This coconut-herb chutney adds a spark to mild white fish

It wasn t until she began researchingrecipes to include in her cookbook, Pakistan, that Maryam Jillani came across this dish of plump white fish, wi...

It wasn’t until she began researching recipes to include in her cookbook, "Pakistan,” that Maryam Jillani came across this dish of plump white fish, with each piece steamed in a packet under a blanket of green, coconut-scented chutney. It’s a Parsi dish.

"Since I grew up in Islamabad, I didn’t grow up around the Parsi community,” Jillani told me. Parsis, who practice Zoroastrianism, migrated from Persia to the Indian subcontinent between the 8th and 10th centuries. Most of their dwindling population resides in Mumbai and Gujarat, India, but, as Jillani writes, a small community settled in Karachi, Pakistan, in the late 1840s.

Today, Karachi is home to some 20 million people. It’s a massive hub of locals and migrants from Afghanistan, China, India, Iran and beyond. Though fewer than 1,000 Parsis still live in Pakistan, their culture is well-documented and their food is well-liked.

"When I started talking to people about recipes to include [in the book] from the Parsi community, so many people told me I had to include this dish. It’s beloved even among outsiders,” Jillani said.

So she went to one of the best-known Parsi chefs in the country, Zarnak Sidhwa, to learn how to make it. A banker turned chocolatier, Sidhwa has been a fixture on Pakistan’s food channel, Hum Masala (better known as Masala TV), for more than a decade. She cooks such things as sweets, street food specialities and Western-style dishes, but her niche has always been Parsi cuisine.