Indian Prawn Curry With Spicy Rice and Yogurt Sauce

I met Aruna Kilaru in the breezeway of the big box office store, Staples. The doors were opening and closing around us as I ventured to ask if she'd teach me how to cook something from her homeland. I was ecstatic that she and her daughter, both full of smiles and openness, immediately turned onto the idea of sharing their culinary traditions with me, a complete stranger. It's enough to make you believe in the world. Just days later, we met in her daughter's condo behind Walmart, and got cooking. Click herein to get the story and the recipes.

The Recipe

Indian Prawn Curry, Spicy Rice and Yogurt Sauce

Learned in Falmouth, Maine, from Aruna Kilaru, from Hyderabad, India.

Total time 2.5 hours
Serves 6

Spicy rice with peas, mint, and carrots

3 cups rice
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil
4 bay leaves
1 tsp. whole cumin seeds
5 cloves
2 green cardamom pods
1 piece cinnamon bark (1/2 square inch)
3 super hot small Asian chilians, sliced in half
2 carrots, small dice
1/4 pound green beans, sliced into 1/8 inch rounds
2 Tbsp. ginger garlic paste
3 cups water
3 cups coconut milk
large handful whole fresh mint leaves
large handful cilantro leaves, rough chopped
1 tsp. salt
1 handful frozen peas

Wash and soak rice for 30 minutes before cooking. In a large pot, saute all spices in oil on medium heat. Add chilis and let sizzle until chilis become brown. Add carrots, green beans, garlic-ginger paste, and saute until slightly cooked (about 5 minutes). Drain rice and put add it to the sauted vegetables (or put in rice cooker if you have one with the sauteed veg.). Add water, coconut milk, mint, cilantro, salt, and peas. Stir and cook rice as you would normally in rice cooker, or on stovetop, turning up heat and then cooking for 20 minutes covered on low once liquid has started to bubble. (If your cinammon bark was thick like mine, take it out before serving. Hers was so thin it melted away...)

Indian Prawn Curry (kura royalu)

1 Tbsp. vegetable oil
1 tsp. black mustard seed
1 tsp.whole cumin
2 super hot, small Asian chilis, halved
1 red onion, minced
1 tsp. tumeric
1 lb. Maine shrimp (or really small shrimp)
1 1/2 tsp. “family magic powder” (family’s special blend of garlic cloves, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, small dried red chilis and salt, all ground into powdered form: it was orangy-red, so mostly chili.)
2 tomatoes, cut into large chunks
1/4 cup coconut milk
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. ground coriander
1 tsp. garam masala

In large saute pan on medium heat, sautee black mustard seed, cumin, and chili in oil about 5 minutes. Add onion and tumeric and saute, lid-on, for about five minutes until golden. Add shrimp, family magic powder and simmer, stirring w/o lid until liquid disappears. Add tomatoes and stir intermittently until bubbles coming up show only remaining liquid. Add coconut milk, water, coriander, garam masala, and stir constantly until it’s like really thick chili, leaving a clean space in the bottom of the pan when scraped away. Serve in bowl, garnished with fresh cilantro, along with spicy rice with mint, peas, and carrots, and yogurt sauce.

Cool Yogurt Sauce (raitha)

1 cup nonfat yogurt
1/2 tsp. salt
3 Tbsp. water
2 Tbsp. minced red onion
pinch of cilantro, rough chopped

Stir together and serve with spicy curries and rice.

See how to do it

The Story

Adventure Cooking

Indian prawn curry breaks all the rules.

By Lindsay Sterling

Cooking Indian food by myself for the first time felt like skydiving; it went against all my instincts. I had one thing going for me: an Indian woman, Aruna Kilaru, had shown me exactly how to do it two weeks before. Aruna, a botany teacher and principal from Hyderabad, India, had been visiting her daughter and son-in-law in Maine. I met them in of all places, the office supply store Staples. I said I’ve always wanted to learn how to cook Indian food, and I write this column. Would she be interested in teaching me how to cook her favorite food from home?

A couple days later, a couple blocks away in her daughter’s condo, I watched Aruna break countless rules that I’d been taught in my professional cooking career. She sautéed teeny little shrimp for thirty minutes. I would have had a pot thrown at my head for cooking them longer than two. She added thirteen different spices to the meal, making it nearly impossible to taste any one flavor. I’d been taught to keep flavors simple and pure. She threw fresh whole mint leaves and cilantro into her rice cooker. I’d only used them raw, with the exception of brewing peppermint tea.

Aruna cooked for two hours that day as I scribbled notes and asked her questions. She served her family and me spicy rice with peas, mint and carrots with an even spicier thick prawn curry, and cool yogurt sauce. For dessert we had cardamom saffron pudding with cashews and raisins.

Two weeks later after getting some special ingredients at Masala Mahal in South Portland, I stood in my own kitchen alone, facing garlic-ginger paste, bags of dried hot red chilis, black mustard seeds, fresh tiny green Asian chilis, and garam masala. The thing that really daunted me was that her little silver spice spoon had dipped into a container of what she called “chili powder,” but that I call “Aruna’s family magic powder” because it was her family’s own special blend of powdered chili, cumin, coriander, salt and garlic clove. How could I possibly know what proportions to use? I guessed my way through this and other anomalies of my own kitchen: no rice cooker, no super thin cinnamon bark.

To my surprise, the food turned out to be amazing. What was most exciting was that it was unlike anything I’d ever cooked before. My friends swooned. The massive physical pleasure induced by these foods caused me to see my whole cooking life differently. Basically, it positioned me. I was an American cook on the precipice of something I’d never seen before: the whole world of cooking, the wild possibilities of food. I took this lesson to heart: you can break the rules you’ve been taught and create something of astonishing beauty. Though I’ve never been drawn to try the skydiving thing, for the first time I’m starting to see what those crazy cats are up to. So there’s this common rule we all live with: you can’t fly...

Real German, Real German Potato Salad

Hold the mayo. Get out the beef broth. This potato salad from a farm in Freiburg, Germany, isn't like the sticky, chunky stuff at American picnics. Here's the recipe.

Print the Recipe

Real German Potato Salad
from Friederike Munz, Freiburg Germany

1.5 lbs small yukon gold or other firm, waxy potatoes
1 medium onion, very finely diced
1 c. beef broth or 1 cube boullion with 1 c. water
3 Tbsp vegetable oil
4 Tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp Dijon mustard
1 Tbsp fresh chopped parsley and chives
fresh ground pepper
salt

Boil potatoes skin on until soft but still holding together. Strain and let cool just enough to touch. Pull off skin with paring knife. Slice potatoes into 1/4" rounds and put in mixing bowl. Bring beef broth to a boil and add onions. Pour over potatoes and let sit for 10 minutes. Remove any remaining broth with spoon. Mix oil, vinegar, mustard, and herbs into a dressing. Toss with potatoes and let sit, lightly covered, for 1-2 hours on counter before serving. Add salt and pepper to taste.