Sambal Belacan Prawns

In the last 4 months my son has gone on a school picnic for the 2nd time. This time it was to the Bollywood veggie farm. I hardly remember me having any kind of picnic while I was his age:) This time I dint accompany him but asked my maid to go along with him. I have noticed that he is very well behaved & friendly with my maid. If I am around he simply tries to throw tantrums & I find it very difficult to handle him outside. Last time I had a crazy time when I went along with him to the chicken farm picnic. This time My maid was saying that he was so good & quite that the teachers were surprised to see him that way. He is the naughty & loud one in the class:)

 I was just talking to my other Mommy friends & they too had similar things to share. The kids generally throw tantrums at their mom's & I think they love doing it. After all that enjoyment at the picnic, there was slight drizzle which has made my boy sick. He has been having high fever since saturday & is recovering now.

Since zion  was unwell we did not do much over the weekend. We just took him out in the evening for a walk to the nearby mall. We suddenly happened to taste Dulce le leche ice cream at Baskin Robbins & loved the taste. Since I had all the ingredients to make this, I tried this one & It turned out amazing! I will be posting this recipe soon.

Coming back to today's post, Ramadan being around the corner, I wanted to post as many non veg dishes as possible . You wont believe that I have more than 50 pending posts sitting in my laptop. I create most of my recipes, I have even forgotten how I made some of them:) This is a recipe that I tried from one of my fav chef's book "Best of Wan" I love his recipes & this chef is very entertaining. He is a very famous celebrity chef in Malaysia & Singapore. I rarely try his recipes, coz they are very rich & addictive:) If you love rich Malay food, then you must try out recipes from his books. This is Prawns sambal Belacan which is very similar to rendang curry. This is how I made it & I would have slightly modified to suit our taste.

Making time: 45 mins
cooking time: 25- 30 mins
Serves: 4 people

Ingredients:

• ½ kg / 1 pound of medium-sized Prawns cleaned
• 4 Tbspn oil
• Salt to taste
• 1/2 cup fry roasted decisated coconut
• 3 Tbsnp Thick coconut cream
• 2 tbspn Turmeric leaves finely chopped to garnish
• 2 Kafir lime leaf finely chopped to garnish
• 1 Tbspn Lemon juice

 

Paste Ingredients: (to be finely ground)

• 10 Shallots (Red Onions), peeled
• 15 dried Chilis soaked in hot water to soften and drain
• 2 Tbspn chopped lemon grass
• 1 Tbspn chopped galangal
• 3 Tbsp roasted dry Shrimps
• 3 Kaffir lime leaf chopped
• 1 Tbspn minced ginger & garlic
• 2 Tbspn chopped Turmeric leaf
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 Tspn Tamarind Paste
• 1/4 tspn Palm sugar (Jaggery)

Directions:

1. Heat Oil and sauté the Paste until fragrant. Lower the heat in order to not burn the spices. Cook slowly till oil surface or separates.
2. Add around 1/4 cup of hot water & bring this gravy to boil. Immediately bring down the heat & add thick coconut cream
3. Add in Turmeric leave, White Sugar (or Palm Sugar), and salt. Simmer until the gravy thickens.
4. Add in the Prawns and continue to simmer until the water from the prawns releases & cook until the gravy is slightly dry. This should take not more than 5 mins.
5. Turn off the fire and add in Kaffir Lime Leaves, turmeric leaves and roasted desiccated Coconut Paste. Stir them well.

 

Note:

1. Prawns cook really fast so do not over cook them. If you cook longer they will turn out chewy/rubbery.
2. Sometimes depending on the type of kadai you use, you might require more oil for frying the masala paste. So add it according to your preference
3. If you life the dish more spicy add more chili's if you want.
4. Try & serve this dish fresh to enjoy the juiciness of the prawns
5. I would advice you to use fresh Prawns or shrimps.
6. Since I dont like & stand the smell on ready Belacan paste, I skipped adding that & replaced it with dry roasted shrimps.

