Calories in Fish Curry

The recipe cooks 100 g of rohu in a gravy of 50 g of onion, 50 g of tomato and 18 g of lemon, using 1 tablespoon of oil, and the whole of it is one bowl. In home terms that is one or two pieces of fish with their gravy, a normal single helping. A restaurant fish curry is usually richer, with more oil floating on the gravy and sometimes coconut milk or cream. Fish that is deep-fried before it goes into the curry also takes up oil that this recipe does not count, since the tablespoon here covers all of the cooking.

Fat supplies 55% of the energy, protein 32% and carbohydrate 14%. Most of the 17 g of fat is the tablespoon of cooking oil; the fish adds a smaller share. The 22.3 g of protein is almost entirely from the 100 g of rohu, which makes a bowl of fish curry one of the more protein-rich things on an everyday plate. The onion and tomato account for the little carbohydrate and for the 4.8 g of fibre. So the fish sets the protein and the oil sets the calories.

A bowl is about 13% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 17% of a woman's, and it supplies 22.3 g of protein, which most Indian meals are short of. With rice or roti it makes a complete main course, and the rice is where the plate's calories usually grow, not the fish. A second helping takes the curry to 564 kcal and 44.6 g of protein. A sabzi or salad alongside rounds out the meal better than more rice does. Half a bowl, about 141 kcal, still carries a worthwhile amount of fish.

Two things are worth knowing. The gravy is salted, as any curry is, and the salt on the plate rises with pickles or papad on the side. And more than half the energy is fat from the cooking oil, not the fish, so the same fish can be a much lighter dish. People on a salt or fat limit for high blood pressure or a heart condition should follow the portions their doctor or dietitian has set.