Prawn Pulav / Shrimp Pilaf

Eating vegetables is a hard task for my kids.. :) My son wouldn't have lunch if I give him ordinary rice and veg curries. He comes back home tired, it made me worried every time. So I started giving rice dishes, especially Arabic rice, or vegetable or egg biryani or prawns pulavu etc. Preparing this simple form of biryani is really easy and no worry at all! Now before leaving to school, he checks his lunch box and says, ma.. keep some rice for dinner.. :)



Ingredients,
prawns 1/2 cup cleaned
biryani rice / basmati rice 1 1/2 cup
onion 1
tomato 1
chopped carrots 2 Tbsp
cardamoms 2
cloves 2
cumin 1 pinch
cinnamon 2 small pieces
garam masala 1/2 tsp
ghee 1 tsp
coriander leaves chopped few
water 3 cups
garlic and ginger paste each 1 tsp
turmeric powder 1/4 tsp
chilli powder 1/2 tsp
oil
salt



Prepare Prawn Masala,
Heat oil in a heavy bottomed vessel , allow cumin seeds splutter.
Saute finely chopped onion.
When it is semi transparent add carrots and continue stirring.
When onion is slightly brown add garlic and ginger paste, chopped tomato and powders.
Add salt and cook until the tomatoes are mashed well.
Add prawn and pour 1/4 cup water.
Close lid and cook for 10 minutes or until done.
Add chopped coriander leaves.
Keep aside.

Cooking Rice,
Wash and soak rice for 1/2 hour.
Boil three cups of water in a pressure cooker.
Add spices, ghee, and salt along with rice.
Pressure cook for two whistles and allow the heat to settle down its own.
Or cook rice as you do for ghee rice.
When the rice is cooked allow to be warm and mix with prepared prawn masala.
Serve with pickle, raita etc.

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Muringakka Chemmeen Curry / Prawns And Drumsticks Curry

When feeling tired, I would often think of buying some multivitamin tablets forgetting the fact that a very inexpensive natural multivitamin is available near to me! Yeah, we most ladies do the same. Keralites consume a lot from the drumstick tree, especially leaves, flowers and fruits, all are edible! You can make a curry or thoran (dry curry) using these parts of the tree. Adding prawns to drumsticks is not a new thing, this is an old type curry that grandmas cooked. I have already published another prawn curry with brinjal or bread fruit, check out that also.



Ingredients used,
Drumsticks or muringakka 3 no.
prawns cleaned 1 cup
green chillies 2
coconut grated 1 1/2 cups
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
red chilly powder 2 tsp
tamarind 1 lemon size
salt

for seasoning,
mustard seeds 1 tsp
fenugreek seeds 1 pinch
small onions 4 chopped
curry leaves few
coconut oil



How to prepare,
Peel and chop drumsticks.
Grind coconut in enough water to make smooth solution.
Mix tamarind with little water and take the pulp.
Cook drumsticks in enough water to cover with salt, turmeric and chilly powders.
When half done, add the prawns.tamarind pulp,
Pour the blended coconut solution and mix well.
Allow to boil, remove from fire.
Check salt, add if needed.
Do the seasoning in coconut oil and pour it to the curry.

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Chemmeen Vada / Prawn Balls

Eid Mubarak to all readers!
Hope you had a great spiritual treat during this Ramadan. Now all of you would be busy planning and preparing a delicious Eid meal.. Here we normally make a chicken biriyani, which is the easiest, serves along with raita , pudina chammanthi or some pickle.We would meet so many relatives on Eid day, that is the happiest part, I think.
Here is an easy snack for you to serve joyfully in the eid evening.. Enjoy!



Ingredients used,
prawns 1 cup cleaned
onion 1 medium size
ginger paste 1 tsp
garlic paste 1 tsp
pepper powder 1/2
green chilly 1 or as per taste
bread slice 1
rice powder 2 tsp
egg 1
curry leaves few
coriander leaves few
salt
oil



How I Prepared,
Apply salt on prawns, steam it for 10 minutes.
Allow to cool.
Crush it in a grinder.
Crush chopped onion,curry leaves and green chilly too.
Make bread crumbs using the bread slice.
Break egg into a bowl.
Mix the crushed ingredients with chopped coriander leaves, salt,rice powder, bread crumbs,garlic ginger paste and egg.
Apply little oil on palms, make small balls.
Deep fry these in oil.