 

Prawn curry

So finally I am back to blogging after a small gap. The last 2 weeks have been a really busy week for me. One I have been busy with my son' s2nd bday celeration & other is I will be starting work after 2 years of gap. So now its "Corporate2kitchen- kitchen2corporate"

Now coming back to todays post. This is an old dish that I made a week ago. As mentioned in my earlier posts, You already know that I am a great fan of Shrimps. Found these in the market after a long time as these are not very frequent visitors. The moment I spot them & I buy them immediately. These gets sold really fast. Shrimps have a natural sweetness & they taste good anyway you cook them. Just the salt & pepper is enough to season & this will still taste delicious. This curry is a very easy recipe & I have used the basic spices in this. Just the chili powder & turmeric powder. Just these 2 spices are enough to season this & make it delicious. BTW there are many other seafood which has natural rich flavour so overkilling them with lot of masalas/spices will spoil its natural taste.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 kg cleaned shrimps
• 1 onions chopped small
• 1 big tomato chopped
• 1 Tbsp minced ginger
• 1 tbsp Garlic
• 1 Tbsp Red Kashmir chili powder
• 1/4 tspn Turmeric powder
• Less than 1/4 tspn tamarind paste
• salt as per taste
• 1/4 Tspn sugar
• 3 Tbsp of thick coconut cream or milk
• 1/2 cup of hot water
• Coriander leaves to garnish
• 1 Tbsp oil

Method:

1. In a pan add oil fry ginger, garlic, onions until translucent for about 3 to 4 mins
2. Now add in the tomatoes, chili powder, turmeric powder, salt & fry until fat separation. The tomatoes need to become totally soft.
3. Now add in the tamarind paste, shrimps & cook this for about 2 to 3 mins.
4. Combine the coconut cream, sugar, hot water & bring this to a boil for about 2 mins.
5. Turn off the flame & garnish it with coriander leaves.

 

A small tip when cooking seafood:

 when making certain seafood dishes make sure you dont kill the natural goodness with overpowering spices. Keep it simple & it will taste good.

Prawn Manchurian

A very good family friend/ relative were here with us last night to spent some time over dinner.  BTW This is the friend from whom I got inspiration to try my hands on cake decoration. She had made my baby shower cake 2.3 years ago. She is very good at cake baking & decoration. She now lives in Bangalore & does cake deco as profession. You can also check her fb page Cakes & bakes. Well for the dinner I made many dishes. Let me tell you one by one now. For the kids it was Chocolate Oreo Milk shake with Vanilla ice cream, Cashew nut Pakoras, Puff pastry fingers, Prawn Manchurian in Thai chili sauce, Coorg style Biriyani, Chicken Sukka, Neer Dosa, Onion Yogurt Raita, Gooey Brownie with Home made Vanilla ice cream. Since I was busy with cooking I could hardly take pictures of these. Some of the recipes are already there in my blog.

Yesterday I went to the market to pick up Prawns &I found this Jumbo fresh Prawns. They were like $25 per kilo & I got 12 pieces in a kilo. I felt it was a very good deal coz in supermarkets these cost $40. I was contemplating as to make Ghee roast or some indo Chinese style. Since I have served ghee roast in the past to this friend, thought will make some Indo style Prawns. This was really yummy & definitely a crowd pleaser. Fortunately I had one last piece left in the fridge & I photographed it today. That's why you will see an orphan Prawn:) This is how I made them

Ingredients:

• 12 Piece Jumbo Prawn cleaned
• 1/4 Cup Corn Flour
• 1/4 cup Plain flour
• 1/2 cup Plain flor for dusting
• 1 Tspn Oyster sauce
• 2 Tbsp Soya sauce
• 1 Tbsp Thai Chili Sauce
• 1 Onion chopped
• Handful of spring onion chopped
• 2 Tbsp Ginger minced
• 2 tbsp Garlic Minced
• 1 Tspn Knnor all seasoning powder
• 1/4 Tspn Black pepper powder
• 1/4 tspn red chili powder
• 1 Tbsp corn flour for making the paste
• 1/2 cup water
• Oil for Deep frying
• 2 Tbsp oil for stir frying
• Salt as per taste

