🐟 Fried hamour
Fried hamour is the Gulf's favourite fish dish: thick fillets or steaks of hamour (orange-spotted grouper) rubbed with turmeric, cumin and garlic, lightly dusted with flour and fried until golden. The flesh stays white, firm and moist under a thin, spiced crust. It is served with lemon wedges, usually alongside sweet muhammar rice or plain white rice.
Diets
Allergens
Contains (in a typical recipe):
What it is made of
Recipe
Ingredients
- 800 g hamour fillets, cut into 4 pieces
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 3 garlic cloves, crushed
- Juice of 1 lemon, plus wedges to serve
- 4 tbsp wheat flour
- Oil for shallow-frying, salt
Method
- Mix the garlic, turmeric, cumin, lemon juice and salt and rub over the fish; marinate 20 minutes.
- Pat off excess marinade and dust the pieces lightly with flour.
- Heat 1 cm of oil in a frying pan and fry the fish 3–4 minutes per side until golden and just cooked through.
- Drain on paper and serve with lemon wedges.
How to make it lighter
- Pan-fry in a thin film of oil, or bake at 220 °C, instead of shallow-frying.
- Shake off as much flour as possible — a thinner coating absorbs less oil.
- Serve with salad and a modest scoop of rice rather than a full plate of muhammar.
History
Hamour is one of the most prized fish of the Arabian Gulf and a mainstay of coastal cooking in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Today fried hamour is on almost every Gulf seafood menu.
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Values are estimates per 100 g for a typical recipe; home and restaurant versions vary. Diets and allergens are worked out from the ingredients of a typical recipe — always check with whoever cooked the dish. Not medical advice. Nutrition data: Me Nutrition dish database v13. How we count →