Chingri Kaliakari or Malaikalia, Its the Mother of Prawns Anyway!

So my Mum’s hybrid version of this chingri dish created some kind of buzz with my readers.

What was made by my Mum as an inventive, something-in-between a Kalia and a Malaikari turned out to be this head-turning stunner. We had it during our trip to India last month, and I was completely stumped by the way it teased me with its rich and silken taste, both at the same. I asked Mum, “What do you call this dish?” She said, “Its a no-name chingri. Just eat it.”

That was enough titillation for the food writer in me.

So here I am, writing down the recipe for you. Of course the creator of this recipe, my Mum has been adequately consulted about the ingredients and measurements.

Ingredients for Chingri Kaliakari or Malaikalia are:

*Thank you Sharmita Saha for the name suggestion.

12 large tiger shrimps/prawns (Use golda chingri if available)
1 medium size red onion, grated
1 large red, ripe tomato grated
Quarter cup grated fresh coconut (I use the frozen kind)
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 tablespoon garlic paste
1 teaspoon green chilli paste or use 2-3 whole (don't add if kids are eating!)
2 + 1 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon freshly ground garam masala powder (cinnamon, cloves, green and black cardamoms)
1 or 2 bay
4-5 tablespoons mustard oil
1 heaped tablespoon ghee
Sugar
Salt

Start by deveining and cleaning the heads of the prawns. I kept the tail on to make the shrimps looks pretty! Rub a couple of spoons of turmeric and salt.

Heat mustard oil in a wok. Add the prawns in batches and cook them on each side for a couple of minutes. Once the prawns turn pink, take them off the heat.

In the leftover oil, add half a teaspoon of sugar and let it caramelize. Take care not to burn it.

Add the bay, grated onions, garam masala powder and green chillies and mix. Cover and cook these ingredients on low heat for 7-8 minutes till the onions start turning light brown.

Now add the ginger-garlic paste and continue to cook covered for about five more minutes.

Next add the tomato and coconut, and mix. Add the turmeric and red chilli powder and continue cooking on low heat and covered all the time. It takes about 10-15 minutes of slow cooking for the raw taste to go away from the ingredients.

You will see little oil bubbles around the masala, season with salt and sugar and mix. Add the ghee at this point in time and cook for a couple more minutes.

Its safe to add water to your onion-tomato-coconut masala now. Add about one and a half cups of water and cover. Let this cook for another 7-8 minutes. Make sure you use gentle heat while cooking your masala sauce. We don’t want the onions and coconut to burn and give the dish a bitter taste.

One the gravy comes to a bubbling boil, slide in the prawns one at a time, making sure you don’t separate the heads from the tails.

Cook the prawns on medium heat in the gravy for about 6-7 minutes. Do a taste test and add sugar and salt if needed.

Serve your Prawn Kaliakari or Malaikalia with plain rice. And like most Indian dishes, it tastes even better the next day. In case you have leftover gravy, preserve it in the freezer. On another day, just sauté some shrimps and add to your leftover sauce and cook for 7-8 minutes. Voila! That saves you from all the grating and grinding.

Shrimply Delicious, Chili-Garlic Prawn

Some days are such, I want dinner made under 10 minutes. This does not necessarily mean I pop in the microwave a TV dinner. By now, you know my habit of cooking fresh and homemade and from-the-scratch. Well, its not really a myth to do all that in 10 minutes. Or 20 maybe.

Here is something that will give Rachael Ray a run for her money – my Chili-Garlic Prawn, with an approximate cook time of 10.

Ingredients for Chili-Garlic Prawn are:

10 large shrimps, remove shell, keep tail and devein. I used the black colossal tiger shrimps from St. Lawrence Market.

For the marinade: 
3 tablespoons dark soy sauce
3 tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 tablespoons white vinegar
1 heaped tablespoon cornstarch
Pinch of black pepper powder
Pinch of sugar
White of 1 egg

Mix all the above ingredients in a bowl and dunk the shrimps in it. Keep for 20-30 minutes.

For the sauce:
1 medium size onion, yellow or red, cut into quarters and petals separated
5-6 fat cloves of garlic, sliced
3-4 green chilies, sliced
3 tablespoons Sambal Oelek
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
2 tablespoons dark soy sauce
1 teaspoon white vinegar
Pinch of sugar
3+3 tablespoons canola oil

Heat half the oil in a Chinese wok. Remove the prawns from the marinade and shallow fry them in the hot oil, turning them mid way. Give each side of the shrimp about 2-3 minutes in the heat, so that its tail curl up and it turns pink. Do this in batches if your wok is small. Keep them aside.

Start with a clean wok to make the sauce and finish the dish. Heat the remaining oil and add the garlic and green chilies. Sauté for a couple of minutes without turning the garlic brown. Toss in the onions. Sweat them on high for 3-4 minutes.
In a bowl, mix together the tomato ketchup, sambal oelek, soy sauce, and sugar. Pour it on the onions, etc. Give it a good stir and let it cook for 3-4 minutes on high heat. Check the seasoning and adjust accordingly. Add the vinegar. I did not add any salt to my dish as all the sauces have ample salt in them.

Now add the prawns to the sauce. Coat them well, cook for 2-3 minutes in the sauce and turn the heat off. Serve immediately with steamed rice or a fried rice you like.


Now who was keeping the time?

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

Soccer and BBC are two of his favorite things. I chose to make for him Chingri Maacher Malaikari and Ras Malai, his second set of favorites. Funny, how both dishes have the word “malai” in common.

And I served them in the bowls I made at Pottery School.

P has a bit of a sweet tooth, but he doesn’t admit it. But each time he digs into a bowl of Ras Malai, he reveals himself completely.

