Adventures is what most of us like to do, but when it comes to food adventure – #foodventure, as a food blogger I like it to the core. Now I can hear all your mind voice that I am going to share my #foodventure – a great platform for everyone and a boon for the one who gets the opportunity to be featured and dine with Michelin Star Chef. Vikas Khanna and Food Connossieur. Vir Sanghvi.
This is my 4th #foodventure – UNCOMMON FOOD. When it comes to uncommon food, what would I prefer being born and brought up in Tuticorin (south Tamil Nadu), coastal area familiar for fish, salt and port. Yes, it’s going to be a seafood, thought of trying maasi (Maldives Dry fish) but I am out of stock at home (Bangalore), so thought of trying Dried Prawns which I use to get every time I visit my hometown or my mom gets whenever she comes to visit me.
When it comes to UNCOMMON FOOD – I googled and found out countable recipes with this dried prawns, but I decided to try something different from all these. There stuck the idea for Sambal – a typical hot sauce made from a mixture of variety of chili as a primary ingredient and the other as secondary ingredients which I had in Malaysia.
As a result here comes my Fiery Dried Prawns Sambal – I was little worried when I start preparing whether the kids would like because of the chilies. But my kids liked it to the core, I made a sandwich for them, I and my hubby had it with Dosa. But my kids liked it a lot and also tired it with dosa. My daughter told, “This being a perfect non-veg substitute for idly chili powder”, happy to hear it. Let me share the recipe…
Ingredients:
- Dried Prawns – ¾ cup
- Pearl onions – ¼ kg
- Garlic – 8 cloves
- Red chilies – 12 nos
- Vinegar – 1 ½ tsp
- Coconut oil – 3 tbsp.
- Mustard seeds – ¼ tsp
- Split Blackgram – ½ tsp
- Curry leaves – a sprig
- Salt to taste
Preparation:
- Soak the dried prawns in a bowl of water for 15 mins (there may be sand particles in the prawns), take out the prawns and pour the water (you can see the sand particles deposited in the bottom).
- Soak the red chilies in water for 15 mins, drain the water and keep it aside.
- Peel the onions and garlic. Keep it aside.
- Heat a tsp of coconut oil in a pan, add in the onions, garlic and cook until they turn golden brown. Transfer it to a plate.
- Add in the dried prawns along with a tsp of oil and cook for 3 mins. Transfer it to the onions plate and wait until it comes to the room temperature.
- Take all the together along with the red chilies and grind to a fine paste by adding ¼ cup of water and 2 tsp of oil.
- Heat the leftover oil in the pan, add in the mustard, split black gram and curry leaves. Wait until they crackle.
- Pour in the grounded paste to the tawa and pour in the vinegar, add salt if required.
- Cook on medium flame by stirring continuously, else it would be burnt.
- Cook until the colour of the sambal changes to dark red or until the oil separates and gets along the sides and top of the sambal.
- Transfer it to a bowl.
Serve hot. This goes out well with idly, dosa, chapathi for breakfast or dinner and with steamed rice and a dollop of sesame oil or with any variety rice for lunch.
Note: You can also prepare this in large quantity, bring it to room temperature and refrigerate them in an air tight container for almost a month. Don’t reduce the amount of oil, the right amount of oil brings out the right color, texture and flavor.
For more seafood recipes, click here and more chutney recipes click here.
Shared my #foodventure about UNCOMMON FOOD, why wait share your #foodventure to get featured with celebrities conducted by Axis Bank Dining Delights.
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Madraasi - a tamilian tales 