Impromptu Prawn Curry

Friday night, no real food shopping options in the vicinity of my office... so I ended up at home with an end-of-week beer in my hand and nothing to eat.

Nothing of great interest in the fridge, but there was a bag of frozen tiger prawns in the freezer. I've made Gambas al Pil Pil (Spanish style prawns in chili garlic olive oil) on many occasion, including from frozen prawns, but wasn't really in the mood for them tonight.

The only other dish I could think of, given the limited ingredients in my fridge, was some kind of bodge-job curry. Now, I'll freely admit that Indian food isn't my forte. I'm much more comfortable with French, British, Chinese, Thai, Spanish... pretty much any other world cuisine. I put it down to many uninspiring, similarly bland curry house disappointments in my life.

I have on occasion had spectacular Indian food in the more ambitious or authentic restaurants, so I know the good stuff is out there, but I can't say that it's really part of my amateur chef's repertoire.

But tonight the limited available ingredients seemed to be shouting out "Curry". I won't claim for a second that what I cooked is in any way remotely authentic, but it's got more in common with curry than any other dish I can think of...

Curry Paste:

1 Large Onion

3 Spring Onions

5 Cloves of Garlic

1 Red Chili

1 Fennel Bulb (it was sitting in the fridge, so why not?)

2 Red Peppers (Tomatoes would have been nice but beggars can't be choosers)

Salt

Pepper

Pinch of sugar

Garam Malasa that was sitting in my cupboard

Blitz the whole lot up until it's a smooth paste. Fry in oil until aromatic, then add some hot water to stop it browning and sticking; and turn down the heat. Cook for an hour or two on a low simmer. Top up with hot water as needed to stop the sauce catching.

Once I had a nice looking curry sauce I threw in my frozen prawns, and a few minutes later some left-over cooked lentils. Then it was just a matter of waiting for the prawns to cook through - not long.

A final check for seasoning - maybe add a touch of vinegar / citrus to balance the flavours (my lentils were in a vinaigrette, so did the same job).

It's not authentic, bit it certainly hits the spot on a Friday night when your fridge is bare. And the beauty is that you could add or replace most of the ingredients in this recipe with something similar and still end up with a great meal.