Method:

1. Clean & devain the prawns. Make a deep cut on the back of the Prawn (Like Butterfly)
2. Make a loose batter with 1/4 cup corn flour, salt & 1/4 cup plain flour
3. In a plate spread 1/2 cup of plain flour which will be used for dusting the prawns in the next step.
4. Now dip each prawn in the flour Batter & dip it in the plain dry flour. shake the excess flour & deep fry them in hot oil for 2 to 3 mins. Fry all the Prawns & set this aside
5. In a large Pan/Wok add 2 tbsp oil, fry ginger, garlic & onion until translucent
6. Combine soya sauce, Oyster sauce, Thai chili sauce, chili powder, black pepper powder & all seasoning powder
7. Now add in 1/4 cup of water to this sauce & bring this to a boil
8. Make a paste with 1 tbsp corn flour & 1/3 cup of water. Add this paste to the boiling sauce. (This will thicken the sauce) Keep stirring while you do this.
9. Finally toss in the fried prawns & spring onions. Give this a good mix & its ready to serve
10. Add salt as per your taste if required coz soya sauce does contain a lot of salt.

Here is the Chicken Sukka & Coorg style chicken Biriyani recipe.

 

Shrimp Masala

Shrimps are so versatile & they taste good however you make them. A simple salt & pepper also will bring out a nice taste. Well shrimps are smaller prawns & they are tastier than the bigger ones. In India we mostly get Shrimps & in Singapore these are not very common. Its easier to get the dried shrimps here than the fresh ones. Fortunately the wet market near to  my new place has them every time I visit. Whenever I go there I pick like about 2 kgs & stock them in the fridge. Since these are so easy to cook, I make them whenever I want to make some quick meal. This one is so easy & can be done under 10 mins. BTW chemeen in malyalam means Shrimps. since I have mostloy used south Indian spices for this preparation, I named it Chemeen Masala.

Serves: 3 people
Cook time: 10 mins

Ingredients:

• 1 cup of cleaned shrimps (1/2 kg)
• 1 tbspn souf (whole jeera)
• handful of curry leaves
• 1 Tspn red chili powder
• 1/4 tspn turmeric powder
• 1/4 Tspn of pepper powder
• 1 Tbsp coarsely ground ginger garlic pieces
• 1 tbsp oil
• 1 Tspn lemon juice
• 1/4 Tspn sugar
• Salt as per taste

Method:

In a pan add oil, fry ginger garlic, sauf, curry leaves for less than a minute, Now add in chili powder, turmeric powder, pepper powder fry for 4 seconds on very low flame, Now  add in the shrimps & fry them for about 3 to 4 mins or until the water is drained off. Add lemon juice & some curry leaves to garnish.

Note:

• Do not over cook the shrimps. Maximum cook time will be 5 mins

Prawn Ghee Roast

Prawn Ghee roast is a Mangalorean delicacy. In this dish a ground chili paste is fried in Ghee (Clarifies butter) & then the semi cooked Prawns is added to it. You can try this dish with Shrimps, chicken & Paneer too. This is our all time favorite & a little spicy but very tasty dish. I have posted the recipe for this earlier also, but this one has some modification. The earlier one had onion paste in it & can be made as curry.  I feel this one is much better than the earlier one. Even the picture & presentation is better here. This is a dry dish and can be had both as starters & main course. Goes very well with steamed rice, neer dosa & Pundi.

Serves: 4 people
Making time: 30 mins

Ingredients

1. 20 medium size prawns ( half to 3/4 th kg)
2. 10 to 15 roasted Long Red Chilly (Byadgi) . You can remove the seeds if you don't like it spicy. (Generally these chilies are not very spicy but gives a nice color)
3. 1/4 tsp tamarind paste
4. 1 tsp Coriander powder
5. 1/4 tsp Cumin Powder
6. 1 Tspn Garlic & 1 Tspn Ginger
7. 1/4 Tspn turmeric powder for marinade
8. 7 -8 Tbsp Ghee or 1/4 cup of Ghee (Clarified butter)
9. 1 Tbspn Coconut oil
10. Salt as per taste

