Prawns(Shrimp)

For the last few days I was too much held up in something, so I couldn’t go to purchase any sea food. The only place where I get fish (I mean the fish I know), is City Market and it is open only on weekends :(. But last week I bought a pack of frozen shrimps from Price Chopper. My piece of advice would be, if possible always use fresh shrimps, becasue the frozen ones are a bit harder even after cooking and they have some smell :(.

We get fresh shrimps at our native. Most of the time, they will be alive when brought home. The smaller shrimps are more tasty than the big ones. But it takes a hell lot of time and patience to clean those (In small villages like my native, we cannot get cleaned fishes/shrimps. So we have to clean it on our own).

Well…In Bangalore, we always ate ‘chicken hariyali’, it was one of my favourite chicken starter. I tried the same with the prawns this time and it turned out to be great :).

Ingredients:
Prawns(big) 15-20
Coriander leaves 1/2 cup
Pudina(mint) leaves 1/4 cup
Ginger 1″ piece
Garlic 2
Garam masala 1/2 tea spn
Cumin powder 1/2 tea spn
Yogurt(thick) 1 tbl spn
Green chillies 2-3
Chaat masala 1/2 tea spn
Turmeric a pinch
Salt

PS: The mint leaves which I found here have a very strong taste and smell compared to the pudina leaves we got in India. If that is the case, reduce the amount of mint leaves(you can just add 2-3 leaves instead of 1/4th cup).

Method:
Grind coriander leaves, pudina, ginger, garlic to a very smooth paste without adding water. Add turmeric, garam masala, cuming powder, yogurt and salt. Mix well with a spoon. Apply this mixture on prawns and leave it for around half an hour (If the mixture becomes thin, the prawns don’t get the uniform coating and the taste is lost, so be careful not to add water).
Preheat the oven to 400F. Keep the prawns on a greased oven proof dish and bake them for 30-40mins.
If you don’t have an oven, heat a tea spn of oil in a heavy bottomed pan and add the prawns. Cook on a low flame till the prawns are completely done. This version takes less time compared to baking in oven.
Sprinkle chaat masala on prawns and serve.

Serves : 3
Preparation time : 50min

Few days back I blogged about Vali bhajji ambat and prawns curry. Now it is time for a delicious dish having both vali bhajji(Indian Spinach, Malabar Spinach or Vietnamese Spinach) and prawns(sungat).

This dish is cooked in almost all houses in North Kanara. Usually Prawns or khubbe(clams) are used for this dish.I recently tried this dish with Spinach (Palak) because I was not having the Vali. It came out very delicious. The greens and prawns give an out of the world taste to this gravy.

Ingredients:
15-20 prawns
1 cup vali bhajji (or spinach)
3/4 cup fresh/frozen coconut
1/2 cup toor daal
4 red chillies
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 tea spn tamarind extract or 1-2 pieces of normal tamarind
1 tea spn coriander seeds
A pinch turmeric
Oil
Salt

Method:
Cook toor daal and greens with a pinch of turmeric.
Heat oil and fry coriander seeds. Grind fried coriander with coconut, red chillies and tamarind to a smooth paste.
Heat oil and fry onion till they turn slightly brownish. Add prawns and fry for sometime(till the prawns turn white in color). Add cooked daal and ground masala. Add salt and cook till masala and prawns are completely cooked.
Serve hot with rice.

Serves : 4-5
Preparation time : 20 min