Spicy prawns with pooris

Prawn pooris are a popular starter in many UK Indian restaurants. But I think they can make a great weekend lunch, or a light supper for any night of the week or weekend. In the restaurant you only get one poori, topped with prawns. This is a slightly larger portion, bearing in mind it is a whole meal. 

 

The prawns are being cooked in a lightly spiced sauce. You can choose how spicy you make it. Feel free to leave the chilli out if you don’t like it hot. But please don’t omit the ground spices, or you will only be making a tomato and prawn sauce. Heat lovers, you could always add a little chilli powder too, maybe half a teaspoon.

I am using ghee to make the light prawn curry, but if you can’t get hold of it, or don’t want to use it, you can substitute 2-3 tablespoons of peanut, sunflower or rapeseed oil. You could add some grated ginger to this dish, too. There are lots of variations you could make.

The pooris would traditionally be made in a wok like pan called a karahi. My Mum has the same karahi at home that she’s had since the 1970s. It is utterly solid, but now has the blackened coating which comes from repeated use, like a good steel wok would have. It is truly a thing of beauty, and it is the source of many of my greatest food memories. But I don’t have one, so I used a regular frying pan, with the bottom covered in oil. We can’t all be as good as our mothers, sometimes. It’s OK.

Happy cooking, and happy eating!

Spicy prawns with pooris

Serves 2

Ingredients

For the prawns:

2 tbsp ghee

3 tbsp ground nut (peanut) oil

4 shallots, finely diced

2 green chillies, very finely chopped (use gloves if needed)

5-6 cloves garlic, very finely chopped

300g prawns or king prawns, tails removed, peeled and “deveined” (remove the poop chute!)

2-3 tomatoes (2 large or 3 medium tomatoes) diced

1 tbsp tomato puree

1 teaspoon ground cumin

½ teaspoon ground coriander

½ teaspoon turmeric

½ teaspoon ground paprika

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

¼ teaspoon salt (feel free to increase within reason)

2-3 tablespoons fresh coriander, roughly chopped (try to prepare this just before serving)

Lime wedges to serve (optional)

For the pooris:

250g Atta (this is Indian chapatti flour, currently available in Tesco and other supermarkets, I used Elephant brand)

 

½ mug of water or thereabouts – this is not an exact science, please see the method below

½ tsp of salt

Vegetable or ground nut oil for frying

Method

Weigh out the Atta and place in a bowl. There is no need to sieve it. Make a well in your bowl. Measure out your half mug of water, obviously into a mug. Pour about a third of your water into the bowl, and mix, using your hands, thoroughly. As the water becomes more scarce, rub the moisture into the flour as best as you can to get what I call “stringy breadcrumbs”.

When this amount of water is gone, be careful about adding water bit by bit and mixing carefully until the flour and water just about comes together. Once bound together, do not add more water. Cover with a plate or tea towel or cling film and leave for at least half an hour. 

While the dough is resting for half an hour, prepare you other ingredients. I like to put these into individual dishes depending on when they go into the dish.

We begin with making the spicy prawns.

Melt the ghee in the groundnut oil on a low heat, stirring to combine. When mixed, raise the heat to medium and add the shallots and chilli. Keep it moving, stirring frequently, allowing the onions to start to soften for around 5 minutes. 

Now add the garlic, keep it moving until softened and fragrant. Please feel free to turn the heat down to low whilst completing this step. The garlic will need around 5 minutes to soften. Do not allow it to burn.

Add the chopped tomatoes and tomato puree. Stir to completely combine. Now cook on a medium heat for around 15-20 minutes, stirring occasionally to combine the ingredients and move them from the direct source of heat – this will help the chopped tomatoes to break down.

Add the salt and ground spices as the moisture starts to come off the tomatoes. Once the salt is added, keep stirring from time to time, to circulate the moisture in the ingredients and allow the flavours to meld. Keep an eye on it; if it is drying out, take it off the heat. 