Method:
 
1. Grind ingredients 2- 6 to a smooth paste.
2. Marinate the cleaned prawn with some salt & turmeric powder for about an hour.
3. In a Pan/ Kadai add 2 tbspn of ghee & fry the prawns for about 2 mins & remove.
4. In the same Pan add rest of ghee & add the ground masala paste, salt. fry this on low flame stirring for about 5 - 8 mins or until fat separation.
5. Finally add in the prawns stir well & cook this for about 2 mins. In the end garnish this dish with 1 Tbspn of coconut oil & mix well

This is how the ground Chili masala paste looks like

The masala after frying in ghee

Prawn Ghassi Video recipe

 

Now we have settled completed in our new home. The good part is there is a very big wet market near to my new house. I had been there couple of days ago & picked up tiger prawns. I am so impressed with the variety of fish available in this market. So here after any day I can just walk up to this market & bring home the days fresh catch:)

 

Well I made Prawn Ghassi - Mangalorean dish with half a kilo. Ghassi is a semi thick gravy & is made in every Mangaloreans house. Ghassi can be made with any fish, meat or even vegetables. I was able to take a video recipe for this one. Although the video clarity is not so good but its watchable:) This is a very simple & tasty dish. Its a must try...

 

 

Serves 4
Cooking time - 20 mins
Cuisine- Indian Coastal

· 1/2 Kg Tiger prawns

 

· 1 cup fresh/frozen coconut pieces or grated

 

· 4 to 5 red dried chillies (if you can handle more, increase it)

 

· 1 tea spn coriander seeds

 

· 1/4 Tspn cumin seeds

 

· 1/4 tspn black pepper corn

· 1/4 Tspn Kashmiri red chili

· 1/4 tspn Turmeric powder

· 1 medium tomatoes chopped

· 2 slit green chili's

· 1 large onion chopped

· 1 cup of water

· 1/4 tspn sugar

· 2 Tbspn coconut oil (can use any oil)

· 1/ tspn Tamarind paste (optional)

· salt as per taste

· Coriander leaves to garnish

Method:

1.       Dry roast red chillies, coriander seeds, cumin, Black pepper until fragrant.

2.      Now along with coconut, turmeric, chili powder, grind this to a fine paste with 1/4 cup of water. Do not add too much water (This needs a good Indian mixer).

3.      In a pan add coconut oil, fry onion & green chili until translucent.

4.      To this now add in the ground masala paste, tomatoes & 1/4 cup of water. Close lid, cook this for about 5 to 8 minutes until the raw smell goes off & you see some oil floating on top or sides(On medium or low flame)

5.      Add in salt, sugar & Prawns in this. Now cook for another 3 to 5 mins with lid closed. Add some water if required.

6.      Turn off flame & garnish with coriander leaves. Prawn ghassi is ready.

Click here for video recipe

Prawn Chili

I cant tell you how busy I was in last 2 weeks. I had 2 cake orders plus many other stuff going around. I was so stressed out. From yesterday I am a kind of relaxed & able to take deep breath & enjoy my routine at home. I also got some time to pamper myself by getting a nice pedi mani done:)

Well I know that I have so many recipes pending. I will try & post as many recipes as possible in the following week. Till then please bear with me:) I picked up these Jumbo Prawns in the market last week & made this dish last week. This is kind of same as my Chili Chicken recipe. Its very simple to make & tastes divine. Here is how I made it.

Ingredients:500 Gms cleaned prawns (I used Jumbo Tiger)1/2 small green Capsicum diced1 Tbsp Garlic Chopped1 Tbs Ginger Chopped2 Tbsp Light Soya Sauce1 Tsp Oyster sauce1 Tbsp Black Pepper2 Tbsp Corn Flour2 Tbsp Maida/ All purpose flour1 tsp all seasoning powderOil for deep fryingSalt as per taste
Spring Onions to garnish

