Fish Ambul Thiyal – A Sri Lankan Dry Sour Fish curry

Ingredients

To make Ambul Thiyal paste

1/4 cup Tamarind paste/Goraka paste

1 tbsp crushed Black Pepper

1 1/2 tsp Salt

1 tsp red Chili Powder

1/4 tsp Garlic Powder 

1/4 cup water, can add more

You will also need

680g Tuna fish

3 sprigs curry leaves

about 10 cinnamon pieces

Method

To make the paste you can either put tamarind or goraka in water to soak and keep for sometime and then squeeze out the paste and strain it. I used ready made Tamarind paste from a bottle.

Take a bowl and mix tamarind paste, black pepper, salt, chili powder and garlic powder. Add half a cup of water and make it like a thick batter-paste. You can start with 1/4 cup water and keep adding more to get the right consistency.

Cut the tuna pieces into small squares or rectangles. Then dip the pieces into the Ambul Thiyal batter and cover it very well with the Ambul Thiyal paste. (I put the fish and tamarind paste mix into a plastic bowl and kept it overnight in the fridge.

Tuna Fish Marinated	Placed one layer in pan	Left over Tamarind Paste

Take a heavy bottom pan or a clay pot or and apply a thin coating of oil. Adding a bit of oil makes sure that pieces of fish won't stick to the pan and also fries the fish pieces a little bit.

Then arrange the coated fish into one layer. Every fish piece has to touch the bottom. (If one pan is not enough to arrange all the pieces, then use another pan). Do not stack the fish pieces. Pour the extra Ambul Thiyal paste over the fish pieces. Add the washed curry leaves and cinnamon pieces.

curry leaves and cinnamon added	kept on low heat	Gravy kept to evaporate

Cover and cook on very low heat until the fish pieces oozes out water and they're mostly cooked. At this point, you can taste the liquid and decide if you want to add any more salt. I turned all the pieces upside down with a fork, one piece at a time. You can totally skip this process if you want.

Reduce the heat to the lowest setting, and cook until all the water is evaporated. Let them completely cool down in the pan before you store it. There should be no moisture left when it cools down. The low moisture helps to keep fish Ambul Thiyal pieces longer without going bad.

NB: As I was freezing my fish I kept a little bit of liquid so when I re heat it the liquid can evaporate.

This can be eaten with String hoppers, Hoppers and Pittu. Of course Ambul Thiyal goes well with Rice and curry too.