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Its 7:30 pm ...... and I'm hungry. I want to have fish fry & rice. It all started after Minu ( my local guardian in Phoenix) made excellent fish fry on a weekend long back. After almost a month & half in US , I suddenly realised how much I missed the fish fry made by mom.
Life was all simple back then. I walk to food court & take a plate and fill it with food. Or mabbe, call up office to see whats it for dinner and then decide on going to the roadside thattu-kada run by Ansar-ikka. Even when at home, life was very simple. All that I had to say was "Amma , oonu edukku" ( Mom, give me lunch). Voila, the dining table would be ready with lunch. Still, I had the right to crib about "uppu-less"-ness of mom's cooking , get angry about rice getting over cooked. Yes, life was all too simple.
My culinery skills were limited to tea, omelette & maggi noodles. For me cooking was all about the style in doing it. I like flipping the omlette in air to make it fall upside down on the pan. I like pouring tea from height like the guy in 'kuttappas', a restaurant in Thodupuzha. When I figured out that, real cooking is all about timing & that one need not stand by the stove for chicken to get fried,I lost interest in it.
Had it not been for Sangeetha, who bought all groceries for me on the day I reached Phoenix , I would have never attempted my hands on cooking . She ordered a pack of cleaned chicken legs. I had no clue on what to do with the raw chicken.
My first few attempts on cooking turned out to be major debacles. Had I been in Kerala , people would have misunderstood me for a 'chutta-kozhiye-parappikunna maanthrikan' ( magician). I was literally making fried chickens fly. Basically, after my trials the chicken would be so badly fried ( or burned) that I've to help them fly to waste-bin. Add to it , the frustration of wasting 1 hour for cooking when one is really really famished.
Somehow after a bit of mix & match , I learned a trick to make chicken edible to eat within 35 mins. That was a relief . While working on the chicken, I was attempting my luck at the rice too. After a couple of international calls I finally landed on the right ratio of water & rice . But what my remote support team did not realise was that I'm using Microwave to cook rice. So, I usually end up with over-cooked rice or under-cooked rice. Since my mom was not around, I had only myself to get agitated with.
Today, I wanted to attempt a fish fry. The fish looked huge and beautiful when I saw it in Walmart. Reaching home, I realised that I don't have a large enough frying pan to accomodate the fish. So I had to cut it to pieces. Cutting a fish was so simple when Mom did it. I was totally clueless on where to start from.I had this knife like thing which was not sharp enough . I used it to cut the fish into pieces and the most difficult part was removing its head. Finally the scattered pieces ended up looking like the fish was raped by a bull. Do you know that a dead fish has its eyes still open ? Yeah , the fish head which I removed was looking at me as if asking , "Sojish, Why me?"
Anyway, I left the fish & chicken to have a sun bath in chilli powder & salt. You might ask,why I'm cooking both chicken and fish together. Its very simple. Incase my fish didn't come out well, I atleast have a backup dish to fall back to. | 
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So finally at 9:30 I got to eat my dinner. Here is my first fish fry with Chicken and tomato in the backdrop . EXQUISITE , isn't it ? 
Well , story does not end here .Read "Nala-Paachakam randaam bhaagam" . I have explained the secrets of the above dish in it.
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