If you can, the time when the tomatoes are cooking is the time to get cracking on the pooris. You need a clean work surface and a dusting of atta. Divide the dough up into 4-5 equal sections and replace into the bowl. Dredge your surface with atta. Form each of your dough portions into an even ball, place on the work surface and roll into a circle of around 5”.

Flour a spare plate very lightly. Place your first poori disc on the plate. Prepare your remaining pooris. Use flour between each on this spare plate to ensure the pooris to be cooked do not stick. 

If you cannot take these poori steps whilst the tomatoes are stewing, then prepare them in advance.

Cover the bottom of a frying pan with half to one inch of either vegetable oil or ground nut oil for frying. Heat up on a medium high heat.

Put something wooden like a chopstick in the oil, if little bubbles form (of the size of Champagne bubbles) around it it's medium hot (c 150c), if the bubbles are large (of the size from a glass of sparkling water bubbles), then it's hot (c 200c). You can make pooris on either level of heat, but I would recommend you start cooking the pooris on medium heat, as when you continue to cook the pooris, the oil will get hotter and hotter. Please note that if the chopstick catches fire when you put it in the oil, it's too hot! If at any time you think the oil it too hot, take it off the heat and leave it for a few minutes to cool down.

If your oil is initially medium, I would say that your first poori will need around 45 seconds per side.

Your subsequent pooris will need less time as you go along. We got down to 20 seconds per side for the last one. This required quick reactions!

If you are lucky, you have someone else helping you with the pooris whilst the prawns are cooking. What you are hoping is that you get your first couple of pooris cooked while you add the prawns to the tomato sauce.

If you are cooking alone, then put the prawns in and cook until pink. Put to one side and cook the pooris as described above. You can give it a quick reheat, if needed, just before serving.

 

Once your pooris are cooked and your prawns are pink and ready to serve, throw in your coriander leaf and mix thoroughly. 

 

Serve up your pooris and your prawns. If you wish, serve with lime wedges to squeeze over the prawn mixture before devouring. 

Dhruv Baker's Prawn Malaba Curry: A recipe for Curry For Change

I recently wrote here at Snig's Kitchen about my superb experience at the Indian cookery class at Cinnamon Kitchen near Liverpool Street, London, to launch the Curry For Change fundraising initiative for the very small, but very deserving Find Your Feet charity. I wrote about the Masterclass here: http://snigskitchen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/curry-for-change-indian-cooking.html

Find Your Feet is a small charity which punches considerably above its weight, Find Your Feet uses its very small staff and scarce resources not to provide aid or short term help, but to educate and empower to bring sustainability and self sufficiency to impoverished rural communities in India. For a highly compelling account of how this inspirational charity can touch lives, have a look at this powerful post from Urvashi Roe at the Botanical Baker blog: http://thebotanicalbaker.wordpress.com/2013/06/11/find-your-feet-a-little-charity-making-a-big-impact/

Dhruv Baker is best known for being the Winner of 2010's Masterchef contest. Born in Mexico but raised from the age of 4 in India, Dhruv had been working in media sales before he entered Masterchef. His win has catapulted this keen cook to great things, such as working with the legendary Michel Roux Junior at Le Gavroche, and at the famous De Librije, Zwolle, Holland. Dhruv has a passion for the spicy and often layered flavours of the two highly vibrant and diverse cuisines from his childhood, and now is working towards setting up his own restaurant. I really do hope to hear some more solid news soon, as watching him in the flesh doing what he cares about most, I am convinced that his restaurant will be a place where love for flavour, care for detail and gastronomic delight will be at the fore. 

Dhruv decided, for the Masterclass to demonstrate his own version of a Malaba Prawn Curry. Some readers may have heard of this dish before, being a traditional dish of South India. Dhruv wanted to highlight the subtle spice flavours which are possible in South Indian cooking rather than go for out and out heat. This approach is not traditional, but having tasted the results, is wonderful.

