Prawns in a rust-red coconut gravy, sour with tamarind and warm with ground coriander. On the table in 35 minutes and naturally gluten free.
Prep
15 mins
Cook
20 mins
Servings
4
Per serving
£2.63
Difficulty
easy
The base of this curry is a wet masala blended from coconut, dried chillies and spices, which gives a completely different texture to a fried onion base: looser, brighter, and much faster. Add the prawns at the very last minute or they turn to rubber.
Toss the prawns with a third of the salt and a pinch of the turmeric and put them back in the fridge.
Drain the soaked chillies. Blend them with the desiccated coconut, coriander seeds, cumin seeds, peppercorns, remaining turmeric, garlic, ginger and 150ml water until you have a smooth, brick-red paste. This will take a good two minutes.
Stop and scrape the sides of the blender at least twice. Any whole coriander seeds left in the paste will be unpleasantly crunchy in the finished curry.
Heat the coconut oil in a wide pan over a medium heat and fry the sliced onion for 6 to 7 minutes until soft and just starting to colour at the tips.
Add the blended masala paste and cook for 8 minutes, stirring often. It will darken, thicken and start to release oil at the edges.
Stir in the tamarind paste, coconut milk, slit green chillies, remaining salt and 150ml water. Bring to a gentle simmer and cook for 5 minutes.
Taste the gravy now, before the prawns go in. It should be sour, salty and mildly hot. Adjust with more tamarind or salt as needed.
Slide in the prawns and cook for 3 to 4 minutes only, turning once, until they curl and turn opaque right through. Take the pan off the heat immediately.
Scatter with coriander and serve straight away with plain rice.