Mathi Mulakittathu – Sardines in Spicy Sauce

OK, now when I say “sardine” or “mathi” as it is called in Malayalam, you will see my frowning face. Whatever said and done about the goodness of this abundantly available fish, I have a love-hate relationship with it. Before marriage, I used to not touch it. The days when umma fries it for lunch, my B and me would have a different fish. Unusual of umma, who would never ever do it for any other types of food, but when it comes to fish, since she’s an ardent fish lover, she would do it for us – and yes, does it still! I just wouldn’t stand the smell of it and hated the clean up required to eat it. The first time umma made me cut sardines, I almost fainted! Yeah, that time it was really serious… as I type this now, I can’t help smiling… umma was like, “When will you ever learn to cut fish?”

Post marriage – we landed in Payyoli in the sweltering heat of summer in April 10 years ago and come to see, the fish of the month was sardine, and nothing else. You can imagine my horror. Being in a brand new place, brand new home, brand new people who thought I was somebody who eats anything – yes, I do eat everything, except this!!! Sheesh… – my HD wanted to inform them that I didn’t eat sardine, but I just refrained him from doing so, as I didn’t want to spoil my “first impression-best impression”. Still not being able to look at the fried sardine on the lunch table, I had a piece from the fish curry that was served. Finished, I picked up and served myself a couple more and I was wondering to myself, “Darn, what am I doing?” Finally I was eating sardine in the curry, but definitely not the fried. Till date, I have my sardine only curried, I still cannot stand it fried, I really don’t know why!!! During the initial days of marriage, my HD used to cut the fish for me and clean it so that I only had to cook, but gradually I have started doing it on my own, without the fainting thamasha, of course! 🙂

Didn’t I bore you all? Following the kappa puzhukku recipe of yesterday, this is one curry that goes awesomely well it – definitely the first and the best marriage, I would say! No other fish curry would go well, than this spicy red sardine curry… It goes well with rice as well, which we often have along with the manja curry (yellow curry) I posted some time back… Off to the way I learned to make it from umma, of course… 🙂

Here is another variant to this gravy… 🙂