Sungtyachi Kodi/ prawn curry from the konkan region

Prawns whole -600 Gm peeled and deveined ,ndo not discard shell , I’ll explain later why not

Marinade with

turmeric – pinch

Red chilli powder – 1/4 t/ 2 GM

Salt- to taste

Curry paste for want of a better phrase

Shredded coconut – 1 T/ 25 GM’s

Onion medium- 1/2 about 50 gms

Teerphal/ Triphala or Sichuan peppercorns- 1/4 t /.5 gm

Black peppercorns -6-8 ea

Cloves -1

Roast above in a glass bowl in the microwave till lightly browned in 30 seconds. Should take about 3 mins and 90 seconds but depends on how strong your microwave is.

Add 1/4

Turmeric1/ 4 t/ .5 gm

Coriander seeds -1 t-/2,3 GM’s

Garlic cloves -4-5 / 10 GM’s

And water to soak..for about 15 minutes..not a whole lot just enough to soften everything and make it easy to blend.

Then grind to a paste and saute with

Oil- 10 ml

Curry leaves -1 sprig / 2 GM

Green chilli- 1 /2 GM or more if you want more heat …I wanted to be able to taste the prawns so put less.

Add coconut cream 100 GM

kokam / cambogia Garcinia / gorakha -1

And simmer .

Then add prawns and simmer for about 5-6 mins add some nicely chopped coriander and U are good to go..Always better if you cook let the prawns sit inside then reheat but don’t overcook.

Ponappas wild wild wild mango curry

22-Feb-07..first written in 2007 , then had to pull out all content because the site got hacked ..so decided to revive it

So we have this smart suave dude ,Rahul Ponappa, who’s now somewhere in the USA.Hes from Coorg in Karnataka,a smaller town in South western India which has a unique cuisine of their own.Pona as we used to call him was my batchmate in Oberoi hotels but a management trainee as opposed to me ,I was the kitchen trainee and was a great guy who also survived OSHM/OCLD, which was the boot camp like no other for our hotel company.

½ kg jungle mangoes (small and slightly ripened)

Masala 1:
Roast to a dark colour the following ingredients and
grind fine:
1 tablespoon jeera powder
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
¼ teaspoon fenugreek seeds

Masala 2:
2 tablespoon cooking oil
½ teaspoon mustard seeds
4-5 curry leaves
4-5 garlic chopped
1 teaspoon chilli powder
1 ½ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoon jaggery syrup

METHOD:

Skin the mango keep the skin in another bowl and add 200ml water.
Squeeze the skin of all the juices, keep liquid, throw out the
skin. Set aside.
The whole mango with seed, salt and chilli powder, put into a vessel
and cook on low flame.
Take a small shallow frying pan and heat the oil.
Season with mustard seeds, curry leaves and garlic.
Add the sliced onions and the ground masala, stir fry.
Add this to the mangoes in the vessel.
Now increase the flame to medium heat and cook for
1-2 minutes, adding the jaggery syrup.

Mix well and serve.

Mango curry goes well with white rice.

West Indian Doubles

Doubles is a kind of street food, which you can find in Trinidad and Tobago, home of the queens park Savannah, and oval, Brian lara and for a short 2 year period, me too.

The photos come courtesy of Andre Huggins my friend and ex purchase manager and goto person, for anything we needed then..

So this street food, is made from 2 pieces of leavened fried bread called “bara”, which is an evolved indian influenced bread, topped with chick peas “curry “, not in the true sense but made the West indian way called Chana, and sometimes tamarind sauce, sometimes shredded cucumber and almost always with hot pepper sauce(as dem Trinis would say- with plenty peppa boy).

There are many places which claim to serve the best ones, ive had the chnace to taste the one near Piarco airport, and in Woodbrooke on Carlos street run by Georges XXX, and a few other places in Debe and so on.Georges used to be my favourite and was run by his ex wife and was the first place where i got to taste my first doubles.

Heres also a short ditty , which i got from my friend Juliet Robin, who is a musician/ live act singer there.

