Trinidadian Prawn Curry - some like it hot!

At last!  I put the Trinidadian Prawn Curry on the menu list - and actually got to make it.

Having done so, all I can say is "wow!".  "Some like it hot" is about right - this stuff is almost dangerous, it's that hot.  I know my hubby will be saying to himself "well it wasn't THAT bad - I could have gone a bit hotter", but for me it was right on the edge of being too hot (spicy hot, that is!).  Having had a little taste of the final product just before serving, I wouldn't have been surprised if it had melted the plastic serving spoon.

Mind you, having said that, it wasn't an aggressive heat.  The chilli effect (a combination of ginger, black pepper, medium curry powder and Scotch Bonnet pepper) was certainly well rounded and didn't immediately grab you by the back of the throat and threaten to throttle you.  It developed in your mouth and those different sources of flavour seemed to affect different taste buds.  I thoroughly enjoyed it (as did everyone - including son & heir) even though I had to bail out slightly before I'd finished.  Son & heir was quite happy to take care of any leftovers I might have had, so nothing got wasted!


This was the first time I'd used a Scotch Bonnet pepper in anything and, if I'm honest, I was a little bit scared of it.   Mind you - get this - when I opened the cellophane wrapper, there inside, happily marching around taking bites out of my peppers, was a caterpillar!  Kudos to you, little caterpillar, you must have cast iron insides!  He's now marching around inside a bin bag, feasting upon veggie peelings and probably considering ordering a takeaway, just to get some spice.


I was alert to the warnings about getting Scotch Bonnet all over my fingers, then not rubbing my eyes, so I used a couple of freezer bags over my left hand while the right hand did the chopping.  A wise precaution, I think, as I don't own any rubber gloves.  As with all chillies, I did my usual "tongue test" in that I cut a tiny piece off and just touch it to my tongue to test the heat of the chilli.  I find it's always worth knowing, so that you can judge how much (or how little) to use.  I was surprised to find that (because these Scotch Bonnets aren't terribly juicy - I don't know if that's true of all of them) my tongue didn't immediately burst into flames, so I used the prescribed half a pepper, minus seeds.

One thing that peeved me about the original recipe (which can be found here and is by Gary Rhodes and Fazil Bacchus), is that the quantities of ingredients given for the "Spice Paste" or "Green Seasoning mix", makes twice the amount required for the dish.  Now that's okay if you are planning on having a similar thing again tomorrow, but I wasn't - and wound up throwing away half the paste.  I do think that mention of this should have been made in the recipe, as it was a terrible waste of ingredients - and money!  I gather that I could have frozen half the spice paste and it would apparently have survived to fight again another day.  However, I've not had much luck in doing that in the past and didn't much fancy setting out to make it again only to find that the spice paste has deteriorated in the freezer and (of course) I wouldn't have any replacements.  So, for me, that was intensely annoying.  For that reason, I've halved the ingredients in the recipe detailed below.


Having assembled the spice paste and incorporated it with the prawns, I looked at what was left to prepare and, for the life of me, couldn't really see how it was going to turn into a curry.  It was at this point that I began to worry - but if you're making it, nil desperandum!  The process is so quick and so simple that it's almost like watching magic unfold before your eyes.  The end result isn't (of course) much like an Indian Curry as we know them, but it is a curry all the same - just with a different texture, a looser sauce but amazing and complex layers of flavour.


My only error with this curry was to use poor prawns.  Not prawns with holes in their shoes, you understand, but peeled, cooked, small prawns.  I can see that it would be far, far nicer with an arm and a leg's worth of juicy, raw Tiger or King prawns.  My little prawns - even though the cooking process was so quick, suffered for having been cooked a little too long and weren't exactly rubbery but were headed that way.


Still, I'd be very curious to see how this spice mix translated to a chicken curry - and may very well investigate that next.


So, in essence, I can't recommend this curry highly enough.  Just so long as you can cope with a hot chilli experience - and don't try to tamp down the chilli, it just isn't worth it as this curry is meant to be hot - and you can afford the prawns, go for it!  You'll be glad you did.


TRINIDADIAN PRAWN CURRY  (feeds 3)


Ingredients :


For the spice mix :
1 tsp ginger, chopped finely or grated (I used a ginger paste)
a medium onion, chopped
2 cloves of garlic, sliced
half a red pepper, chopped
1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
1 large sprig fresh thyme (I used 1 tsp dried)
1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
1 small stick celery, chopped
10ml white wine vinegar
pinch ground black pepper.


For the curry :
1-2 tbsp medium curry powder
1 tbsp vegetable oil
500g shelled prawns (I used 300g frozen North Atlantic Prawns, which wasn't a good idea)
1 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped
half a small celery stick, chopped finely
half a Scotch Bonnet pepper, seeds removed and chopped finely.


Method :


1.  First thing to do is to make the spice mix.  So, into a food processor, place the ginger, onions, garlic, red pepper, coriander, thyme, parsley, celery and vinegar.  Blend until smooth.


2.  Place the prawns into a large bowl and add the spice mix.  Stir to combine and leave to marinate for 30 minutes or so.


3.  Blend the curry powder with around 125ml of water - enough to make a slack paste.


4.  Heat the oil in a wok or deep frying pan over a medium heat and fry the curry paste for around a minute, stirring all the time to ensure it doesn't burn.


5.  Add the prawn mixture to the pan and cook for around 3-4 minutes until the prawns are changing colour and the spice mixture has softened.


6.  If necessary (I didn't need to), add enough water to make the sauce and continue to simmer for 2-3 minutes until the prawns are cooked and tender.


7.  At the last minute, stir in the coriander, celery and chilli.


8.  Serve with some kind of flatbread (roti or chapati) and steamed rice.


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Is it too early to be planning salad in the week's menu?

