Oh what a fun prawn curry to serve!
Prawn curry served in a coconut shell
Isn’t Twitter great! Last week I was looking for new ideas for my blog when out of the blue a Twitter friend, Tom Carroll asked me if I’d ever tried Koloshi in Cheltenham. I love living in North Yorkshire but I rarely get down south to try the restaurants that are recommended to me so my answer was unfortunately no.
Tom let me know how amazing Koloshi was. He tweeted a picture to me showing the prawn curry he ordered. It was served in a coconut and the flavours were sealed in using pastry. I knew immediately I had to give that one a try.
The only thing I had to do was talk Chef Azad Hussain to share his recipe. Getting nice recipes out of talented chefs is not always that easy. I’ve noticed that the best chefs, however are much more forthcoming with their recipes. Within a half hour of seeing Tom’s picture, Azad tweeted me his prawn curry recipe.
Tom – who I’ve never met before in person – appears to have very good taste in food. I made Azad’s prawn curry last night and my whole family loved it. If you’ve got a minute, you might like to check out Azad’s website. Koloshi looks like my kind of restaurant. Look at the gallery of dishes Azad prepares and you’ll see why I think he may just be the UK’s next curry king!
I have changed the recipe a little just to use up some fresh products I had on hand but I think my prawn curry is still quite close to what Azad prepares at Koloshi.
By the way, if you are serving this curry in coconut shells, try to find large shells. I could only find small shells but it still worked well.
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All done!
A Delicious South Indian Prawn Curry From Koloshi In Cheltenham
Ingredients
- 500 g tiger prawns peeled and deveined
- 1/2 teaspoon turmeric
- 2 tablespoons ghee, olive oil or mustard oil
- 1 teaspoon black mustard seeds (optional)
- 20 fresh curry leaves (optional)
- 3 green cardamom pods
- 4 cloves
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 1 bay leaf
- 400ml coconut milk
- 1 green chilli slit in half and deseeded
- 1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 2 shallots
- 1 tablespoon garlic paste
- 1 tablespoon ginger paste
- 1 tablespoon finely chopped coriander
- 2 tablespoons fresh desiccated coconut
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Sprinkle the prawns with the turmeric and mix well.
- Heat the ghee or oil in a large frying pan or wok.
- When hot, toss in the whole spices.
- Allow the oil to take in the flavour of the spices for about 30 seconds and then add the curry leaves (if using).
- After about 30 seconds, add the chopped shallots and fry until soft and translucent.
- Add the garlic and ginger pastes along with the green chilli and stir to combine.
- Now add the desiccated coconut, coconut milk and bay leaf along with the paprika.
- Stir in the chopped coriander and serve... OR...
- If trying the coconut and pastry idea, set out your coconut halves.
- Add a good helping of prawns in each half shell and pour the curry sauce over them.
- Top with a rolled sheet of puff pastry and seal closed.
- Preheat your oven to 200c (400f) and then bake for 20 minutes.
- Serve immediately.
Calogero Mira
Saturday 15th of December 2012
Happy South Indian prawn curry to everybody.
marcus
Saturday 15th of December 2012
Looks wonderful. I had a very similar curry in Thailand, served in coconut shells, it was one of the highlights of my trip, however one of my favourite Indian recipes was a freshly picked green coconut with the top lopped off and a shot of rum poured in! Cheers Marcus
Dan Toombs
Tuesday 15th of January 2013
That sounds awesome. Thanks for the idea.
Dan