Canned Tuna stir fried with grated coconut/ Canned Tuna Peera

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 I still remember the first time I had canned tuna with coconut at my aunt’s place.  She cooked it with tuna-in-coconut-milk or oil, some brand from Taiwan.  I was clearly not excited.  In fact, I did not like it at all.  My mom and cousins raved and ranted, and helped themselves to more when I stuck with whatever else was on the table.  Being in the U.S. now, I eat a lot of canned tuna as salad, cutlets/fish-cake and thoran too.  Yeah, I love it now!  The efficiency with respect to time and ease of preparation all makes canned tuna a smart option.  However, one thing that has not changed for me is the aversion to tuna in oil.  I always select the "chicken in the sea" based in water.  That’s what I love and I recommend highly.

  As for a general weather report, it is getting colder and the gloom persists outside my window.  The chipmunks continue to rattle and cheer up things with constant playing, and prayer (sitting on two legs with the other two joined in front of their chest) on my patio.  But since I got my plants in with the dropping temperature, I don’t police them anymore and hence miss a lot their fun.  Instead, I immerse myself in crochet and reading or that’s what I tell people to sound like I am purposeful.  In reality, the weather is just the kind to sit around, drink pots of cider, green tea, or an occasional black coffee and be.  Even better is to curl up on the sofa with the express purpose of reading and snoozing hoping the information from the book held close to me will in some way carry over into my brains.     

  Hoping you are doing better than me, if not, make tuna thoran.  Cheers! 

 Ingredients:

Tuna                     - 2, 5 Oz can (about 300 gms) drained of all water

Onions                  - 1 small (about 3/4 cup when chopped)

Green Chilies        - 6 nos

Ginger                  - 1 inch piece (about 1 Tbspn when chopped fine)

Mustard               - 1/4 tspn

Oil                       - 1/2 Tbspn 

Kudampuli/Gambooge               - 1 piece soaked in water for atleast 15 minutes.  Do not throw the water, you will use some to sprinkle to keep the moisture and incorporate flavors evenly

Turmeric              - 1/2 tspn
Salt                      - to taste

Method:

1. Heat oil and splutter mustard
2. Add chopped ginger, onions and green chili.  Saute for a couple of minutes and stir in curry leaves and saute
3. Follow with turmeric..
4. Add coconut, kokum (drained from the water and split into smaller pieces,this helps to express it's sourness better) and tuna
5. Break the tuna and mix in well with the spoon/spatula and keeping fire on low sprinkle about a tablespoon of water the kokum was soaking in and salt.
6. Let everything sit in the pan on the lowest heat/fire and cook for 5 minutes.  This will help to incorporate the taste of the ginger and kokum into the fish.  If you cannot bring the heat very low be sure to add a little more water to avoid burning.

Contributor Sunitha