Wash your basmati rice until the water runs clear. Soak for atleast 30mins upto an hour. This step is a must as it is what gives you perfectly elongated fluffy rice.
In a mortar pestle, roughly pound together ginger, garlic, green chilli, coriander and tamarind to a paste. Use a pinch of this paste, salt, little turmeric and chilli and marinate your pomfret fish for 15-20mins.
In a pot of boiling hot water, add your soaked basmati rice, salt and all the whole spices (Bay leaf, cardamom, cinnamom, cloves, peppercorns). Cook the rice until 90% done, the rest it will cook in its own residual heat. Drain the water and save the rice. Let it cool down a bit (until not steaming so it won't break easily).
In a deep bottomed pan, add ghee. Pan fry the fish for about 1½-2 minutes on each side until golden and then set aside. You are not trying to cook the fish, just sear it.
In the same ghee, add the sliced onions and fry until completely softened and starting to turn golden. Do this on a low-medium flame as you don't want to brown the onions.
Once your onion is golden, add the remaining chilli-ginger-garlic-coriander paste, salt and fry until the raw smell goes away. Then add the chilli and turmeric powder and fry lightly.
Add the tomatoes, cover and cook until they start to leave ghee from the sides and turn really pulpy. Add the pomfret fish and cover and cook until done (should take a couple of minutes, be careful not to over-cook).
Taste the mixture to make sure you're happy with it. Adjust with lemon juice if neccesary (even a pinch of sugar is good if the tomatoes you use weren't particularly sweet).
To serve (option 1): Add 2/3rds of the cooked basmati rice on a serving platter. For the remaining 1/3 rice, add a few spoonfuls of the onion-tomato base and mix through gently. Then top the plain basmati rice with this flavoured rice, and then put the fish and the remaining mix at the top. Garnish with fresh coriander and serve hot.
To serve (option 2): Add all the basmati rice on top of the fish/onion-tomato mixture and serve and garnish with coriander leaves. Some ghee and lemon juice work well too. Mix throughly while serving.
