In The Kitchen - Curried Prawns and Potatoes cooked in yoghurt

Sunday afternoon and the evening meal is my responsibility. My good lady @fempower asked if I could make us a curry for a change. Surprising as the temperature was in the high 90’s (fahrenheit) … but it is a nice break from having salads and barbecues all the time.

Our awesome curry tree - freshness at our fingertips

I decided on fragrant and medium heat curry rather than the winter warmers I make so it was a perfect opportunity to make a fragrant prawn curry. I decided to accompany the prawn dish with some potatoes cooked in yoghurt … and knowing my wife was not a seafood fan I thought to make a zingy chicken curry.

As is my usual style, this will not be a recipe with exact proportion of ingredients, but if you wish you can ask below and I shall reply with exact amounts. I must warn you this Indian cooking is a task intensive process but the results were absolutely worth it.

First I started by creating a paste for the prawn curry, very shortsighted of me as I had to repeat the process again for the potatoes.

Paste ingredients for prawn curry, for the potatoes one replaces the cumin seeds with fresh ginger

Pestle pestle pestle until you have a paste

The other ingredients are cumin powder, red chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder, fresh curry leaves, tamarind water (I used vinegar) and two medium tomatoes chopped. You can also add thinly sliced onion and if so saute them first before adding the paste.

Heat a glug of oil (I used coconut oil) and when hot add the paste and curry leaves and stir for two minutes

Add spices and chopped tomatoes and allow to simmer for about 5 minutes

Add about 100 ml’s water and let all simmer together for about 10 minutes on low heat, then add prawns

Do not cover when simmering as you want the mixture to reduce. I added the prawns after about 10 minutes and then increased the heat and

For the accompanying Potato cooked in yoghurt there were similar spices except the paste was ginger, chilli and garlic. I added cumin powder, red chilli powder, turmeric, coriander powder and again fresh curry leaves.. Using a hand held blender I combined the paste and all the spices (not the curry leaves) to which I added two tablespoons water and blitzed some more.

Peel the potatoes and cut in round slices, place in pot and cover with water to which you add a ¼ teaspoon turmeric powder and teaspoon salt. Boil until potatoes are about 75% cooked, drain and cool.

Yellow potatoes cooling in the colander

Heat some oil and add mustard seeds and cook until they start popping, then add the curry leaves and paste and allow to simmer for 2 minutes

Add in two tablespoons of full cream plain yoghurt bring to the simmer and add the potatoes and allow to cook until potatoes are done, about 10 minutes

All along the way remember to taste and season, taste and season until to your taste.

I also made a chicken curry but this post is getting a bit long so I shall not go through the cooking process here. Suffice to say it was also very good {modest smile}

I separated @fempower ‘s prawns as I was not sure she would eat them. I am happy to report she cleaned her plate

As always thank you for reading. A BIG shout out to @kiwideb for my footer banner which she kindly shared with anyone who feels the need to stop the sometimes inappropriate comments which happen on almost every post.