Karuvattu kolumbu (Dry salted fish curry)

Why is it that certain food just taste good because of the memories it carries?

Of course i was not really a great curry eater in my youth but lately been having this 'urge' or craving hv u nots to eat karuvattu kolumbu, since i spotted a vegetarian mochai kottai curry at Anantha Bhavan, Bangsar one lazy Sunday afternoon. See how the brain makes the connection-karuvattu kolumbu normally comes with mochai kottai, right, just how your grandma made it?

So since my salted fish stock was still tucked in a corner of the fridge shelf for nearly a month now, it just begged for some action. Out came anchovies (ikan bilis lah!) as well. And i had thrown a couple of tins of Edberg canned 4 beans into the shopping basket when we dropped by this rather 'out of norm' convenience store at Lorong Kasipillay after a meal at Tasty Chapati like 2 months back. So since got no time to soak mochai kottai, as usual, i improvised lah with the canned stuff.

For this curry, you really cant cheat on the oil. Once in a while eat extra oil, no need go cardiac MRI la.

4 tbsp of corn oil heated up in a big pot. In went 3 chopped onions, one whole bunch garlic all given a quick crush on the tumbuk belacan (pestle and mortar).

Add 1 tsp fenugreek, 1 tsp cumin, 1 tsp jeera and 1 inch cinnamon. Saute nicely.

Spoon in 5 tbsp fish curry powder of your choice (better still if you blend your own as the taste will just get better with fresh spices).

Let oil break on surface, now add a cup and half of already washed ikan bilis and the salted fish chunks. Let it all nicely fry in the curried oil for like 2-4 mins.

Once you get the ikan bilis smell filling up the space around you, time to drizzle in like a cup of water, slowly.

Once it starts to simmer, dunk 4 chopped potatoes and pour another 2 cups of water, let cook like 10 mins till potatoes soften.

Finally, open the can of four beans of lima beans, kidney beans, butter beans and chickpeas. Rinse them out in hot water to get rid of that weird canned taste. Dunk all into the curry.

Add tamarind or lime juice to taste and salt as you like. No need coconut milk. Serve with nice fluffy rice or bread or tosai or roti canai. Next day, if you have leftover, just break a couple of eggs in it and dunk more bread. After that, dont eat curry for 3 days, easy only.


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