South Indian curries typically have coconut milk as the basis of their 'sauce' since coconuts are plentiful. Their real advantage is the provision of many highly useful and healthy nutrients in a fluid base which being enclosed, is never going to cause any form of illness or food poisoning. 

As I have said in my previous post on the Indian food masterclass, in South India, the climate does not allow for growing delicate and moisture hungry coriander. As a result, flavour and aroma is added through the use of curry leaves. 

Dhruv's recipe can be served with either rice or chapattis or naan breads. However, Dhruv served them on home made poori Indian flatbreads. They are simple to make and can be made either as canape sized mini pooris (as Dhruv did) or as little tearable rounds of joy. The choice is yours. 

I hope you will make this recipe at home as it is truly delicious. I also hope you will consider having your own Curry For Change evening, where you might consider inviting close friends or family to a curry night in aid of Find Your Feet.  You can request a Curry For Change event pack if you visit this website: http://find-your-feet.org/curryforchange/cook-curry/

Dhruv Baker’s Malaba Prawn Curry

Serves 4

Ingredients: 
500g ordinary or king prawns, shelled & deveined

2 x tablespoons vegetable oil 

1 x tablespoon ghee

2 x sprigs fresh curry leaves 

1 x teaspoon black mustard seeds

½ x teaspoon fenugreek seeds

1 x onion finely chopped

1 x teaspoon ginger

½ x teaspoon chilli powder

1 x teaspoon coriander powder

1 x teaspoon turmeric powder

Half a tin of tinned chopped tomatoes

100ml chicken or fish stock

1 x teaspoon tamarind paste

400ml coconut milk 

Salt to taste

Method:

1. Heat the oil in a saucepan and add half the curry leaves, the mustard seeds, the fenugreek seeds and the ginger and stir-fry for 30 seconds.

2. Add the onions and cook for 10 minutes or until they start to turn golden.

3. Add the chili powder, coriander and turmeric and stir-fry for a further minute.

4. Stir in the tomatoes and the tamarind and cook for 10 minutes.

5. Add the stock and reduce by half.  

6. Add the prawns and cook for 5 minutes then reduce the heat and add the coconut milk, cook for a further 2-3 minutes and take off the heat.

7. In a small pan heat the ghee and add the remaining curry leaves and mustard seeds, then tip the whole lot into the curry and stir through immediately. 

I would like to thank Find Your Feet for allowing me to share Dhruv Baker's recipe with you.

Recipe Road Test: Mallika Basu's Chingri Malai Curry

As I have indicated in past posts, my parents are West Bengal Bengalis, coming from the east of India. And as I have mentioned before, much as I love their wonderful culinary heritage, I've not been gifted with the skill and judgement to cook their food.

So when I discovered Mallika Basu's book "Miss Masala" I was pretty pleased. Not only is this a book attempting to show how good, tasty Indian food does not have to involve slaving away in the kitchen, but Basu is of Bengali descent too!

It turns out that Mallika Basu was born in Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). She came to the UK aged 18 to study, and has lived here ever since. Her journey into culinary literature started off as a blog detailing her experiments with simple, fast Indian cooking. After her studies, Mallika carved out a successful career in PR, and is now a Associate Director for a London PR Consultancy. 

Her book is one of the most useful Indian food books I have seen in a long time. What is special is how it takes the reader/cook through dishes, explaining the ingredients and techniquest, building up the level of difficulty as it goes. It's like a cookery course in book format. In addition, the anecdotes about reconciling the demands of work and a busy social life to find the time for making these dishes are humorous, written with a light and knowing hand. It made me feel like we were co-conspirators, and that I wasn't alone in wanting a rewarding life which also allowed for good food at home.

This is my test of her recipe for  I couldn't find it on her recipe on her blog (which I do recommend) http://www.quickindiancooking.com/ so I am posting a picture of the recipe from the book here: 

Chingri Maach is Bengali for prawns. The ones you can get in West Bengal and Bangladesh really have to be seen to be believed; they are such whoppers, you'd think someone got confused and served you lobster instead!

