Garlic Prawns – Indian Style

These Garlic Prawns are an adaptation of a Madhur Jaffrey recipe from her book Curry Easy.  I didn't follow her recipe exactly (constitutionally unable to follow recipes).

Ingredients used:

Pottle of raw prawns – peeled and deveined – you can leave the little tails on

¼ tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp black pepper (ground)

1 tsp finely chopped green chillies (more if it isn't a really hot chili)

¼ tsp yellow mustard seeds

2 large cloves of garlic – finely chopped or smushed

10 basil leaves (fresh and torn or roughly chopped)

5 tablesp of grated tomato (I will explain below)

Some peanut oil or vegetable oil (I used a mixture of Canola with a few drops of sesame oil)

Wash and pat dry your prawns.  Mix them in a bowl with the cayenne pepper, black pepper, salt and chillies and set in the fridge (this can be done well ahead of time).

When you are ready to cook, have all your other ingredients ready, it is all going to take about 2 to 3 minutes once you start.

Heat your oil in a pan or wok, it is hot enough when you drop just one mustard seed in and it pops.  Then put all the mustard seeds in, give it a swirl, add your garlic, another swirl, then add the prawns and basil.  One more stir and then add your grated tomato.  Turn down the heat to moderate and fry for no more than a couple more minutes so the prawns are cooked through.

And that's it.

Oh, I almost forgot to explain the grated tomato.  This was a completely new thing to me.  I was a bit sceptical but Jaffrey tells you just to use a coarse grater and to press hard at first to get a start and then grate away.  The skin doesn't get grated and the result is almost a cross between a tomato foam and puree.  A great sauce base.  I will be grating tomato again. 

This post has been submitted, at her request, to Manju of Manju'z Kitchen as my first ever guest post.