Curried Prawns Over Rics
Ingredients
- Prawns
- Garlic
- Lemon juice
- Butter
- White wine
- A small apple
- Peas
- Curry powder
- Cornstarch
- Rice
- Salt
- Golden Italian dressing
Instructions
- Start by thawing your prawns. Run them under slow-moving cold water in a colander inside a large bowl in the sink. Let the water run for 10-15 minutes, or until the prawns are totally thawed and soft. Peel and devein, including removing the tails.
- Start your rice. I used a Minute Rice for this with one part rice to one part water. Boil the water and add some salt and a spoon of butter. Once the water boils, add the rice, cover and turn off the heat. For a nice change-up you could substitute 7/8s water with ⅛ orange or lemon juice.
- Melt about a tablespoon of butter in a large frying pan and add two cloves of finely diced garlic. Add a squeeze of lemon juice and about ¼ cup of white wine. Add your prawns. You’re not going to want to waste any time, as the prawns won’t take very long to cook and will go rubbery if they overcook.
- Whisk about 3 tablespoons of cornstarch into 3 cups of water. Add this to the prawns and stir. At the same time add your apple, diced into ½ inch cubes and a ½ cup of frozen peas. Next add about 1½ tablespoons of curry powder. As the mixture starts to thicken keep stirring and turn down the heat. When you’ve reached your desired consistency, remove from the heat altogether.
- Fluff the rice with a chopstick and squeeze in some Golden Italian salad dressing. Mix together and plate the rice first. Spoon the curry and prawns on top and serve.
Notes
While you can never go wrong with prawns, pairing them with a curry sauce is amazing
While I was travelling in England, I learned a few things. The first thing I learned was to sew a little Canadian flag on my jacket to get much better service. Something else I learned was that Nottingham Forest is actually a real place! Not just made up for Robin Hood stories.
I learned that you can never get more than 75 miles from the sea. I also learned that — at the time — eight million people lived in London and a further eight million commuted every day to work. Incredible!
Some of the most important things I learned were about food and drink. Scrumpy Cider. Oh yeah! (Mind the hangover though). John Smith’s Bitter! (I was recently devastated to learn that John Smith’s has been bought out by Heineken … who have, “sob,” turned it from 11.5 per cent ABV to 3.4 per cent. Bitter Light?)
Now, every single contestant on Family Feud, when asked about British food, will say fish and chips! Wrapped in newspaper. They aren’t wrong. Add mushy peas and you’re on your way to winning that round.
There are some other amazing traditional foods like Cornish pasties, scones, Yorkshire pudding, bangers and mash, bubble and squeak, toad in the hole, steak and kidney pie, trifle … the list goes on. And now my mouth is watering. I’ll have to do some of these soon for all of you.
Probably number two on the list though, right after fish and chips, especially at street vendors, restaurants and people’s homes is curry. That’s right, the traditional Indian dish. The Brits will curry anything!
Growing up in a very British household, our three main spices were: salt, pepper and lard. When Mum did up a curry it was like an explosion for our tastebuds. To this day I still basically do my Mum’s recipe for curry. A meat, some apple to give a sweet flavour and peas. With lots of curry sauce.
This is a basic recipe that takes about 15 minutes from start to finish. You can use whatever you like for a meat, or even do it meatless. Traditional curry uses fenugreek, turmeric and cumin. I opted for an off-the-shelf curry powder which ironically has those three as the main ingredients.
