The Sunday Afternoon Seafood Project Part Two: Prawn Curry

One of the best things about the far east's cuisine is the amount of curry recipes over there. They can usually be divided into two categories, Thai Red Curry and Thai Green Curry. The Green flavour tends to be mellower while the Red carries fire and spice in its ingredients. It was the former I chose to make. 

These curries tend to rely on either Beef, Chicken, Pork-a bit Haram that- and Seafood for their protein. Inspired by the seafood of the Pacific Rim, I went for an option that involved utilising Prawns as the protein.

There was music on the player. This time round it was Jerry Goldsmith's excellent soundtrack to the first Star Trek Movie. The music bristles with tension, epic moments, feelings of salvation and elation, as well as articulating through the music the chemistry the original crew of the Enterprise displayed to allow them to survive their missions. 

So to the ingredients, which are as follows:

300 grams of pre-cooked and peeled Prawns. 

4 medium sized Sweet Peppers, de-cored, topped, tailed and sliced finely. 

1 Red Onion, peeled, topped, tailed and diced.

1 tablespoon of Ground Ginger. 

140 grams of Thai Red Curry Paste. 

1 can of Coconut Milk 

An amount of Rice to suit your needs to boil until it is sticky and then serve as a side dish. 

The way this one is put together is as follows:

1. Fry the onions on a medium heat for around ten minutes until they are translucent, stirring them regularly to avoid them burning. 

2. Add the Sweet Peppers and stir in before adding the Ground Ginger and cooking for another five minutes.

3. Add the Prawns and then fry for a further ten minutes on a low heat. 

4. Add the Coconut Milk taking care to remove the water from the can leaving only the pure milk to ensure the curry mix is rich and creamy. 

5. Simmer gently for another five minutes. 

6. Serve with the Rice and garnish with some Spring Onion leaves.

There was a certain saltiness to this recipe that contrasted nicely with the sweetness of the Coconut flavours and the curry paste had a fire to stop the recipe from being too rich. Certainly a recipe to have as a "go to" for block cooking for the working week ahead or a delicious Saturday Night Treat. 

Mean Tegine in the Homeland

 A trip to Morocco in late April and new-found knowledge of peninsula thousands of miles to the east helped inspire a recipe that was very much made in England. 

The sun shone. The leaves on the trees in the park were fading to gold while others had been shed by their owners to lighten the toll taken on them by the long drought of the summer. Fall had officially begun and it was a time to reflect. It had been a summer of holidays, exciting firsts on the cricket field and positive growth. 

The third Sunday in September came at the end of a weekend of laughter, badminton, hiking and nature walks with a spot of housework thrown in. I thought back to the delicious Tegine recipes found on the holiday in Morocco and with the righteous angst of the Smiths' 1985 number one album "Meat is Murder" on the player, I embarked on making an Aubergine and Prawn Tegine. The use of Prawns was inspired by my knowledge of the seafood found in that peninsula far away in the East. 

The ingredients were as follows:

For the Tegine

Two Aubergines, topped, tailed and sliced thinly. 

One Red Onion, topped, tailed and sliced finely. 

Two diced Sweet Peppers with their seeds and tops removed. 

One tablespoon each of ground Cumin, ground Cloves, ground Coriander, Harissa Flakes and pieces of Saffron.

The juice of one Lemon. 

Two tablespoons of Honey. 

Sixteen shelled Prawns that are pre-cooked and ready to eat. 

0.1 litres of boiling water.

100 grams of Red Lentils. 

For the Loaded Rice

150 grams of dried Rice.

0.5 litres of boiled water.

1 tin of Kidney Beans.

The method of this recipe is as follows and very simple:

1. Add all the ingredients ,except the water, to an ovenproof dish, such as a Le Cresceut, with a lid on it. Put the lid on and shake the dish to combine the ingredients and leave them for about an hour to marinate. 

2. Add the water and cook the ingredients in the dish on the hob for ten minutes on a low heat. 

Pre-heat the oven to Gas Mark 5 and once it has warmed up, put the dish in the oven and cook for one hour. 

3. Meanwhile, boil the Rice until it is sticky and has absorbed the water. Add the Kidney Beans and stir them together with a pinch of Harissa. 

4. When everything is cooked serve it. 

The combination of sweet and sour together with the protein of the Kidney Beans to bolster the rice makes this dish irresistible and it tastes even better when kept overnight and eaten the next day. Such much good British Cuisine is based on sweet and sour flavours from other countries but adopted and appropriated to create dishes inspired from abroad but made in this country. Much like British cuisine, our country would not be half as successful without all those things that have come from other places to enrich and enhance.