Monday, April 7, 2008

Coconut Curried Prawns

I got a new cookbook! The Melting Pot. The World in Your Kitchen Each chapter of the book highlights a different country and nationality (Malaysian, Chinese, Ethiopian) and gives you an introduction to the cuisine, flavors you'll find in the kitchen, and, of course, offers recipes. I like the aspects of learning the contents of an Estonian store cupboard and lessons learned along the way when discovering Perisan cooking but I'm not a fan converting measurements from metric to imperial (note to self: do not buy English cookbooks).


The Coconut Curried Prawns recipe came from the Caribbean Kitchen section. Allen loves curry and coconut so I figured it was a good one to try first. He loved it. The color turned out much more yellow than the red curry pictured in the book. Regardless, we'll make it again. It's easy, rich and a bit different Caribbean style, Mon!

Ingredients:
200 g prawns (you tell me how many!) Actually, we used about 20 (or more) frozen shrimp.
1 small red bell pepper
2 cloves of garlic
A small bunch of spring onions (green onions)
5cm of ginger (I don't know what this quantity is either so I used about 1 tsp
1 scotch bonnet chili (a small colorful chili that's got a thin skin and is hot!)
1 tsp curry powder
1 can coconut milk
A small bunch of coriander (cilantro)
Salt and Pepper

Prep:
1. Clean and de-vein the prawns
2. Finely chop the red pepper, garlic, green onion, ginger and chili
3. Do not shake the can of coconut milk, open and spoon off the heavier coconut cream from the top of the can and set aside the rest of the coconut milk
4. Roughly chop the cilantro

Cook:
1. Heat a little oil and fry the red pepper, garlic, green onion, ginger and chili with the curry powder and a pinch of salt and pepper until soft and glossy
2. Toss in the prawns and cook for one minute
3. Add the coconut cream and half the milk. Turn up the heat to cook the prawns and reduce the sauce. Add milk until you get the consistency you want
4. Cook for 10 minutes and serve with freshly chopped cilantro

Very easy and, again, fairly rich. Probably a recipe best to consume in small quantities but, instead, we ate the entire meal in one sitting.