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September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

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seafret
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September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by seafret »

This month's Curry Club "Curry of the Month" recipe is seafret's King Prawn Malaya kindly selected by Greybeard.....

A mild, creamy curry cooked with coconut, pineapple and coriander. Sweet and slightly sour.

[You can make this with chicken, lamb etc should you wish, but it's excellent with king prawns.]

Recipe here

Sorry no photos of finished dish but will add when I cook this again.
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Re: King Prawn Malaya

Post by TikkaTom »

Malaya is a new one to me Seafret. Thanks for the recipe, i'll be sure to give it a try when I get the chance :)
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Re: King Prawn Malaya

Post by stanb »

I've done this recipe and I think the amount of coconut powder is too much, it acts as a thickener and makes the final version very solid - tastes good, according to the wife and daughter - not my thing though.
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Re: King Prawn Malaya

Post by seafret »

Heyhey! Someone's at last tried this! Appreciate it's not to everyone's taste but if you've got a sweet tooth as some of my family has, it hits the spot. Regarding consistency, it is pretty thick but you can adjust to your preference.
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Admin »

This month's Curry Club "Curry of the Month" recipe is seafret's King Prawn Malaya kindly selected by Greybeard.....
Administrator - BIRCurries.co.uk (aka Cory Ander)
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Tomar2020 »

Before venturing forth to cook this recipe please may I ask a (possibly dumb :hmmm: ) question? Is coconut milk powder and coconut flour vastly different? I.E are they interchangeable?
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Greybeard »

Not dumb at all Tomar2020, there is a lot of confusion surrounding coconut ingredients. Coconut milk powder (e.g. the Maggi brand) is totally different and contains a few other ingredients including milk protein and maltodextrin.

At a push you could possibly get away with tinned coconut milk or a portion from a solid coconut cream bar (or Pataks sachets) as a substitute but not flour or dessicated coconut. AFAIK, the latter are used mainly in baking, whereas the former are used frequently in curries for their coconut flavour and their slight thickening properties.

You can reconstitute liquid coconut milk/cream from the powder by just adding water, how this would differ from the flour I don't know, but my guess is that it would be much thicker with less flavour than the milk.
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Tomar2020 »

Brilliant! Thank you for this clarifying this. I'm used to using creamed coconut in South Indian sambals (for taste and texture) and coconut milk in Anglo Indian byriani (for taste and absorption properties). I only discovered coconut flour as a result of reading Julian Voight's recipes as a first tentative step into BIR cooking. Korma tasted good but was a little gritty. Your explanation makes complete sense to me. Thanks Greybeard :thumbup:
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Greybeard »

You learn something new every day - I didn't realise JV specified coconut flour in his recipes, but digging deeper it will make a subtle difference. The flour itself is made from the dried coconut flesh, whereas the powdered milk will be much sweeter (the added maltodextrin and maltose are sugars).
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Cory Ander »

Also check out some of the threads (on the subject) in the Chat About/Coconut section of the forum Tomar.
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Tomar2020 »

Thanks CA. Had no idea there was so much to say about coconut :D Got myself some powder over the weekend and intend to make this curry twice so I can come to a conclusion about flour v powder. Maggi coconut milk powder much more expensive than East End coconut Flour though......
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Greybeard »

I hate hype. Some would say promoting a particular curry to the front page of a prominent BIR curry website as part of a monthly test kitchen falls into this category. I would disagree. The problem with the human condition is that we so easily fall into habit, and don’t look outside the box. Hype is the vain attempt of overcoming personal resistance to something through peer pressure and a sprinkling of logic. Think manipulation, think brainwashing. Hype pretends to have a firm grasp on the coat tails of the Zeitgeist, but more often than not it is a hollow phantasm, much bigger than reality and easily punctured like a balloon if you have a sharp enough pin.

I selected this recipe as candidate for curry club purely on one basis – the ingredients are accessible the world over, and also for the fact it contains seafood. Fish curries are a rarity in the BIR genre, and I totally understand why. In the UK, outside of battered fish and chips, whelks, salmon or prawn mayonnaise and fish finger sandwiches, we don’t really respect fish that much. On a abuse scale of 1 to 10, if the grey mush of vegetables that accompanies the average Sunday dinner is an 8, the way we cook and serve fish is easily a 10 when compared to our European and Asian cousins. Having lived in Europe for almost 2 years I can testify to that fact. The French and the Italians know fish so much better than we do, proving the point that familiarity breeds contempt. We are an island nation, and while there is a definite respect for piscine qualities around our shores, the further inland you get the more this deteriorates. Fish, particularly in curries, can be a slippery customer.

Prawns can be tricky to cook well. Leave them in a sauce for too long and they well resemble the rubber grommets one finds on certain car suspension parts. Ironically, the worst squid dish I had was while I was living in Milan, while the outer layer was a beautifully crispy layer of fried breadcrumb, the inner contents were like some deteriorating suspension part from an ageing Fiat 500. Which just goes to show, even the experts can get it really wrong sometimes. I still remember the chronic indigestion that I suffered at 2:00 am the following morning.

While on the surface this curry seems quite complex and tricky, in essence it is just a fishy Korma with a touch of attitude. The amount of spicing is minimal, so it should be a curry that appeals across all age ranges. All the non-curry ingredients were sourced from our local Tesco, and the king prawns were defrosted in a large bowl of cold water (changed every 10 minutes or so) over a period of 30-40 minutes away from the heat of the kitchen. Once drained, we were ready for the cook off once the frozen base had been heated up in the microwave and the rice (SB’s onion rice) was ready.

Following Seafret’s directions was very straightforward, the only tricky bit was keeping an eye on the coconut and almond powder. These two ingredients can have a tendency to stick and burn if you are not careful, and this will taint the dish if you overdo it too much and go past the slightly toasted point. This can be easily overcome by adding a generous helping of base, and as my ladle is definitely on the generous side, this was not a problem.

Apart from adding the hedonistic cream, the only adjustment to the directions I made was to cover the pan for a minute or so with a lid to ensure the prawns were heated through thoroughly after adding (a tip I got from Uncle Frank when defrosting spinach in situ for his Chicken Sagwala). While not strictly necessary, I wanted to make sure the prawns had reached a decent internal temperature quickly without pushing the envelope too far.

The resulting curry was a lovely balance of flavours, the lemon juice cutting through the sweetness without dominating. Served complimented with onion rice, Mrs GB gave this a 9, and my plate of curry and rice was left without even a morsel of rice for our 4 four legged friends to scrounge.

Some might be wary of trying this curry, especially as sugar is currently considered the food of the devil and fish a difficult or incongruous BIR curry ingredient, but both these observations I would consider hype. The resulting dish followed well in the footsteps of a creamy korma, a meal fit for a king.
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Westy »

Top drawer review once again Gb - nice :thumbup:
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by rsaha »

I look forward to them every month :):
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by seafret »

Agreed! Great review GB and thank you for trying the dish which I'm glad you and your wife enjoyed. A curry review containing the words zeitgeist and phantasm is a rare and precious thing! Excellent stuff! :happy:
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Re: September 2017 - seafret's King Prawn Malaya

Post by Cory Ander »

Thanks for nominating it and trying it, and for your amusing review, GB 8-)

What's the accompaniment? Onion rice? To be honest, no offence intended, but the Malaya looks far more appetising! :tongue:
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