We’ve all seen king prawns on curry house menus. But they are usually a more expensive alternative to the usual meats like chicken and lamb. Any other kind of fish in curry, while not unheard of, is rather unusual for an average curry house menu.

Kerala style fish curry

What other kinds of fish curry are out there?

Well, if the curry houses aren’t going to provide us with the goods, we’ll have to take matters into our own hands. A good place to start is kerala style fish curry. There are lots of recipes for this on the internet and it can be made with any type of white fish. So you have freedom here to really explore with different types of fish. You could go for a more expensive scallop curry or just go for a simple cod curry.

Perhaps the most popular fish curry is a Goan fish curry. There are many different types of these so, really, there is no set recipe, just lots of different recipes with the same name. Similar to a kerala fish curry; most of these recipes can be made using any type of white fish. However, there are some versions of this dish which also work well with tuna. That’s right, tuna. You might find scallops in a curry in a high end restaurant, but finding tuna in any Indian restaurant is a definite rarity.

Why is it that you are very likely to find the expensive king prawn dish on the menu, yet you’re highly unlikely to find cod? 

A light, coconutty, Goan fish curry

There are: tomato fish curries, Thai fish curries,  quick-to-cook fish curries, mild fish curries…… The list is endless. But one thing is very apparent here. For all the different styles of fish curry you find, you are unlikely to find a fish jalfrezi or a fish madras. The simple fact is that the same sauce used for a lamb rogan josh, can easily be used for a king prawn rogan josh. However, you would probably struggle to get that sauce to work for a pollock or scallop dish. So, perhaps the curry houses can be forgiven for not wanting to create a million different sauces just so the odd person can have a curry with cod in it. But don’t let that stop you from having fish in your home-cooked curry.