food recipe

Monday, 21 November 2011

Goan Recipes

Posted: 21 Nov 2011 02:00 AM PST

This is a special recipe, Prawn Balchao is something I adore. My wife, 10 month old baby and I are back from a road trip, we drove from Mumbai to Nepal and back. Prior to leaving my mother was over and we cooked this Prawn Balchao.

So when we got back there was this full bottle of Balchao waiting for me in the fridge, needless to say I finished the entire thing in one go. So I am excited to share this one with you. As usual, you guys are in for a treat!

Prawn Balchao Masala Ingredients:

24 Kashmiri Chillies
1 Inch Piece Ginger
6 Flakes Garlic
1 and 1/2 Teaspoon Jeera
1/2 Teaspoon Haldi Powder
A Small Ball of Tamarind
Vinegar around 200ml

Other Prawn Balchao Ingredients:

2 Medium Sized Cups of Prawns
4 Medium Onions cut fine
1/2 Inch Ginger cut into Jullians
6 Flakes of Garlic cut fine
2 Green Chillies
2 Sprigs of Curry leaves
300 to 500 ml of Oil depending on storage

Put all the masala ingredients in the blender

put the prawn balchao ingredients into the blender

They needed to be blended in vinegar so add around 200ml

It needs to be a fine blend take for example the masala below is not quite done, can still see the chilly seeds and its coarse.

Hope your prawns are cleaned or you can do that while your masalas getting done.

Your Balchao Masala should look like what it is below.

Once your prawns are cleaned, saute them for a while.

Now you need to chop the second set of ingredients, onions, ginger and garlic.

Your prawns should be fried by now, keep them aside till they cool off and become easy to handle.

Put some oil into the pan and put the curry leaves on the fire.

Add the juliennes of ginger and stir fry with the curry leaves.

Then add the garlic pieces are continue frying

When slightly brown add the onions and yes, keep frying!

While thats happening, chop your prawns into pieces this is if you have large or medium size prawns. You want the masala flavour to get into it.

You have reached a culinary check point once your onions are nice and brown.

Its time to add the balchao masala to the ingredients.

Now mix the masala up with the ingredients and let it fry as well.

Once thats done, add the chopped pieces of prawn to the masala, your prawn balchao is nearly ready.

Mix the prawn balchao ingredients in the masala till its spread evenly.

Split and cut into pieces two green chillies or more if you want your prawn balchao extra spicy.

Add the green chilly to the prawn balchao and your done. If you are going to consume the balchao immediately you can use less oil during the steps.

If you plan on preserving it for a long time add more oil, you need to make sure once you bottle it, there should be oil floating above the contents for it to be well preserved.

Hope you enjoyed yet another recipe my mother had to offer :) As usual, please help us by spreading and sharing our website, thanks all!

Monday, 18 July 2011

Goan Recipes

Samarachi Kodi

Posted: 18 Jul 2011 12:11 AM PDT

Mum visited us a couple of weeks ago, cooked us up some Samarachi Kodi. For those who lived in Goa would know the significance of this meal, in the good old days Goa was shut during the monsoons, houses were stacked prior to the monsoons with dry prawns, dry fish, sausages to last till the end of the monsoons.

Then my Aunty Sunita from Moira came over and told us a little more of good old Goa in the monsoons how people bought rock salt, buy tamarind for the entire year as it was available on in april and may. Chillies too were stocked up on, the non spicy Aldona chillies for color and taste. The small red onions tied in bunches in the kitchen, that perhaps had a smoked effect.

Water pickles, feni, vinegar, all stored of course running out of feni was very common with an alcoholic in the house :) If you have some story to share of the good old days do post a comment!

This curry can be made with dry prawns and you can try experimenting with dry bombay ducks, todays Samarachi Kodi recipe is a dry prawn curry, perfect for the rainy season.

Main Samarachi Kodi Ingredients

1 Tin dry prawns
2 Big onions
1/2 Scraped coconut
1 Small Ball Tamarind
1 Tomato
Salt to taste

Samarachi Kodi Masala Ingredients:

1/2 Coconut
6 - 8 Kashmiri Chillies
1/2 Orange Flower
1/2 Daggad phool (Star Anise)
1/2 Teaspoon Mace (Javitri)
1 Teaspoon Turmeric powder
2 Pieces of Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Methi seeds
3 - 4 Pepper corns
6 Cloves
1 Small Onion
2 Teaspoon Corriander seeds
6 Flakes of Garlic
1 Inch Ginger
A pinch of Jeera

So now that you've got your ingredients ready lets start making our Samarachi Kodi. Roast the half scraped coconut with the small onion and haldi powder

While thats getting done, clean the dry prawns by removing their heads if there are any and soak. You also need to soak the small ball of tamarind in water.

When the coconut is roasted, roast all the masala ingredients and grind.

Getting your Samarachi Kodi Masala was relatively simple, the only thing is this recipe requires a few unique ingredients as compared to what we have used in our other Goan recipes so far.