Method: Make a batter of Corn flour, Maida, pepper & salt Mix Prawn in this & deep fry this for about 2 to 3 mins until done. Remove Prawns & set aside. In the mean time take a heavy bottom pan add 2 tbsp of oil, fry garlic, ginger, Onion, salt & 3 mins. Add green chili , all sauces, seasoning powder & cook on medium flame for about 2 minutes. Finally add in the crispy fried Prawns & capsicum. Give this a good mixture so that the sauces blends in well. Yummy Prawn Chili is ready. Serve this immediately to enjoy the crispness. This is very good Appetizer. I love this recipe & make this more often. You can also follow the same for Chicken, Paneer, Mushrooms, Baby corn, Pork, Cauliflower & anything that you can think off:) Isn't that cool...

The picture has not come out well as I took it at night.

Prawn in Yogurt Sauce

This dish is nothing but Dohi Maach (Bangali Fish Curry )Earlier I have shared with you all this recipe. I thought of trying out the same recipe with Prawns & it turned out very good. Prawns always adds an extra punch to any recipe. Well never cook your Prawn for too long as it becomes very rubbery & tasteless. It should be always added at the end & cook not more than 5 mins. Many of my friends keep compaining that when they cook prawns at home it dosnot turn out the way it does in the resturant. Thatz become most Indians overcook fish & Meat. Tip to resturant taste Fish & Meat is to not to cook them for too long. This is a very easy & simple recipe. Please follow the same recipe as Doi Maach.
http://corporatetokitchen.blogspot.sg/2012/07/doi-maach-is-very-popular-bengali-dish.html

Note: You neednot pre fry the Prawns. Add them at the end & cook them for about 3- 5 mins. If you cook them for long time it becomes very rubbery:). If you want to marinate the Prawn you can do with salt & Turmeric which I didnt do.

Stir fried Prawns in Oyster Sauce

Prawns are so easy to cook & I get these fresh ones at least once in 2 weeks and store them in the fridge. In 1 Kg I would have made more than 4 varieties in 2 weeks. This dish was made in less than 10 minutes. Here is the recipe..


Ingredients

• 1/4 Kg cleaned medium Prawns (Around 15 prawns)
• 2 Tbsp. Garlic Chopped
• 6 Cherry tomatoes
• 2 Green chili chopped
• Half Capsicum diced
• 1 Tbsp Oyster Sauce
• 2 Tbsp Dark soya sauce
• 1 Tbsp Light Soya Sauce
• 1/2 Tsp Black Pepper powder
• 1 Tbsp Oil 
• Salt as per taste

Method:
In a Pan add oil fry garlic for a minute. Add in the prawns Capsicum, all the sauces & the black pepper. Close lid & cook this for 5 minutes on medium flame. Now remove lid & cook for another 2 - 3 minutes. Finally add in the cherry tomatoes & stir well. 

Serves 4 People

Prawn Kebab

Prawn Kebab

Well I had some left over marinade of Chicken Kebab & I marinated prawns in them to make these tasty Prawn Kebabs.

For the Kebab Marinade recipe: Click here

Note:

• ·  Prawns get cooked very fast so fry those not more than 2 minutes.
• ·  If you don’t want to deep fry you can bake them or Tava fry them as well (I did Tava fry the 2^nd batch)

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Prawns Masala

This is a very easy quick gravy recipe. Can be made in just 20 mins.

Prawns in Spicy Tomato Gravy

½ Kg Cleaned Prawns

1 Medium Onion Chopped

1 Tbsp. Chili Powder

1/ 4 Tsp Turmeric Powder

½  Tsp. Cumin Powder

½  Tsp. Garam Masala

2 Tbsp Tomato Paste or Chopped tomatoes

6 Cloves of Garlic Chopped

1 Inch Ginger chopped

1 Tsp. Chopped Coriander leaves

1 Tbsp. Oil

Method: In a Pan add oil; fry Ginger Garlic & Onions for 3 minutes. Now add in tomato paste & all the masala powder mentioned above. Fry this for 3 to 5 minutes till the fat separation. Add in the cleaned Prawns mix well & add a cup of water close lid. Bring to a boil not more than 4 minutes on medium flame. Garnish with coriander leaves.