Valhomas Hiki Riha

This week’s new recipe is an easy-peasy dry curry made from valhomas (smoked tuna). It makes a lovely simple meal when eaten with roshi, but it can also be quite useful at those times when you need a couple of curries to serve as side dishes.

Our recipe is based on Amin Didi’s Valhomas Hiki Riha recipe in his cookbook Karuna Aai Nulaa Kekkun. We used the same spices he did. But we’ve seen Valhomas Hiki Riha recipes that call for Kothanbiri Havaadhu (coriander based spice paste) and others. Also, if you have some bilamagu (bilimbi) use a couple of them instead of the lime and if you have some Obaiy (fenugreek seeds), be sure to include a few; you can find out when in the instructions.

Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:

• ½ cup thinly sliced valhomas (smoked tuna)
• 1 small onion
• 1 garlic clove
• ¼ inch ginger
• ½ lime (or to taste)
• 3 tsp. fennel powder
• 2 tsp. cumin powder
• ½ tsp. turmeric powder
• ½ tsp. red chilli powder (or to taste)
• 2/3 tsp. salt (or to taste)
• 1 cup coconut milk
• 5 curry leaves
• ¼ githeyo mirus (scotch bonnet pepper)
• 3 inch piece of raanbaa (pandan leaf)

Instructions:

1. Slice the onion thinly.
2. Squash the garlic and the ginger. You can use the back of a spoon for this.
3. Place the onion, ginger, garlic, valhomas, fennel, cumin, and turmeric and chilli powder in a bowl. Squeeze in the lime, add the salt and using your fingers mix and squeeze the mixture. Don’t over do it though.
4. Transfer the mixture to a pot.
5. To the pot, add the coconut milk, curry leaves, githeyo mirus and raanbaa. Give it a good mix. Also, if you have some Obaiy (fenugreek seeds) mix in a few of them, like five, at this stage.
6. Let the mixture cook on low to medium heat for around 10 minutes or until the onions and valhomas become a bit softer.