Herb Crusted Fish with Cape Gooseberry sauce

Berries, regular readers of the blog know by now my love and devotion for them, they also know that how I don’t like the fact that most berries aren’t really available in India. I crib, I rant, I buy them at exorbitant rates and eat them. Yes yes, I know all about going local, reducing carbon footprint but when it comes to berries all logic seems to fly out of the window for me.

While i indulge in imported berries, I gorge on the Indian ones, mulberry and currently in season cape gooseberry aka Physalis aka raspbhari as it was called while I was growing up in Delhi. I have been eating cape gooseberry by the kilo, making jams and preserve out of it and then the other day I made a sauce with it and eat with it herb crusted fish and salad. It was a heavenly meal, N kept asking me for days to make it again but the problem I forgot what I had put in the sauce apart from cape gooseberry but because it was so loved in the house, I sat down and tried to remember everything and recreate it. Thankfully what came out was brilliant too (if not exactly the same). So here is my recipe of Herb Crusted Fish with Cape gooseberry sauce, for vegetarians I think it will go with Paneer too.

Recipe – Herb Crusted Fish with Cape Gooseberry Sauce

What I used

For the fish

• 2 fillets of mahi mahi or Pomfret fish
• 1/4 cup of bread crumbs
• 1 tsbp chopped parsley and thyme
• salt and pepper to taste
• Olive oil to shallow fry the fish

For the sauce

• 1 cup chopped cape gooseberry
• 1 tsbp butter
• 2-3 Fresno chillies
• 1 tsp white pepper powder
• Salt to taste
• 1 tsp of brown sugar
• 1 tbsp parsley

How I made it

• Heat the butter and add cape gooseberries, brown sugar and chillies to it.  Let the berries cook for about 10 minutes till soft and cooked. Add parsley and cook for another minute. Let it cool and puree once cool
• Add pepper and salt to the sauce and some water and let it simmer till it reaches the desired consistency. Keep to cool
• In the meanwhile, mix bread crumbs, salt, pepper and herbs together. Coat the fish fillets and fry in heated oil both sides till done
• Serve the herbed fish on a bed of sauce along with some salad. Lip smacking good