Prawn Pepper Fry – Kerala style

Been a nice sunny day here in Glasgow today. Woke up with an awesome amount of sunlight filling my bedroom. I was so happy to wake up this way. 🙂 A song by the Beatles – “Here comes the Sun” came to my mind, been humming this song since the time I woke up.. 🙂 & Why shouldn’t I hum such a lovely song for a perfect day like this. These days hardly come by so easily here in Glasgow…

My spirits being high… wanted to eat something very hot & yummy & I could not help but smile when I remembered the prawns that I had marinated last night for dinner today. But changed plans & ended up preparing this for lunch.. 😀 Weekend binging  couldn’t have gotten any better ;)… So this is my second post for the day..

I can never get enough of seafood. Been a long time since I posted any starter with seafood. A couple of days back I picked up some king prawns. Been thinking of preparing some Kerala style prawn starter from a while.

Tip: You can add more onions to the same recipe if you want to enjoy this with some Kerala Paratha’s.

The recipe I have below is a little on the hot side. So all of you who can’t take hot food lower the quantity of green chilli & black pepper used.

The flavour of coconut oil used in this dish would instantly take you to Kerala, you can almost imagine the greenery, its beautiful back waters with the house boats, coconut trees everywhere, people in lungi’s, well I can go on..

Ingredients: (Serves 2)             Preparation Time 15- 20 mins (Excludes time for the prawn marination)
King Prawns – 200 gms, peeled, de-veined & washed
Onion – 1 medium-sized, finely chopped
Green chilli’s – 2, cut into small pieces
Garlic – 2 cloves, finely chopped
Cumin seeds – 1/4 tsp
Turmeric powder – a pinch
Black peppercorns – 5-6 freshly crushed
Curry leaves – 1 sprig/ 6-7 leaves roughly torn
Coconut oil – 2 tbsp,
Salt to taste

Tip: You can use any other cooking oil if you do not want to use coconut oil. I used coconut oil for the authentic Kerala food flavour.

For the Prawn marination:
Red chilli powder – 1/4 tsp
Cumin powder – 1/4 tsp
Coriander powder – 1/4 tsp
Turmeric – a pinch
Garlic – 1 clove, minced
Salt to taste

Method:
Mix the cleaned & washed king prawns with the ingredients mentioned for the prawn marination. Marinate the prawns for at least an hour.

I let the prawns marinate in the fridge overnight.

Heat oil in a fry pan set to medium heat. When the oil is hot, add the cumin seeds & sauté them. Don’t let them burn. Next add the chopped green chilli’s & fry them for a minute, so that the spice from them gets infused into the oil. Add the chopped garlic & sauté them for a minute. Do not let them turn brown.

Now add the chopped onions and sauté them till they turn light brown. Add a pinch of turmeric to the onions. Add some salt to the onions to reduce the onion sautéing time.

Add the torn curry leaves to the onions & fry them. Also add the freshly crushed pepper corns and fry them.

Now add the marinated prawns & mix them well.

Tip: I tear the curry leaves because they add more their flavour to the dish this way.

Lower the heat, cover for 5 minutes & let the prawns cook, but open the lid from time to time & toss them around. Check salt & adjust. Let them fry on low heat till the prawns are tender.

Garnishing:
You may garnish them with some lemon juice if required.

Serving Suggestions:
Serve hot as a starter with some Beer or along with some Kerala Paratha’s.

You may find similar recipe’s on the internet where they mention black pepper powder in the list of ingredients & hence the colour of the resulting dish looks greyish black. I dislike the taste of ready-made black pepper powder, hence always use freshly ground black pepper & this does not impart that colour.

Other seafood recipe’s – Crispy Mussels, Lemony Prawns with Parsley, Special Prawn Biryani, Tangy Mussels…

Have an awesome weekend.. 🙂

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