Over the past few weeks, I have been seeing two ads in social networks… One ad was regarding the Malabar Curry Paste from Tulua and the other one was regarding ready to cook seafood from Magellan (by Peninsular Fisheries Pvt Ltd.)… I had been thinking of trying to make Prawns/Shrimp curry here at my new home for quite some time and having seen the ads of these products, I thought it might be a good idea to try and so here we are with one pack of Tulua’s Malabar Curry paste along with couple of cups (200g each) of Shrimp from Magellan along with some Curry Leaves as recommended by Tulua’s recipe for Malabar Fish Curry… 🙂
Now, the reason for using two cups of Magellan’s Shrimps were simply because the recipe called for 500g of Fish and the two cups would make 400g of Shrimp… I have saved a little bit of the curry paste to use later with another cup of shrimps (will be attempting to fry using the paste as marinade later) that I got as 3 cups were the minimum quantity they needed me to order to deliver to my location… Anyways, lets talk about the shrimp by itself… As per Magellan, they are selling pasteurised and chilled seafood in sealed cup sized cans… So, thanks to that process, the shrimp are in sort of half cooked condition as can be seen from their color in the pics below… This was a surprise to me but nevertheless, I decided to go ahead and make the attempt with them… As for the size of the Shrimps, they were definitely not the jumbo kind but not as small as the ones known as curry shrimps… I would definitely consider them to be a collection of whats known as medium and large sized shrimps…
Now coming to the Malabar Curry Paste, the pack contained a sealed pouch which is said to contain 80g of the curry paste which was as can be seen in the pics below… The recipe at Tulua’s website called for 500g of Fish to be used… Since I have only taken 400g of the Shrimp, I took out some of the paste to compensate. As for the paste itself, when I took it out into my cooking vessel, I could sense the fragrance of the Chilly powder, Mustard and Fenugreek. Appearance wise, as can be seen in the pic below, it looked like there were some curry leaves and caramelised onions as well… Since there already seemed to be enough oil in the paste, I didn’t bother adding extra and proceeded to cook as per the recipe…
Now lets talk about the cooking process… According to the recipe, what we have to do is to add 1.5 cups of water which I reduced to 1 cup considering the lower quantity of paste and shrimp used… Then all we have to do is mix the paste into the water well and bring to a boil and then add the Fish (Shrimp in this case) and cook it till half done… Once half done, add the curry leaves and cook till its cooked enough and turn off the stove… Once thats done, the recipe recommends that we keep the curry covered for around 20 mins for the flavours to fully infuse before serving…
In my case, I was already having Shrimp that was half-cooked… So, I skipped one step and let the gravy boil till it started reducing and then added both the Curry Leaves and the Shrimp together and then kept it going till the Shrimp ended up being fully cooked and the gravy reduced a bit more… I must say however that I did want to reduce the gravy further but I had to stop at this point to avoid the Shrimp from being overcooked… So, once I saw that I was close to being done, I put this lid on and simmered for a min before turning off the stove… I then waited for around 20 mins like the recipe suggested and the following pics show what the curry looked like when I opened the lid…
Being a Malabar Curry, the ideal accompaniment in my opinion for the Shrimp Curry is Rice and that too the Kerala style rice… I happened to have some leftover in my fridge and so heated some and had with the Shrimp curry as shown in the pics below… Regarding the taste, I felt that it was tasting similar to the kind of seafood curries thats known as the Mulakittathu which is very popular in North Kerala… Thankfully, the curry was not too spicy for me like most versions that I have had… The flavours of the Fenugreek and Curry Leaves along with a little bit of Tamarind and Dried Red Chillies were what was dominating the flavour profile… Other than those, I think I felt a slight hint of Coriander Seeds as well… The Shrimp thankfully didn’t end up being overcooked as I thought it might be… But I think because it came half cooked, what I felt was that the flavours of the gravy didn’t penetrate much inside the Shrimp leading me to believe that the experience would’ve been better if I had started with raw Shrimp instead of ones that are half cooked… But then again, this type of curries are known to taste best on the next day and so, I am looking forward to trying the leftovers tomorrow… But that being said, I must say that I will be buying this curry paste again as the flavours are just spot on for me… I felt that the curry worked well with the rice…
Thats it for now… I think products like the ones mentioned here are great for working professionals as they let them speed up the cooking process and save time in their otherwise busy schedule… Feel free to try these products yourself and also, feel free to let me know what you think, in the comments below…
