Bengali Coconut Prawns Curry

Traditional Bengali food is prepared using mustard oil. Cooking with mustard oil, always intrigued me. How will it be cooking with mustard oil. When you open a fresh bottle of mustard oil, you are taken in by the strong pungent smell and makes you think, will cooking with this oil be okay. I had once asked one of my bengali friend, how is it to cook with mustard oil ? And she said it's like you keralite's like your coconut oil, we like our mustard oil. Today i was bent on finding out how it tastes cooking with mustard oil and went on to make this prawns curry. I was pleasantly surprised. The strong smell of the oil was not found in the curry. Curry had smooth flavors and was soothing to taste.

Ingredients

2 cup - Cleaned prawns / Shrimps

2 tsp - Coriander powder

1/2 tsp - Turmeric powder

3/4 tsp - Garam masala powder

1/2 tsp - Sugar

1 cup thick & sour - Curds / yogurt

4 tbsp - Mustard oil

Salt to taste

Grind to a smooth paste

1/2 shell of a small - Fresh Coconut, grated

2'' piece - Ginger

4 - Green chilies

4 to 6 - Dry whole red chili

1 tsp - Mustard seeds

Method

1 ) Add all ingredients listed to be ground into a grinder, except mustard seeds. Grind to a smooth paste with little water. Then add mustard seeds and grind again to get the mustard seeds just enough ground (not too much ).

2 ) Heat 4 tbsp of mustard oil in a heavy pan till it starts smoking. Reduce heat or remove the pan from fire to cool oil, a little bit. Then place back to fire and add the ground masala paste. Fry on a medium heat till brown. When oil separates, add coriander powder, turmeric powder, garam masala powder, salt and sugar. Fry lightly for a minute , then add curds, prawns and stir in. Now add about 1.5 cups of water and bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer and cook covered, till the prawns is cooked and the gravy has thickened a bit.

Serve hot with plain boiled basmati rice.