Growing up in a Bengali household, fish/seafood has been an integral part of our daily menu. There was no way we could bore ourselves eating every fish in just one way! If you visit a Bengali restaurant and ask for a prawn dish, you will most likely get Prawn malai curry, Prawn prepared in mustard-coconut base etc.
This particular recipe is probably not fancy enough for making a place in the restaurant menu but will win your heart in its own way. The interesting thing about this recipe is- you can have the Fritters as a snack or you can make a light gravy with it and serve it as a main course.
- Small/Medium size prawns 500 g
- 1 Finely chopped onion
- 5 Green chilies
- Salt
- 3 tbsp rice
- 3 tbsp lentil (musoor dal, preferably)
- 3 tbsp flour
- 1 medium size potato, grated
- 5 tbsp Mustard oil
- 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 small branches of curry leaves (15-20 leaves)
- 1 tomato, finely chopped
- 1/2 bell pepper/capsicum, finely chopped
- 2 tsp turmeric powder
- 1 tbsp cumin powder
- 1 tsp chili powder
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom + black pepper + cinnamon powder
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cup grated coconut
Preparation
- Clean the prawns thoroughly and cut them into Small pieces
- Coarse grind the mixture of rice, lentil, grated coconut and green chilies.
- In a big bowl mix the coarse ground rice with prawns. Add the grated potatoes, chopped onion, 3 tbsp flour, salt, 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 2 tbsp Mustard oil. Flour will act as a binding element absorbing all the moisture. This would become a thick paste like consistency. Let it rest for at least 15 mins.
Procedure
- Make small disks of the mix with hand. Have a look at the above picture for the size.
- Heat oil in a pan and shallow fry like Fritters on low-medium heat. This has to done slowly to ensure nothing is raw inside!
Prawn Fritters can be enjoyed as it is. Try it with plain rice and a simple lentil soup/dal- tastes amazing. Whenever we make this dish at home, half of the Fritters is set aside at this point and half is used for gravy- steps for which will be explained now.
The Fritters taste the best while freshly made- hot and crispy, on the other hand, the gravy tastes good both hot and cold.
- For making the gravy for this dish, heat oil in a pan. Temper with whole cumin seeds, bay leaves, curry leaves, green chilies.
- Add 1 tsp turmeric powder, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1 tbsp cumin powder, chopped tomato and bell pepper/capsicum and salt into the pan and stir in low-medium flame.
- When raw smell of the spice is gone, pour 1 cup of water into the pan and let it simmer.
- Now add the prawn fritters in the gravy. After 2-3 mins Sprinkle cardamom-black pepper-cinnamon powder on top amd cook it for few more minutes.
Chingri Maachh’er bora’r jhol/Prawn Fritters Gravy is ready to be served. It goes well with rice. Personally I prefer it cold, as the fritters soak up all the deliciousness from the gravy and becomes juicier.
Instead of curry leaves you can add fresh coriander leaves at the end. We liked it better with curry leaves. It’s like an art you know, you have the creative freedom!… 🙂
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