Goodness, but I hope it's not!  Although, having said that, it'll probably snow on every day that I've booked even slightly salad-like meals.

I don't know about you, but my taste buds are yearning for something fresh (and by "fresh", I mean uncooked!) in my diet.  Yes, we've had the occasional little bit of side salad with various dishes, but I'm definitely yearning for a complete full-blown salad that contains rather more than just lettuce, cucumber and tomato.

I haven't gone so far as to be planning a full-blown salad (yet!), but I think you'll agree that this week's menu is definitely headed that way.  Hopefully it'll be enough to satisfy the need.

So what are we (theoretically - it could change and very often does) going to be eating?

Tues : Trinidadian Prawn Curry with chapatis and rice

Wed : Spicy Pork Steaks, baked sweet potatoes and peas

Thur : Smoked Mackerel with winter couscous & mushrooms

Fri : Tomato & Brie Tart with mixed salad and marinated beetroot

Sat : Mexican meatballs with rice

Sun : Roast bacon with creamed leeks, roast potatoes & parsnips, carrots & peas

Mon : Turkey & bean enchiladas with potato wedges.

Pic c/o www.dragonchillies.co.uk

No, we STILL haven't managed to have the Trinidadian Prawn Curry - but I am completely determined to have it tomorrow evening.  I'm armed and dangerous, having bought the Scotch Bonnet chilli peppers, so I won't be thwarted - bad back or no bad back.  (I think I must have torn some muscles in my back, dragging the darned stool around the kitchen after me so that I can sit down and cook.  Either way, it hurt - and continues to hurt!).

The Spicy Pork Steaks are going to be along the lines of Galton Blackiston's Spiced Chicken Legs, except with pork.  I thought it would be interesting to see how the marinade translates to pork, particularly with half an eye towards barbecuing in the summer.  I've also got some sweet potatoes waiting to be used for something, so this seemed like the perfect match.

Pic c/o www.freshfishdaily.co.uk

Now, the Smoked Mackerel with Winter Couscous and mushrooms was sparked off by a recipe I saw in a magazine, ages ago (so long ago in fact, that I've forgotten which magazine - oops!).  Anyway, it involved flaking the mackerel into the couscous and included orange and watercress.

In my fevered imagination, that turned into a dish of mackerel fillets beside a luscious looking pile of couscous that contained the watercress, but also cherry tomatoes, red onion, some griddled strips of courgette, some squares of griddled red pepper, together with some sort of herb - probably parsley.  I'm also toying with what dressing to put on the couscous.  I'm tempted by a red wine vinegar/capers/olive oil combination.  The mushrooms will be upturned onto a baking tray, dressed with a teaspoonful of garlic and parsley butter and oven baked.  Mmmmn - in my imagination, it's fabulous!

Pic c/o www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk

Friday's dinner requires rather less imagination and rather more careful preparation.  The tart is simplicity itself, as it is purely and simply cherry tomatoes in an egg/cream base with cubes of Brie cheese.  However, it sounded absolutely lovely and just had to be done.  This recipe originated from Delicious magazine and can be found here, if you're curious.

The Mexican Meatballs is a recipe that came from a Good Food Magazine (can you tell, I've been going through the file marked "Recipes cropped from magazines") and the recipe is available on their website here.  Hopefully it'll make a nice change from a straight chilli - and be teenager friendly, as several of this week's recipes are a bit of a challenge for son & heir.

Not me - too cool, calm and collected!

Sunday's meal will be as close to a Sunday Roast as I can get, without killing myself and/or my back.  A piece of bacon is one of the easiest things to roast, the potatoes and parsnips will be happy in the oven, the creamed leeks are dead simple to make and the carrots & peas almost cook themselves.  Fingers crossed for a nice, fairly relaxed, Sunday dinner - instead of winding up limping, gasping and red faced, into the living room to eat when I feel more like laying down for a half an hour.

The Turkey & Bean Enchiladas is another Good Food recipe that I've adapted.  The original recipe says to include leftover roast chicken, but I see no reason why good old Turkey mince won't do as good a job.  I've done a bit of research into the spices required for a home-made fajita seasoning and there's nothing there that we haven't got individually in the herbs & spices collection (that now takes up a shelf of its own).  I'll just have to concentrate a bit when I'm mixing up the seasoning, to get the right balance of everything, but I'm fairly confident I can reproduce something acceptable.

Son & heir will usually eat anything contained in a wrap, whilst hubby usually will eat anything that has enough chilli involved with it - so I'm hopefully onto a winner here.  I'll either make some potato wedges or cop out in a big way with a bag of frozen wedges.  It all depends how knackered I am by Monday!

Throughout these meals, I've had half an eye to trying to provide a balance between everyone's likes and dislikes versus what they need to eat for either dietary reasons or health reasons.  Like most teenagers, son & heir would be very happy if he never saw another vegetable or green leaf appear on his plate again (as would hubby, in lots of cases!), but I can't just close my eyes to the degree of vitamins, minerals etc. etc. that he's missing out on.  Especially at a time of such growth - he's beginning to tower over me! - when he needs his body and brain to be supported in every way possible.

Damn! He got there first!

This is one of the great strengths of meal planning.  You can see what you're proposing to feed everyone, in context with what they will have had the day prior and what they're going to have on the day after.  Put into context like that, a fairly vegetable free day (Meatballs) can be offset against a vegetable heavy day (Mackerel and couscous).  A dairy heavy day (Tomato and Brie tart) can be offset against a lighter fish day (Prawn curry).  As for me, well, I just have to watch the fat, sugar and carbohydrates.  A lick of the pan should do for me ....

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