When he is in India, my husband can be seen frequently at Haldiram’s, completely surrendering himself to the charms of their Ras Malai. The creamy cheese dumplings floating in a sea of thick, creamy sauce of milk, saffron and pistachios. What man can resist such temptations. P does not even complain about calories then.

Another thing his knees go jelly about is Chingri Maacher Malaikari. Not only can he eat this Bengali classic anytime of the day, he can also cook it with equal aplomb.

The silky-satin texture of the coconut-based Shrimp Curry is worth missing a thousand meals in the restaurant on the eve of his birthday, he says. And I was only too obliging to my birthday boy!

Happy Birthday, Hubby!

This boy is my man, and that girl is his wife who did not get him a cake or a greeting card, just made him his homemade favorites for his birthday.

Culinary Comeback with Shōrsē Diye Chingri Maachh

You can take a fish out of water, but you cannot take the fish out of a Bengali. Even though that Bengali is pregnant and claims she has aversions for anything non-vegetarian.

After being sufficiently mocked and made fun of for continuing on my no-meat, no-fish hiatus, and being treated as a social pariah, I thought of a culinary comeback.

The urge was there. The ingredients too. Just under 30 minutes, I was eating a lunch today with a work-from-home husband. A meal we will remember for a long, long time. Hope my grape-size baby will too.
Ingredients for Shōrsē Diye Chingri Maachh (Shrimps in Mustard Sauce) are:

500 grams tiger shrimp or prawns of your choice, shell and tail on, deveined
2 tablespoons plain yogurt
Two and a half tablespoons yellow mustard seeds
1 heaped tablespoon poppy / posto seeds
Half teaspoon turmeric powder
4-5 green chilies (I used about six!)
2-3 tablespoons mustard oil (No other cooking oil will work. Trust me.)
Salt

Wash and clean the shrimps. In a grinder, make a course powder of the mustard and poppy seeds. Since the quantity is little, its best to do a dry powder first and then add half the quantity of the green chilies and wet grind with a little water. You can also add a little salt and the turmeric powder to this mixture.

Now add the mustard-poppy seed mixture to the shrimps along with the yogurt and slit green chilies. Add salt (if needed) and drizzle the mustard oil all over the shrimp. Mix well.

You can either steam this or cook this in the microwave for 10 minutes. Of course covered all the time.

If you have a pressure cooker, put the shrimps and its sauce in a steel tiffin box, pour a little water at the base of the cooker and cook this till a whistle goes off.

Else, you can put it in a microwaveable bowl, cover and cook for 10 minutes.

There are no two ways of eating the Shōrsē Diye Chingri Maachh. It has to be eaten with steaming hot rice and yes, we did eat with our hands today.

Chingri Maacher Kalia

So I bought these Black Tiger Shrimps from St. Lawrence Market today.
Six headless and deveined super colossal shrimps for my Kalia.

Now you don’t eat Kalia every day anymore. We don’t live in the 1960s. Apart from the culinary implications of not living in the 60s, there are some very visible differences between then and now.

Power Point was only an electrical socket then. Mail meant a handwritten memo, and if you were feeling a little more amorous, you sealed some dried flowers too. Our parents most probably knew each from high school. Matches were “Made in Heaven”, and not determined by seven-minute fun dates. 

Of course there is no particular correlation between dates and Chingri Maacher Kalia, except that if you want to win someone over with traditional Bengali cooking, try making this dish for them.

Ingredients for Chingri Maacher Kalia are:

6 jumbo shrimps/ prawns
1 medium potato peeled and quartered
1 large red onion very finely chopped
1 large juicy tomato coarsely chopped
1 tablespoon green chili paste
1 tablespoon ginger paste
1 tablespoon garlic paste
1 tablespoon fresh coriander chopped
2 teaspoons red chili powder
2 + 2 teaspoons turmeric powder
1 whole black cardamom
2-3 green cardamoms
1 small cinnamon stick
2 bay leaves
2-3 cloves
3-4 tablespoons ghee
Pinch of garam masala powder
Sugar
Salt

Remove the shell. Devein and clean the shrimps. Rub two teaspoons turmeric powder to the shrimps and keep for 10 minutes. 

Heat ghee in a thick-bottom pan. Add the cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves and bay leaf, in no particular order. Let them sauté for a minute, add a pinch of sugar and let it caramelize. Now add the chopped onions.

The caramelized sugar adds a whole lot of color to the onions and the whole spices give it a fragrant and sweet flavor.  
Once the onions are nice and golden brown, add the ginger, garlic and green chili paste. (I grind my chilies and garlic together.)
Mix everything well and cook on low heat.

Now add the red chili and turmeric powders. Continuing to slow cook is a good idea.
Add the chopped tomatoes and salt and sugar. Let the salt do its action, getting all the moisture from the tomatoes oozing out. Keep stirring.

In another pan, fry the diced potatoes in some ghee. I let the potatoes turn golden brown for the Kalia. It should take about 1-2 minutes for the potatoes to be ready.
Once you remove the potatoes, add the turmeric-rubbed shrimps to the remaining ghee.
Another couple of minutes on each side of the shrimps and they will be ready to add to our Kalia gravy.

Meanwhile, I deglazed the pan I had sautéed the potatoes and shrimps in by adding half a cup of water and let it boil for a couple of minutes, scraping off all the flavors from the pan.

Now coming back to the gravy we were making for the Kalia, the tomatoes by now would have become mushy and released all their juices. Add to the tomato mixture, the hot water from we got from deglazing the pan.

Drop the cubes of potato in and cook till they are done.
Add the chopped coriander and a pinch of garam masala. Give it a good mix.

Gently release the shrimps to the Kalia gravy.

Cook the shrimps in the gravy for about 5-7 minutes. Smear some ghee as a last garnish.

Remove from heat and serve hot with plain Basmati rice.