Machcha Ambila, a Southern Odisha Recipe for Fish Curry with Tamarind & Jaggery

Machcha Ambila is a thin, tangy fish curry from Southern Odisha, a deeply beloved dish that is signature to the community and its love for all things sour. Lopamudra writes more on Sour Things in an Odia Kitchen.

Ambila is a blanket term in Odia cuisine for soupy dishes that taste tangy, a flavour which is difficult to delineate like umami. It’s a bit sour with a hint of sweetness and a mild saltiness that you cannot quite tell. With the right seasoning, it lingers in your mouth and keeps you coming back for more like South Indian rasams or chaarus, and sometimes even moru curries.

Machcha Ambila, Fish & Tamarind

My parents belong to Berhampur in Ganjam and their treasured machcha ambila is a slight deviation from the usual recipes. The Purohit household, my maternal home, was teeming with school-going children in the 1950s-60s. My mother and her siblings walked a distance to school which meant lunch at 8 a.m. The staple fish and rice were a no-brainer to keep tummies full for the journey, and machcha ambila omitting elaborate chopping and grinding, easily fit the bill. Garlic and curry leaves were skipped for simplicity although curry leaves were retained in the vegetarian phala ambila. 

“There isn’t much to it,” my mother says when I ask for details. But I am hungry, eager, and most importantly, pregnant, utterly craving machcha ambila. I pester for the deal breaker — exact proportions of tamarind and jaggery which needs some experience to master. “Don’t marinate the fish, and remember julienned onions are necessary for texture” — her repeated instructions. She remembers her grandmother stirring the broth in the kitchen, the heady aroma, and the sight of freshly caught rohu while chewing tooth wood early morning. A dekchi of rice inverted to gather starchy water for a batch of torani kanji. She paints the picture of dried broken red chilies dancing in hot oil until plump, a sputtering of pancha phutana crackling in haste. A light stir, the onions go next. The fish follows, borrowing some of the rusty shades. Not too long, and the tamarind-jaggery broth drowns everything. This humdrum of machcha ambila is unfaded in mother’s recollections. I have eaten it for three decades now — with fingers drenched in thinnish gravy and rice — and still can’t stop at one serving.

When autumn is gone and winter arrives in this part of the world, a pot of tamarind-turmeric water will rumble in my kitchen smelling like nostalgia, looking like the golden light on a nippy afternoon, waiting for that just needed jaggery to mingle with and a zesty seasoning to empower itself, promising comforting ambilas, both with the season's best produce and my beloved fish.

Lopamudra’s Recipe for Machcha Ambila

Ingredients
4-5 pieces of freshwater fish like rohu or catla

For the broth
A ball of tamarind (size of a medium to large lime)
½ tsp turmeric
1-1 ½ tsp jaggery (will depend on the variety of jaggery)

For the gravy
1 onion (medium size)

For the tadka
1 tbsp oil (preferably one that does not have a strong flavour or aroma)
2 dry red chilies
1 tsp pancha phutana (mix of equal parts mustard, cumin, fenugreek, fennel and nigella seeds)
Salt to taste 

Method 
Wash and clean the fish. Keep aside.
Julienne the onion.
Soak the tamarind ball in water and extract the pulp. In a tall pot, add 2-3 cups of water and bring to boil. Add the extracted tamarind pulp and turmeric and continue boiling the water for 2-3 minutes. Add 1/2 tsp jaggery and stir to mix. Taste and add more to adjust. It should taste sour with hints of sweetness. Boil for 3-4 minutes more, take off the heat and keep aside.
In a heavy bottom skillet or wok, heat oil. Once hot, add dry red chilies, pancha phutana and onions in the order described. Stir and brown the onion slices. Add the pieces of fish and fry on one side for 2-3 minutes and then turn around to fry the other side for 2-3 minutes as well. Let the fish get a mild crisp brown colour. Add the prepared broth and then add salt to taste. Stir gently and give a light shake to the skillet or wok without disturbing the fish too much. Cover and keep aside after taking off the heat to allow the fish to absorb the flavours.
Serve with hot steamed rice.

Lopamudra Mishra is a communications professional currently based in Canada who writes a food blog, Away in the Kitchen filled with stories of her growing up and culinary experiences in different parts of India. You can follow her narratives here.