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Prawns / Chemmeen Biryani

My mom prepared this biryani. This is for my reader DivyaNair, who requested prawns biryani recipe.(Enjoy Divya!) Actually I thought to post this later after getting a good photo.Mom used some other biryani rice instead of basmati. (There are varieties of rices for biryani, here the rice used is not the usual long grained one.)
I hope you all might have known that kerals.com and tastyland blogspot.com have copied many of blogger's food photoes including salkkaaram's. I too had requested them to remove those pictures but didn't get a response yet. Please do notify us bloggers when you see any of our recipes or pictures in other websites.That would be very helpful.



Ingredients for making chemmeen biriyani
Prawns 1 1/2 cups
basmati rice or biryani rice 3 cups
onions 6
tomatoes 3
garlic paste 2 Tbspoons
ginger paste 2 Tbspoons
green chilly crushed 4
pepper powder 3 tsp
chilli powder as desired
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
coriander leaves 1 cup chopped
mint leaves 1/4 cup chopped
coconut milk thick 1 1/2 cups
curd 1/2 cup
ghee or oil 2 Tbsps
lime juice 2 tsps
garam masala powder 1 1/2 tsp

for marinating prawns,
chilli powder 3 or 4 tsps
turmeric powder 2 tsps
fennel seeds powder 1/2 tsp
garlic and ginger paste 2 tsps
garam masala little
salt



How to prepare
Heat enough ghee or oil in a frying pan and fry the marinated prawns in that.Remove it from the pan when it is done and keep aside.

Heat a heavy bottomed vessel and pour ghee or oil. Add the oil or ghee remained after frying prawns too.Saute chopped onions in that. When it is reached transparency, add garlic-ginger paste, chilli paste and saute again for few seconds. Add chopped tomatoes, all the powders, salt, and cook for few minutes by stirring occasionally. Again add chopped coriander and mint leaves, saute them too. Add curd and mix well.Then add coconutmilk and when it begins to boil, put the fried prawns in to that and boil for few minutes. Let the masala turn thick.Check salt.Remove from fire.

Boil water.Put 2 cardamoms, 2 cloves, 2 pieces of cinnamon sticks of 1" length and salt in to it. If you like yellow color biriyani add little turmeric powder also.Cook rice in this and drain water when it is about done.(you can make ghee rice instead of this).

Heat a heavy bottomed or nonstick vessel again, pour little ghee. Remove it from fire. Put about 2 plates of rice. Spread little lemon juice and ghee over it. If you like, use little saffron mixed with milk too. Then spread some prawns masala over it evenly. Again put rice over it and repeat the process until the rice and masala are over. Cover the vessel tightly with the lid, (cover with aluminium foil before you place lid) keep on a low flame for about 10 minutes and remove.(You can see steam comes on top if you open lid a little) Mix well after half hour and keep it like that for a while before you serve.You can add fried onions, ghee roasted cashews , raisins, coriander leaves and mint leaves in between layers.

Have this biryani with pudina chammanthi , curd and pickle.

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Chemmeen Vazhuthana - Kadachakka Theeyal / Prawns Curry with Brinjal or Breadfruit

This theeyal is always prepared using breadfruit / kadachakka. In Kerala, most of the houses in the rural area would have a breadfruit tree along with papaya trees, plantain trees etc. Bread fruit is usually used to make thoran or varutharacha curry in our home. This is the similar one using prawns. When I craved for some breadfruit, I couldn't find one in the nearby supermarkets , so I just used brinjals instead and the taste was wonderful!
Actually tamarind / puli wouldn't be added in this type theeyal, but I needed a little of sourness to get a real fish curry taste.. :)



Ingredients
Chemmeen / prawns 250g
brinjals 4 medium size
onion 1/2 chopped
tomatoes 2 chopped
green chillies 2 slit
pepper powder 1 tsp
turmeric powder 1/2 tsp
chilli powder1 1/2 tsp
coriander powder 1 Tbsp
kudampuli 1 big piece or tamarind pulp as desired optional
coconut oil
mustard seeds
dry chillies
curry leaves
salt

Roast
1 cup grated coconut
1/4 tsp fennel seeds
4 shallots / chuvannulli



How to prepare
Heat little oil, roast the ingredients together. Allow to cool, blend this with little water to make a fine solution.
Devein, wash and clean prawns.
Clean and cut the brinjals and cook them with onion, tomatoes,kudampuli or tamarind, green chillies and all the powders and salt. When it is half cooked add blended solution and boil. Add prawns and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from fire. Heat oil, let mustard seeds splutter, roast curry leaves , dry chillies and pour over the curry.

