Prawn Curry|Prawn in a Spicy Coconut Sauce

 For a while I have been wanting to make a prawn curry by Madhur Jaffrey. Madhur Jaffrey is known as the "actress who could cook". As per what I read she introduced Indian cooking to the western world. Its not because this is a recipe by her that I wanted to make this..No offense to Madhur Jaffrey. But I wanted to make this because this is what she shared with Julia Child on Cooking with the Master Chefs. She called it the 'southern Indian shrimp in a spicy coconut sauce'. Fancy huh. If Julia was impressed with this recipe, I told myself, I can impress my husband too.

Honestly, this is the best prawn curry I have made. It has the spiciness,'tanginess' yet the flavors are subtle because of the coconut milk. You should give this a try,The original recipe calls for coriander seeds. I substituted it with the coriander powder from my pantry,  I also made slight changes with the addition of some coriander leaves. This is my version of the recipe.

Ingredients

Half a kilo prawns peeled

I medium sized onion

Half red bell pepper(capsicum)

5 cloves of garlic

1/2 inch ginger

2 tbsp kashmiri chili powder

1/2 tsp turmeric powder

1 tsp coriander powder

2 tsp pepper powder

2 tbsp canola oil/any refined vegetable oil

1 tsp mustard seeds

A pinch of fenugreek seed

10 curry leaves

2 green chilies

Salt

1/4 tsp sugar

1 cup thick coconut milk(I used canned coconut milk)

1 tbsp tamarind dissolved in 1/3rd cup hot water and strained

Method

Chop the onion, bell pepper, ginger and garlic roughly and blend this to a smooth paste.You can add 2 tbsp of water if required. Add the chili powder, turmeric powder, coriander powder and pepper powder and blend again. You should get a paste like below.

Heat oil in a pan. Splutter the mustard seeds and fenugreek seeds.

Add the the curry leaves and sliced green chilies. (If you don't want the heat but only the flavor, remove the seeds from the chilies). To this add the bell paper paste and saute till the oil separates or its slightly brown. This should take about 7 minutes on medium heat,

Add 1 cup of water, coconut milk, tamarind pulp,sugar and salt.

Give this a boil and strain this. Do not use a fine sieve because we want some body to the curry,

Heat the sauce again and check for salt. Add a handful of chopped coriander leaves and prawns.

 Cook for 5 minutes and you have a beautiful prawn curry in front of you. Serve it hot with rice!

HAPPY COOKING!