Sukhua Bhaja or DryFish Fry

Dry Fish is described as any fishes which had developed a strong odour within hours of capture and salted for about four days and then dried. It is highly salted and semi-dried fishery products with an obnoxious odour and a cheesy but rich fishy flavour widely liked as a sea food item worldwide.

Dry Fish or what we called it in oriya is Sukhua, which is a most common food in the households of Orissa...We have many recipes of Sukhua/dry fish like sukhua, bhaja, sukhua tarkari, sukhua poda etc...I am writing here the most common and and my fav one which is Sukhua Bhaja or dry fish fry...For this we can use the cut pieces of sukhua/dry fish or even the whole fish if it is small...

Ingredients

4-5 Pieces of Sukhua/Dry Fish
1-2 Green chilli
7-8 Flakes of Garlic
2 tbsp Mustard Seeds
1 Tomato
1 small onion(optional)
1 tsp Turmeric Powder
Mustard Oil
Few Chopped Coriander Leaves
1/2 tsp Panch Phutan(Mustard seed+ Cumin seed + Fenugreek Seed + Fennel Seed + Nigella Seed )
Salt to taste

Method

Wash the sukhua and fry in mustard oil for 2 min.

Finely chop the tomato and onion.
Make a smooth paste of green chilli,garlic and mustard seeds.
Heat oil in a kadai/pan, add panch phutan in to it.
When the seeds start crackling, add chopped onions and tomatoes.
Fry till the tomatoes become fluppy.
Now add the salt, turmeric powder and mustard paste with lil water and cook for 2-3 min..
Now add the fried sukhua/dry fish pieces to the above masala and fry till the gravy thickens..

Garnish with chopped coriander leaves.
Serve hot with rice/pakhal...