Saturday, 19 May 2012

cheat's pickled prawn curry

I love to take advantage of special offers on items that are usually more expensive than budget can allow too often, and I saw a half price on Sainsbury's frozen raw king prawns that I couldn't resist a month ago.  Littl'Un adores prawns, and tho Big' Un is terrified of them, she was away in Singapore, so I had to grab the opportunity and buy them!

There is a lovely recipe in a book by Anjum Anand for a pink pickled prawn curry, and I really fancied cooking it, but when I got round to cooking it, I was tired, and fed up, and wanted something quick and simple and I just couldn't handle following each step slowly to build up the layers of flavour. I glanced over the ingredients and realised that the spices she uses are basically those in the Bengali "panch phoron" or 5 spice, and I have a home mixed pot of that ready in the cupboard*, so I fried a teaspoon of my panch phoron in the karahi for a few seconds, then added a tablespoon of Patak's tandoori spice curry paste from a jar in the fridge.
The (thawed) raw prawns then were added and fried until cooked (pink and curled up) and I added a couple of tablespoons of water and tinned chopped tomatoes to gravy it up a bit.  A twist of lemon juice at the last minute zinged this up so that it was fresh and light and exactly what I wanted. 

Simple steamed basmati was the perfect foil and some crunch crispy salad leaves.

Littl'Un had 3 helpings.

* panch phoron=
1 tbsp nigella seeds
1 tbsp black mustard seeds
1 tbsp fenugreek seeds
1 tbsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp cumin seeds

Mix together in a spice jar and store until needed.



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