One ingredient you may not be familiar with is Mustard Oil. This is used very commonly in Bengali cooking. So commonly, in fact, that I found my bottle in Tesco, of all places! You will find that supermarkets in areas where lots of Indians live will stock it. If not, then your local Indian grocery shop should sell it. 

The first step of the recipe calls for making a curry paste. So I had to start by preparing my paste ingredients. 

Then they had to be mashed up into a paste. Stupidly, I thought the blender attachment on my food processor could manage this task. But the small amount of ingredients meant the blades couldn't get a good purchase on all the stuff. 

 

So I had to carry out a small amount of improvisation. I'm not unused to this. Often it's because I've not prepared properly. Or I've made a similar miscalculation. Still, I can't complain, since I've nearly always been able to get myself out of the whole I got myself into. 

I found that by shaking the blender vigorously from side to side and pushing the unblended ingredients back down into the blender as I went, I managed to blend the cubed ingredients into a paste. I had to blitz, stop, mix, push down, blitz, and then repeat again. (Word to the wise: use the food processor part of the machine! Don't waste time and effort!!)

Obviously, none of the above is the fault of the author of the recipe, Mallika Basu. It is all mine. As I've often said, I make the mistakes so that you don't have to!

Eventually, I got my curry paste done. And fragrant and well textured it was too!

  

Next came the frying of the whole spices with the sugar. This is a picture of the spices at an early stage of cooking:

Here you can see the caramelisation of the sugar occurring. As you can see, the sugar is the brown coloured (caramel) droplets in the oil.   

Then the paste has to be added. This does have a tendency to spit at you, because the paste ingredients contain a lot of water and the oil is rather hot. Be careful and hold your body back away from the pan if it starts to get nasty. Keep calm, and try not to worry.

As you cook the paste, you will need to keep it moving, or it will catch and stick to the pan. Put some good music on and bliss out, or put your phone on speakerphone/hands free and have a chat. Just don't leave the pan unattended!

Eventually the paste will change colour. 

Then it is time to add the sauce flavour base: the chilli, turmeric and chopped tomato. You will see the colour changes almost as soon as you have mixed it all up.

As Mallika says; here is the tricky part of the recipe. You need to mellow the spices and cook it all gently without burning. Put the pan on the smallest ring of your hob, and turn the heat really low. Burnt garlic and ginger will ruin the taste of the overall dish. Keep an eye on the pan and stir regularly. You will be able to smell the contents change in character. At the beginning you will be able to sense the ingredients; you will get tinges of the smell of each. As you get to the point where they are cooked, they will meld together. 

We then have to add the coconut milk. 

This will need very thorough mixing, to ensure all the flavours and smells permeate the coconut milk thoroughtly. You will not want unmixed sections, as these will taste bland and uninteresting.

Then add your prawns. Frozen prawns must be defrosted beforehand, or you will have to radically increase the cooking time.

After the allotted cooking cooking time, your prawns will be perfectly cooked, and will have taken on the flavours of the sauce

Serve with boiled/steamed Basmati rice.

Verdict: This did taste like an authentically Bengali curry. The gravy is flavoursome and goes well with rice, but equally would compliment breads such as paratha or chapati. The dish has balanced 'spicy' taste, but not mountains of heat. To me, "spice" is not about heat alone; it is about the tones of classic Indian spices which creates tones, reflections and counterpoints. The chilli powder did provide some heat, but it was subtle and cooked into the sauce in a very pleasing way. Fans of vindaloo and phall may want to either up the amount of chilli powder or substitute for 2 slitted or dried chillies added in at the stage where the coconut milk is added. Even though the amount of sugar added is small, it does provide a sense of sweetness which permeates the dish beautifully. It is a quintessentially Bengali element to the finished dish. This is a highly effective recipe which is in places work intensive, but that the work rewards the cook in the final result.