Gulai Ikan Asam Pedas / Indonesian Spicy Sour Fish Curry

During my pregnancy, until this week 16th, my appetite has not returned to normal yet. My weight dropped to 2 pounds at last check. Nausea is also occasionally appear suddenly, especially when I'm cold.

I can not eat any Turkish food (or other food) as usual--even just only I remember it, I could be wamble! something which very strange and unreasonable by my husband .. But what can I say .. my body and feelings can not lie.

I just can eat my own (Indonesian) foods even though not all Indonesian meals I want to eat. Especially sour and fresh things are all I want ... plus February is still frozen (winter this year is colder winter than previous years).
So I made ​​this spicy-sour fish curry to appetite myself in this cold February. If you want to try it also, you could check my recipe below.

Ingredients:

• 2 medium-size mackerel (or cod or salmon or pompano), cleaned and cut according to taste. Give a squeeze of lemon juice to prevent fishy smell
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 ~ 3 cm galangal, lightly crushed
• 1 medium green or red tomato, sliced ​​crescent shape
• 1 tablespoon tamarind paste (or you can soak dried  tamarind with little hot water)
• A little cooking oil for sauteing

Mash/ blend the ingredients:
• 5 ~ 6 shallots
• 5 ~ 6 garlic
• Few bird eye chilli to taste (if you do not want to be too spicy, you can just slice them)
• 2 ~ 3 long red cayenne pepper / red paprika pepper
• 2 cm fresh ginger
• 1 cm turmeric (1 tsp turmeric powder)

How to cook:

Heat enough oil in a pan, saute mashed spices, galangal, and bay leaf. Saute until fragrant, pour hot water (± 1 ½ liters), add tamarind paste, salt, and sugar, taste it. Put in fish, cover the pan, cook over medium heat for several minutes until fish is cooked (± 15 minutes). Last put in tomato slices a few minutes before being removed from heat.

Serve warm with white rice.