Ambulthiyala means sour fish. This is one of the most famous, delicious and cannot miss curry in Sri Lankan traditional menu. Originally from south coast of Sri Lanka and basically cooked with tuna fish. The “Ambul” or the “Sourness” comes from the second main ingredient “Goraka”. Fish is cooked with goraka paste and few more spices and aromas under low heat for little long time and this is one of the best way to preserve fish.
Generally this curry is cook in a clay pot by laying some banana leaf to prevent getting stick to the clay pot. Place all the spices coated fish chunks over the banana leaf and cook under low heat until gravy is simmer and thick. As gravy got simmer more, need to keep an eye on it, not to look dry. Because you are preserving the fish. Again and again you gotta re heat this. If it looks dry at the very first time, there wouldn’t be any gravy left for further more. Here I used traditional an Italian “terracotta pot” for my ambulthiyala. These pots normally use in Italian kitchens for slow cook like bolognese sauce. As how this pot got shinny non sticky look it helps to prevent getting sticky. And as how I cannot find banana leaves these days used this terracotta pot instead of clay pot but highly recommend you to use Sri Lankan clay pot with a banana leaf.
I gotta know this recipe from my mom and she gotta know this from one of our aunty who is originally from Mirissa south coast of Sri Lanka.
My father when he was a little boy, he got more other ten siblings and unfortunately four died when they were too young. And my paternal grandparents were poor enough to feed all other seven. One of the fishmonger who comes from Mirissa requested Thaththa for adopting. Since that day we gotta family in south coast of Sri Lanka. He always called Mirissa for his second home. There he found more other five siblings. We are so close with the eldest of that family, he is Thaththa’s forever “Lokka Aiya”. And his wife, Nanda (aunty) she was more closer than anyone of that family. We at least spent a week of our school vacation at their place. We used to eat rice for whole three meals. But only red rice no more white rice. When we are in our place we all three claim about eating rice for both lunch and dinner but whenever we were at Mirissa we never felt tired of eating rice 7/7. Dunno the reason but there we can eat more than we knew. Every morning Nanda used to serve us red rice, pol sambol, parippu and malu ambulthiyala and hot cup of nestamolt. I still can smell it from my memories. Now I’m pregnant with my first baby, I was craving for this menu and just did all by myself to treat my baby girl. While I was eating this, this reminds me old good days. Now I cannot have this childhood favorite combo because two years ago Nanda passed due to her cancer.
1.I got 1300g tuna fish chunks. Wash well and leave in a colander to leave the excess water.
2.in a clay pot mix 10tbsp garcinia Cambogia (goraka) 3-4tbs ground black pepper, 1tsp turmeric powder, salt on your taste and mix with 7-8tbsp water until you have creamy thick paste.
3.add fish chunks to the paste along with finely chopped 5-6 garlic cloves and coat all the pieces with goraka paste.
4.add more 2-3tbs (or more if needed) water until curry looks wet.
5.drizzle 1tsp oil over the fish and place the pot on heat.
6.cook in lowest flame with a lid until it starts to bubble.
7.once the curry starts to bubble add 3 split green chilies, few curry leaves and piece of pandan leaf. Shake the pot and let it simmer until gravy is thick and reduce.
8.time will be around 40-50 minutes depends on liquidity of the curry. Try to simmer as much as possible in low heat.
The Dancing kitchen 