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Prawn Coconut Milk Curry

Ingredients
Prawns 1 cup
Onion 1
Tomato 1
Garlic and ginger paste 2 tsps
Green chillies 2 chopped or crushed
Coconut milk thick 1 cup
Turmeric powder 1 tsp
Coriander powder 2 tsp
Pepper powder 2 tsp
Garam masala 1 tsp
Salt
Oil

How to prepare
Heat oil.
Saute chopped onion, then garlic ginger paste.
Add prawns and powders with salt.
Fry for few seconds till the prawns are covered with powders.
Then add tomatoes, green chillies, and coconut milk.
Boil till the prawns are cooked.
Remove from fire, garnish with coriander leaves.
Prawns need less cooking time.
Cooking prawns for a long time will make it hard.
If the prawns /shrimps are medium sized, cook them up to 4 or 5 minutes and for larger size, you can add 3 or 4 minutes too.
Don't forget to remove the intestinal vein of prawns before you cook them.
Keep the curry for half an hour before you serve.
So the juices in the shrimps will enter into the curry slowly and it will make the curry little thick and tasty.

Goes well with chappathi, rice & vellappam.

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Chemmeen/prawns roast

Ingredients
Prawns – ¼ kg,
Onion – 3 med ,
tomato – 2 big,
Garlic and ginger paste – 2 teaspoon
Turmeric powder – ½ tea spoon
Chilly powder – 2 tea spoon,
vinegar - 1 tea spoon
oil – 2 tablespoon
green chilly – 2
curry leaves- few
salt
garam masala Optional.



Method
Clean and wash prawns.
Heat oil, saute chopped onions.
When it turns brown add garlic and ginger paste and stir.
Add chopped tomatoes and all powders.
Stir till tomatoes cooked.

Add vinegar.
Add prawns and salt.
Cook till done.
Add curry leaves, green chillies and coriander leaves.
Sprinkle little garam masala over it.
Cover. Mix before serve.Best with chappathi, rice and pathiri.

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Chemmeen Theeyal / prawns in fried coconut gravy

This is the chemmeen theeyal, a tasty curry for the rice, dosa, pathiri and puttu... You may get much more dark color for this. I think my ready made coriander powder reduced the color.. :)



Ingredients and method

Prawns(Chemmeen) - 1/4 kg(250g)

Onion(medium) - 1 no(chopped)

Tomato(medium) - 1 no(chopped)

Turmeric powder - 1/2 tsp

Chilly powder - 1 tsp

Coriander powder - 2 tsp

Green chillies - 2 nos

Curry leaves few

Garlic pods - 2 nos(crushed)

Salt - As reqd

Coconut oil - 1 tbsp

Coconut - 1/2 cup

Tamarind paste - A lemon size soaked in wateror Kukum star(Kudampuli) - 4 small pieces or as desired Or use raw mango 1 or 2 according to it's sourness.

1)Clean Prawns.

2)Fry coconut with one pinch fennel seeds, 3 small onions and curry leaves till brown in 1 tsp of coconut oil.

3)Blend it with water.:- Coconut should be grated well.
4)Dry roast all the three powders.

5)Mix this with onion, tomato, crushed garlic, coconut blended, tamarind paste and salt.

6)Add 1 1/2 cups of water.

7)Cook, till the onion and tomato is well done and the curry becomes little thick.

8)Add prawns and cook till done. :- Do not cook too much. It will become hard.

9)Add green chillies.

10)Heat coconut oil in a pan.

11)Fry 3 chopped small onions and curry leaves. Pour into the curry.

You can roast the powders with coconut (in the end of roasting coconut) and then blend. Make this type of curry with ayala / mackeral, ayakkoora / king fish and other big fishes..


Ayala varutharachathu curry

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