Fried Kalentas — Mumbai’s Little Red Creek Fish

My dad and his elder sis Aunty Tiloo still talk about the times their mum would take the family to Culvem beach when they were young kids. They’d come home with full baskets of kalentas and mudskippers, caught right there. That’s how close to the water East Indian families used to live. Fish wasn’t something you always bought. Sometimes you just went and got it.

Kalentas are small red mudskippers caught in the creeks around Mumbai. They’re not the same as the black and silver mudskippers in my fried mudskipper recipe — kalentas are less sweet, with a more savoury, earthy flavour, and that reddish-pink skin makes them easy to spot at the fish market.

I’ll be honest though. I’m not a real fan of kalentas. I used to be a mudskipper person myself. But kalentas have their loyal fans like Daddy and Aunty Tiloo, and if you grew up eating them, this recipe is the one you remember.

We eat these fish whole. You chew through the fish, spit out the bones, and keep going. If you’ve never eaten a fish that small before, trust the process — there’s a particular satisfaction in eating a whole fish in two or three bites.

Do you know what kalentas are called in English? I’ve been searching and can’t find a confirmed English or scientific name for this variety. Some people know them as tambde balle, others call them gobis — but I’m not certain either name refers exactly to this fish. If you know, please tell me in the comments!

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What You Need

The masala used to coat the kalentas is simple — turmeric, bottle masala or red chilli powder, salt, crushed garlic, and a very light dusting of rice flour. The rice flour gives the skin that thin, almost lacy crisp without a heavy coating. You barely notice it’s there, but you’d notice if it wasn’t.

The garlic is crushed with a grinding stone rather than minced — it stays in larger pieces that caramelise alongside the fish and are honestly worth eating on their own.

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How to Fry Kalentas

Wash the kalentas and put them in a bowl. Add the salt, turmeric, and bottle masala or chilli powder and mix well so every fish is coated.

Crush the garlic on a grinding stone or with a mortar and pestle — roughly crushed, not a paste — and add it to the bowl. Add the rice flour and mix everything together until the fish are evenly coated in that deep orange marinade.

Heat the oil in a wide frying pan. Lay the kalentas in the pan and fry on a medium flame for 7 minutes, then turn them over and fry another 7 minutes on the other side.

Serve immediately with rice, dal, and a squeeze of lemon.

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A Note on Bottle Masala

Bottle masala is the spice blend at the heart of East Indian cooking — a complex mix of roasted whole spices ground together, traditionally made at home and stored in old beer bottles (hence the name). If you don’t have it, red chilli powder works perfectly well here. Use one or the other, not both.

You can read more about the spices and flavours behind East Indian cuisine here. And if you enjoy Mumbai’s creek fish, the fried mudskipper post has the black and silver variety — sweeter, and my personal preference from the two.

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Serving Suggestion

Kalentas are a simple weekday fish. The whole point is that you bring home a core from the market in the morning and have them on the table by lunchtime. Rice and dal is the classic pairing. The lemon is non-negotiable.

PS. If you’re wondering what a core is, it’s a local Maharashtrian counting unit that equates to 26 to 28 small fish or prawns.

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