This is my take on Adrian Miller's catfish curry via Design Sponge served over Stone Soup's cheesy broccoli, they go together rather well if I do say so myself.
I'm not sure how I feel about catfish so I used cod, which in any case is very cheap and also I halved the amount. The original instructions said something about rolling the flour paste into balls and then dissolving the balls one by one into the stock... but you know that's not a thing that I would do, right? But I was about to turn up my nose at the idea of a teaspoon of curry and almost threw in a tablespoon, and I'm super glad I didn't because a teaspoon was just right—just flavorful enough, and just hot enough. I do use Penzey's hot curry powder, which is quite hot.
I left the cheese out of the cheesy broccoli, and used coconut oil rather than olive oil or butter. What I thought would meld well together, and it did, was the curry in the fish and the coconut in the broccoli.
1 lb cod
2 cups water
1 onion
salt
pepper
1 Tbsp flour
1 tsp curry powder
1 Tbsp butter, softened
1/4 cup coconut oil
2 lbs broccoli
1 tsp red pepper flakes
parsley
Cut the cod into two-inch pieces and finely chop the onion. As long as you're chopping the onion, you may as well also trim and slice the broccoli into small pieces, rinse them in a large bowl and don't drain, and also finely chop the parsley.
But anyway, put the fish and the onion in a small saucepan with the water, about a half teaspoon of salt, and a dozen or so grinds of pepper. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to medium low and simmer until the fish is cooked, about six minutes. Remove the fish to a plate and cover with foil to keep it warm.
Turn the heat back up to high and boil the cooking liquid until it reduces to half a cup. Meanwhile combine the flour, curry, and butter—soften it a bit in the microwave, if you forgot to take it out of the fridge until now— into a smooth paste in a small bowl. Whisk the paste a little at a time into the fish stock and cook until the stock has thickened into sauce, about five minutes.
While the stock is thickening, you can do the broccoli: heat the oil and the red pepper flakes in a large saute pan over medium heat. Grab the broccoli out of the bowl with your hands and throw it into the pan. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until the broccoli is tender, about five minutes.
Stir the fish gently back into the sauce.
Scoop a good amount of broccoli into bowls, ladle the fish curry over the broccoli, and top with parsley. The sweetie man and I basically split this amount of fish, and we had some broccoli leftover.
