WHEN BIGGER WAS ALWAYS BETTER
It was the 80’s. Shoulders were padded wide, mobile phones were huge, we were yuppies aspiring to make it big on the stock markets and the hottest thing you could get in restaurants was Nouvelle Cuisine – or, as my father called it, two crossed beans on a plate.
The second half of the decade a new dish started turning up at dinner parties – Scampi Indiana. Scampi, or tiger prawns, in curry cream, a variation of Scampi à l’indienne though I doubt any French chef would recognise it and the only thing even remotely Indian about it was the use of curry powder. And speaking about curry powder, there was one type alone we could buy, and 99 out of 100 Swedes had no idea it wasn’t a single spice but a blend. Having said that I suspect half of the population still don’t.
These days we know better than to buy tiger prawns willy-nilly, but the dish has withstood the test of time – as long as you see past the name. This is a frequent visitor to our dinner table, using MSC certified king prawns.
Prawns Indiana
Ingredients
- 400 g king prawns
- 1 red pepper
- 1 yellow pepper
- ½ leek
- 2 tsp curry powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 1 dash dash cayenne
- 2 tbsp butter
- 4 cloves garlic finely chopped or minced
- 2 tbsp tomato puree
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 20 cl cream
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- De-vein and shell the prawns.
- Slice leek and peppers.
- Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Once it's sizzling sautee the garlig for 30 seconds before adding the prawns, season with the curry and cayenne and paprika and cook until done. This is very quick, so don't take your eyes off them.
- Remove the prawns from the pan and set aside.
- Fry the leek and peppers until tender. Add tomato puree and cream. You may want to add a bit more seasoning according to taste.
- Let simmer for five minutes then turn the heat off and add the cooked prawns.
Notes