you wish to serve it like I have, make the number of platters according to your guests. Individually served, this recipe serves 2-3 persons.

 

Ingredients for mutton cutlets:

 

Mutton mince                          1 cup

Onion (medium size)              1 nos.

Potato (medium size)              1 nos.

Bread slices (crust removed)  1-2 slices

Green chilli                             1-2 nos.

Ginger                                     1 inch piece

Garlic (big cloves)                  4-5 cloves

Coriander Leaves                    half a bunch

Salt                                          to taste

Crushed black pepper             1 tsp

Red chilli powder                   1/2 tsp

Cumin (jeera) powder            1/4 tsp

Oil                                          4 tbsps + for shallow frying

 

 

 

Method:

• Boil, peel and mash the potatoes. Keep aside in a mixing bowl.

• Finely chop the onions.

• Using a small grater/food processor, mince the ginger, garlic and green chillies to a fine paste.

• Heat 4 tbsps of oil in a pan or skillet and sauté the chopped onions until they turn pink (translucent/transparent).  

• Add the minced ginger-garlic-green chilli paste and fry for a minute.

• Add the (washed) mutton mince and stir on medium heat.

• The mince will start releasing its own water and juices. Add a bit of salt and keep stirring.

 

• In the meanwhile when the mutton mince is cooking and the water is drying up, take the mashed potatoes in the mixing bowl and add cruched black pepper and a pinch of salt to it.

• Next, take the bread slices (sides removed) and moisten it with little water. Squeeze all the water off by pressing the bread slices in between your palms and add this to the potato. The bread slices will help in binding the cutlets.

• Now, to the cooking mutton mince, add the red chilli and cumin powder and mix well. Make sure that the liquid is completely dried up before turning off the gas.

• Allow the cooked mince mixture to cool a bit. Add this mince to the potato and bread mixture.

• Add finely chopped coriander leaves.

Note- At this stage you can add one egg white to the mixture which will aid in binding. But I made these cutlets without the egg and it turned out perfect. Though I do make another version of cutlets with egg white in it also. But make sure you use only the egg white and not the yolk because that will make the oil in which you fry the cutlets foamy and will also give an eggy odour.

 

• Mix all this with a fork. Once the mixture has cooled, use your clean hands to mix it well and bring it all together.

 

• The mixture will come together like a ball.

• Now take a bit of mixture and shape it into round cutlets. You can even make it a bit oblong shaped or oval shaped.

• Form all the cutlets. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate it for atleast half an hour before frying. This will make the cutlets firm and easier to fry.

• Heat a little oil in a pan, enough for shallow fryng. Place the culets slowly into the oil in a single layer. Make sure you do not over-crowd the pan and fry the cutlets in batches.

• Once it has fried on one side, gently flip it over and fry for 2-3 minutes on the other side.

• Drain it on kitchen tissue.

 

For the tambuli you need:

 

Whole cumin seeds             3/4th tsp

Green chilli                         1 nos.

Sambrani leaves                  10-12 leaves

Grated fresh coconut           1/2 cup

Curd (thick)                         1/2 cup

Salt                                      to taste

 

For tempering the tambuli (tadka):

 

Oil                                       2-3 tbsps

Whole dry red chilli            1 nos.

Urad dal                               1/4 tsp

Mustard seeds                      1/4 tsp

Curry leaves                        7-8 leaves

• Dry roast (without oil) whole cumin seeds, green chilli. Add the sambrani leaves. When it starts leaving water, add grated coconut and roast everything together.

• Transfer this to a blender. Add curd and salt to taste and gring everything well to a smooth paste.

• Prepare the tadka by heating oil in a pan, crackle the mustard seeds. Add urad dal and dry red chilli and at the end add the curry leaves.

• Pour this tadka over the prepared tambuli.

• Serve hot, at room temperature or cold.

Alternatively, you can substitute the sambrani leaves with curry leaves. Just follow the same procedure as above, but use 1/2 cup of curry leaves instead of sambrani leaves while roasting.

 

For the stir fry snow-peas:

• Boil water in a vessel. Put some salt into the boiling water. Add the snow-peas and boil for only 1-2 minutes until tender.Drain the water and immediately immerse the snow-peas in cold water to retain the color. This technique is also called 'blanching.'

• In a pan, put only 2 drops of oil and once the pan is hot, take out the snow-peas from the water and toss it in the hot pan. Sprinkle a little salt and black pepper powder and toss it for another 2 minutes.

 

Tweaking Tips:

• You do not have to serve this platter as it is. Try out the individual recipes. The tambuli can be had with rice; the mutton cutlets as a starter or side dish and the stir fry vegetable as a bowl of greens by the side to add balance and flavour to your meal.

• If you do not have snow-peas or it isn't available, try the same stir fry using fresh brocolli, spinach, green beans or any vegetable of your choice that is full of flavour even if eaten on its own. Follow the procedure as above for any vegetable you choose.

• The tambuli can be substituted by serving a shot of rasam, cocum kadi or even a simple mint lassi by the side.

• Mutton mince can be substituted with chicken mince or even tinned tuna. For a vegetarian version, use some mashed paneer.

• If the mixture feels a little loose or wet, just break in one egg white (use only the white for binding as using the whole egg will make the cutlets eggy and will also make the oil in which you are frying foamy). If you do not want to add egg, use few tbsps of plain flour (maida).

 

 

Happy cookin' & keep it stylish!!