Chef Pillai's Venad Coconut Milk Prawns

 I am very lucky to have my first cousin living in Sydney. He is the only one in my family who lives in Australia and he migrated fairly recently.  During the Easter break he rang me to tell me he was coming to Melbourne for a visit and as a good big sister, I asked him what he would like to eat.  His response was "fish, akka, anything with fish". :-) What a predictable answer!  I remember as a new migrant how I craved for home cooked fish curry and struggled with finding the same fish from home in the markets here.

Fast forward twenty years - and now I am comfortable to cook a homestyle fish meal for my near and dear ones who are homesick.

Here is one of the recipes I made for him - I changed the recipe just a bit as I wanted some gravy.

Ingredients:

500 grams of prawns, shelled, deveined and washed.

7-8 cloves of garlic

about 1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

1 teaspoon chilli flakes

1/2 teaspoon rock salt

2-3 tablespoons of coconut milk

2 tablespoons cooking oil

1 sprig curry leaves

1 inch piece of ginger, julienned

For gravy:

1/2 tablespoon ginger garlic paste

1 onion, chopped finely

1/2 teaspoon turmeric powder

1/2 teaspoon Kashmiri chilli powder

1/2 teaspoon coriander powder

1 tomato, chopped finely

1 tablespoon oil

salt to taste

Method: 

Crush the garlic with the skin, using a mortar and pestle roughly. Add chilli flakes and 1/2 a teaspoon of rock salt, black pepper, 1/2 a teaspoon of oil and the fresh crushed garlic and massage into the prawns. Leave aside and prepare the gravy.

Take the coconut milk in a  small bowl add half a teaspoon of oil to it and some curry leaves and leave aside.

In a large wok, heat the remaining oil add the ginger garlic paste. Cook till the raw smell disappears and add the onions and sauté well.  When it starts to caramalise, add the turmeric, coriander and chilli powders.  Mix well and then add the chopped tomato. Keep sautéing till the tomatoes cook well.

In a separate saucepan, heat oil and place prawns and cook it for about two minutes on each side.

Add the prawns to the gravy and mix well, splashing with the coconut milk till it is mixed well.

Fry the ginger juliennes and pour over the top of the dish and serve hot.  Check for salt and add if needed. Serve hot with rice or chappaties.