” From the curry stained white shirt

To the aroma in the air

We take our doubles and scatter

Cuz it have no eating there

May the chana be soft

May the bara be thin

We shall ask not for sweet sauce

cos that is a sin

lay our head down our King

Rest well tonight

For tomorrow comes swiftly

and we want 2 with slight”

slight means a dash of peppa/ or your brave you say i want plenty peppa boi 🙂

The Bara.

Flour- 250 gms

baking powder- 2gms

active dry yeast- 2 gms

sugar-5 gms

salt- 5gms

turmeric- pinch( the locals call this saffron powder );)

oil- 25 ml

water – to make a semi soft dough approximately 175 ml

  • sieve flour and add salt , sugar, baking powder, turmeric and yeast. and make into a soft dough.Add in the oil and leave it to rest.Some people also make this with a mix of milk and water..
  • rest the dough for half an hour, and divide and round up into 8-10 pieces.Rest these for aboout 10 minutes and then roll out not very thin. they need to be able to hold up quite a bit of sauce and juice from the chickpeas.
  • Deep fry these till cooked and drain and use as the base for the chana and various sauces and toppings

The Chana

Soak dry chick peas overnight with pinch of baking soda..Make this in a big batch because you can save some to eat another day.Go berserk( ok dont go berserk, but maybe 250 gms is enough).

The next day wash the soaked chick peas and put to cook with some fresh water and some salt, turmeric , and then a bit of ground coriander and ground cumin(they call this Geera ) and Geera is great for other foods to eat with beers like Geera pork.

I also like to add in a stick of cinnamon and some cloves but thats non traditinal, that the actual West indian in me coming out, ( because im from western india).

Cook till soft and creamy ,

then you make some tamarind chutney, hot peppa sauce and pickled shredded cucumbers and u are ready to rock the Savannah.

In another post I will write about the other great gas inducer Chana Masala..there are so many versions of that too..this one I make at home with my own belnd of spices / not from a packet..

It won’t be exactly as your grandma made it in Purani Delhi but sure as hell will be close enough..

South Indian Chicken curry/ Kozhi Kari

This is my take on a chicken chettinad or a south indian styled chicken curry. The chicken could be substituted with lamb or beef and then you need to make some adjustments for salt or spices, but more or less will work.What is key though it tasting, chilli in one part of the world might be a bit hotter than the other so its important to taste and experiment a little bit to get to what you will enjoy.

When i was a Chef Tutor, i trained some of my students, Simaranjit Singh and Shamika Ratnayke to make this for a live competiion and they won a gold medal and best in class.Now you go and win a medal from your family /friends.!!

For the marinade

Yoghurt- 2 TB/55 gms approximately

Turmeric – 1/4 tsp , 2 gms

Ginger and Garlic paste- 2 t /10 gms

Salt- 1 t/5 gm

Chicken thigh skinless on the bone is preferred- 500 gms

For the gravy

Oil- 1T /20 gm

Curry leaves- 1 sprig/ 1 gms

green chilli- 2 ea/ 5 gms

Onions brown peeled and chopped-250 gms

Tomato crushed/ Tomato passata – 75 gms

coriander powder- 1 t/ 5gm

cumin powder- 1/2 t / 2 gm

chipotle chilli – 5 gms- yes its unusual to use a mexican smoked chilli but this gives it an amzing flavour profile. Substitute with smoked paprika if not possible to get chipotle

coconut cream- 200 ml

For the dry spice mix

Cardamom green- 3 ea

Cloves- 2

cinnamon stick – 1 small

Bayleaf- 1/2- The indian bayleaf is actually a cassia cinnamon leaf called tej patta, if you dont have that then use bay,

dessicated coconut- 1T/ 15 gms

peppercorns- 8-10

star anise/anasi poo- 1/2

fennel seeds- 1/2 t

Dagadphool/Kalpasi- 1-2 gms this gives it a unique aroma

Toast all in the microwave and then grind to a coarse mix

Method.

Marinate chicken, ideally overnight, if pressed for time then atleaast a few hours.

for the gravy, heat oil add curry leaves , and green chilli and then the chopped onions, sand saute till brown

add the powder spices and tomato and cook till the oil starts to separate from the mix.

Add in the marinated chicken and simmer for about 35 mins or so along with the coconut cream.Towards the end add in the dry spice mix and some chopped coriander.

Enjoy with malabar parathas or thick dosa or rice.