Tamato Chingri - Prawn in Tomato gravy

My husband and all family simply love prawns. This Indo Chinese preparation – combining tomato sauce, tomatoes and prawns – is such an easy, fast and yummy way of cooking prawns. I love the gravy over any kind of flavored/steamed rice. Hope my recipe here will make someone’s taste buds happy without much effort.

Preparation Time: - 15 min

Cooking Time: - 25 min

Servings: - 3 persons (depends upon the capacity of the person)

Ingredients:-

1. 300 gm extra large prawns. I bought the fresh prawn from market this time
2. 2 tsp Soya sauce
3. 1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
4. 1 medium onion chopped
5. 2 tsp fresh ginger grinded (you can use ginger paste also)
6. 4 cloves of fresh garlic
7. 2 green chili silted
8. 2 tsp Kashmiri Mirch ( optional if you are spice lover I did not use)
9. 2 medium tomato chopped
10. 4 tbsp Sunflower oil ( you can use any vegetable oil )
11. Salt to taste
12. 1 1/2 tbsp chopped Coriander leaves
13. 1 tbsp ready made Tomato sauce
14. Sufficient water
15. Few coriander leaves for garnishing

Preparation:-

1. If you have purchased from the usual fish market then first remove the shell, remove the central vein of the prawn and thoroughly clean. In my case I told the vendor to do devein and clean it.
2. Rub turmeric powder and salt to the prawns and mix with soya sauce. Marinate for 15 minutes. 
   
3. Chop the onion and tomato and keep aside.
4. Heat oil in kadai or non-stick pan in high heat. 
5. Now set the burner in low and shallow fry the onion till they turn golden brown.
   
6. Add ginger, garlic and green chili to it. Stir and mix.
   
   
   
7. When a nice smell emanates from the mixture add the marinated prawn pieces, chopped tomato, and coriander leaves. Mix well.
   
8. Cover the pan and cook for 5 minutes in medium heat.
9. Add water, mix well and set the burner in low heat.
   
10. Cook for about 10 minutes or as long as the gravy becomes thick to your taste. Please do not overcook as that will make the prawn hard.
11. Pour tomato sauce and garnish with coriander leaves.
    

Serve this hot with plain rice or any pulao / fried rice. It goes well with Noodles too. I plan to give the recipe of the same some day.

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.

Beguni - Baingan Pakora - Bengali eggplant fritters

Monsoon is in full swing and what better can we eat other than fried stuff. Bengalis prepare fritters from almost all veggies and fishes. But Beguni / Baingan Pakoras / Eggplant fritters are traditionally the best Bengali snacks during rainy season. I being health conscious don’t make deep fried stuff much at home. But this Sunday it was constantly raining and my family demanded some fried stuff so intensely that I had to oblige and here is the recipe I followed:-

 

Preparation Time: - 10 min

Cooking Time: - 20 min (depends upon the size of your kadai/frying pan)

Servings: - 3~4 persons (varies from person to person)

Ingredients:-

1. 1 medium eggplant ( brinjal / begun)
   
2. 100 gram Besan / gram flower
3. 1 tbsp rice flower
4. 1 tsp poppy seed ( when preparing the recipe for blog I was short of that but generally I love to include the same )
5. 1 tsp Black Jeera / Nigella seeds ( Sometimes I use whole cumin seeds also – tastes as well as black jeera)
6. ¼ tsp baking powder (optional)
7. 2 tsp Kashmiri red chili powder – I prefer this as it is less spicy but you can use normal red chili powder also. Even you can increase the amount here according to your taste
8. ½ tsp Turmeric powder
9. Salt to taste
10. Mustard oil sufficient for frying – I did not mention the exact amount as I used a smaller kadai and hence more oil was consumed.
11. Sufficient amount of water.

Preparation:-

1.  Cut the eggplant into round shapes with even thickness.

2. In a large mixing bowl, mix besan, rice flour, poppy seeds, turmeric powder, Kashmiri red chilli powder, Nigella seeds, baking powder and salt. You can even add a pinch of sugar here to satisfy the Bengali sweet tooth.

3.   Add water gradually few tablespoons at a time so that no lumps are formed. Whisk vigorously to make a smooth batter.

4.   Take a deep frying pan and heat enough oil to deep fry. I used an iron kadai this time as some of my friends suggested that iron kadai is useful for deep fried stuff. 

5.   Dip the eggplant slices in the batter such that the batter is coated uniformly on both sides. Hold the pieces few pieces above the batter to drop the excess coating.

6.    Gently immerse them in hot oil and fry on one side for 2 minutes. Then flip it over for the other side to be fried. This will take less time – about a minute as the pieces are already hot. Fry till they are crisp and done.

7.    I used a small kadai and I fried one at a time but you can use bigger vessel and can fry more than one pieces. Always remember to have sufficient space between them so that the frying is uniform.

8.    With a slotted spoon, pick up the Baingan/Eggplant pakoras and drain oil with the help of tissue paper.

9.     Fry all the Begunis  pakodas in batches similarly.

Serve this snacks crispy hot with little bit of black salt, some muri (puffed rice) sprinkled with little mustard oil and green chilli. Of course masala / ginger tea is required to complete the experience.

You can also eat this as a side dish with Khichudi/ Khichdi in lunch. 

As always please feel free to comment, criticize and seek if any help is required. I am all ears.