Chingri Maacher Jhol-Jhal, Prawns in Spicy, Runny Gravy

Its the third time now that three different people/bloggers have stolen my three different chingri/shrimp/prawn pictures. So to lodge my protest against photo theft in the Blog world, I have made an easy, chingri recipe and watermarked each photo where its right in-your-face, remorselessly spoiling pictures. There! No chance of chori!

This jhol-jhal today is inspired from my other fish curry recipes.

Ingredients for Chingri Maacher Jhol-Jhal are:

8 large prawns (I have used smallish Golda chingri for my recipe)
2 medium size ripe, red tomatoes, cut into wedges
10 green chillies, slit lengthwise
2-3 stems of fresh coriander, leaves torn
1 +1 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
3-4 tablespoons mustard oil
Salt

Start by deveining each and cleaning the heads of the prawns. Retain the shells. With the shells, make a broth with about 3-4 cups of water. (I put the shells and water in a microwaveable bowl and cook for 7-10 minutes in the microwave.) This is a full paisa vasool method of extracting every bit of the flavour from the prawns.

Rub turmeric to your prawns and shallow fry them in hot mustard oil, for not more than 3-4 minutes, turning them once midway.

Remove with a slotted spoon and keep. Now make a runny jhol with the prawn broth, slit green chillies, tomatoes, turmeric and red chilli powder.

In the leftover oil from shallow frying the prawns, add this jhol and cook for 10 minutes, till the tomatoes are done. Season with salt.

Release the prawns into this jhol and let them cook on high for not more than five minutes.

Check taste and add salt if needed. Turn heat off. Sprinkle some torn coriander leaves and serve with plain white rice and a wedge of gondhoraj lebu. And pray someone doesn’t steal your baati of chingri. You can’t watermark bowls, now can you? ;-)