I love prawns. You know what I think, I think I should really stop starting my blog posts with I love something.

I mean I love food, I love everything about food okay maybe except weird stuff like oysters and sea urchins and eel… you catch my drift.

My first attempt at making prawns was a nightmare… worst than the nightmare on Elm street. This was even before the love of my cooking took hold.  The package of prawns that I bought said they were deveined and then my mother told me that I must ensure that the vein in the prawn is removed otherwise an upset tummy is going to be on the menu.

Of course I had no idea where to locate the vein and I literally shredded each prawn to try and get hold of this vein which I didn’t seemed to find after all the package did say deveined. This whole de-vain thing put me off making dishes that required prawns.

After many you tube videos and Jamie Oliver shows of watching how he deveined the prawn and most importantly where to find the vein, it was safe to say that I felt more confident in my ability to work with a sea creature again.

Then I came across this recipe in Nadiya’s cookbook and I was just dying to try it out.

The recipe said to serve it with puri’s my father heard that and said straight nope he wants rice, puris are snacks in his eyes and not to be served as a main dish. It will not fill his stomach. So I left out the puris and added rice as the side to go with this dish.

Let me just say one thing. I loved chopping off the heads, peeling back the shells and cutting this sucker open to get out the prawn, what I did not like was the fishy water that seemed to have accumulated on the cutting board. What a lovely smell under my nose.

All in all this dish was delicious, super easy to make and my dad’s verdict soo salty, when I told him there was no salt in this dish as per the recipe and as per his instructions, he always tells me not to add salt to a prawn or fish dish otherwise it will be too salty… he was lost for words but he kept telling me that it was overly salty. I just there was something wrong with his taste buds or maybe he is coming down with the flu?

Ingredients:

• 5 x tbsp. oil.
• 5 x cloves garlic, finely chopped.
• 1 x onion, finely chopped.
• 1 x green chilli, finely chopped.
• 1 x tbsp. tomato puree.
• 2 x tomatoes, finely chopped.
• ½ x tsp turmeric powder.
• ½ x tsp paprika.
• 1 x tsp cumin powder.
• 300g x raw deveined, deshelled tiger prawns.
• Chopped coriander to garnish.

Method:

• Heat oil in a pan.
• Add garlic and allow it to brown slightly.
• Add onions and chilli and saute till the onions are soft.
• Add tomato puree and chopped tomatoes.
• Cook on a low heat for 10 minutes.
• Once the mixture forms a nice thick paste add the spices and mix.
• Cook till the mixture had dried somewhat.
• Add the prawns and cook till they turn pink.
• Garnish with chopped coriander.