Persian Cod With Herbs and Tamarind Recipe (2024)

Yet another recipe that includes absurd directions for caramelizing onions. Seven minutes is not nearly enough time. Twenty minutes might do it, although it could take longer.

Ghalieh mahi is a dish from the south of Iran on the Persian Gulf. Many Persians have never heard of it, much less eaten it. It's one of our favorite dishes to prepare for guests because it is so unique. Fenugreek is a must! Fresh fenugreek is probably not available everywhere, but don't worry, dried fenugreek is preferable. We often use salmon as it is so readily available where we live.

It's one of my pet peeves, too. But there's a shortcut: Zap the sliced onions in the microwave for a minute or so before putting them in the pan. That shortens the cooking time considerately.

Yields an impressive, restaurant quality dish with unique flavors. There are major drawbacks, so please be warned: - Finding fresh fenugreek will test your local food resources, as well as your patience.* - Creates a lot of dirty dishes - Leaves your house smelling like aforementioned restaurant*If you use mint, as we did - plus ground fenugreek seed - finding the ingredients is not a problem in any city with a Whole Foods. Finding the real thing will send you on a fenu-Greek odyssey.

Iranian dishes usually use flat (Italian).

Fresh fenugreek leaves (methi) and dried fenugreek leaves (kasoori methi) are found in just about all Indian stores. Indian stores have proliferated in most urban areas of the US. Hope people are able to find it quite easily!

As I was serving only 4 people, I ended up with about a cup or more of extra herb sauce. The next day I threw the leftover sauce into my Instant Pot with some chicken thighs and mushrooms. A quick and tasty 2nd dinner! This was a time-consuming recipe, but ending up with 2 different and delicious meals made it worth the effort.

FYI- the cod is left out of the ingredients. It sounds delicious. We made Persian food for Eastover last year and the amount of fresh herbs we used was incredible but so was the flavor of the food. I look forward to making this dish.

although i agree that too often recipes used "caramelized" when they really mean "browned", in this case it seems accurate. the first onion step states "Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally, until dark golden brown, about 7 minutes." 7mins is enough time to get browned onions. then, later in the recipe you cook the whole mess for another hour, plenty of time for the onions to further break down and get sweet and caramelized, as mentioned in the headnotes.

Here is what Iranians, e.g my Mom, did to make fried onions. You slice the onions very thin and cook them on low heat for a long time until they turn deep red/brown, not black. They become crunchy and delicious. This process takes around 30 minutes.

A decent Indian market w/a vegetable section may have fresh fenugreek and definitely will carry dried fenugreek, also known as methi.

So true. I always find it wierd they so vastly misrepresent caramelization times. Maybe they think it will scare off novices, but it just leads to eye rolling here.

Ya, that's always been my experience. Maybe they don't really mean carmelized. Maybe they mean browned with some darker crispy pieces.

Fenugreek leaves are sold fresh in many Indian and Asian Grocery’s and often are labeled as Methi Leaves.

This is yummy, but I messed up and used tamarind concentrate instead of tamarind paste - I thought they were the same thing, they aren’t. I ended up having to add a lot of sugar - still yummy. Don’t make the same mistake I did - I think 1 part concentrate 2 parts water equals tamarind paste.

This has become a go-to recipe for week night happiness. We like it with coconut brown basmati rice and a veg du jour. Works great with frozen/thawed/cooked fish like cod and halibut (we live far from the ocean). Dried fenugreek is easily available online.

Love it--but it took me a lot longer than 1.5 hours. I think that's just the cooking time, but there's a lot of prep too.Leftovers: We made fish for just two people, so we had a lot of leftover sauce that we used to good effect. The best one was spreading the sauce on the crust of a savory tart with wild mushrooms and whatever green vegetables we had around--asparagus, fava tops, etc.

Delicious recipe, but the sauce takes a lot longer than the recipe calls for. To caramelize the onions and brown the herbs took me at least one hour. With the effort though, especially with fresh grown summer herbs and local cod!

I did this first with cod but frankly it is even better with a firmer fish like Mahi. Dogfish would work well, too. Truly delicious. We serve it with coconut basmati rice.

As I was serving only 4 people, I ended up with about a cup or more of extra herb sauce. The next day I threw the leftover sauce into my Instant Pot with some chicken thighs and mushrooms. A quick and tasty 2nd dinner! This was a time-consuming recipe, but ending up with 2 different and delicious meals made it worth the effort.

I don't know if you could carmelize onions in such a short time, even on a high-BTU commercial stove top.

Here is what Iranians, e.g my Mom, did to make fried onions. You slice the onions very thin and cook them on low heat for a long time until they turn deep red/brown, not black. They become crunchy and delicious. This process takes around 30 minutes.

This is really good! It’s a lot though - made it for the two of us with scallops (they were very fresh, the cod and halibut were not), so lots of sauce left over. Will freeze it and see how it holds. Anyone have experience with that?BTW, I used half of the Chile flakes and it was still hot!

Could a useful measure for the herbs be provided, e.g., weight? Or at least packed or loose. I have no idea what 1 qt means.To me it does not sound like the onions are being caramelized. They are being cooked to just short of burnt, which is completely different from caramelized. It can be done in 7 minutes. I recall an Indian friend trying to teach me to let onions burn to make dal and rice. It was completely unintuitive, but delicious once I let myself do it.

Complex, strong flavors. Delicious and memorable. I made it with mint this time, but will seek out some fenugreek next time if only to taste the difference.I have a friend from Iran: onions should be browned, not caramelized. (I have found it's usually best, at least for the 1st time one follows a recipe, to actually follow it rather than assume the recipe writer/cook is not being precise in their instructions. After that, play with the recipe to your heart's desire, if you wish to.)

Yields an impressive, restaurant quality dish with unique flavors. There are major drawbacks, so please be warned: - Finding fresh fenugreek will test your local food resources, as well as your patience.* - Creates a lot of dirty dishes - Leaves your house smelling like aforementioned restaurant*If you use mint, as we did - plus ground fenugreek seed - finding the ingredients is not a problem in any city with a Whole Foods. Finding the real thing will send you on a fenu-Greek odyssey.

The recipe as printed in the newspaper is missing the last 6 ingredients.

question: what is anyones take on using this as a sauce for tofu - or harder veggies (potatoes/carrots/other ideas)? Is a blander fish the only way the herb mix will shine?