Prawn masala

Before you start

• prawns shelled and deveined before the pan goes on — once the masala is ready this takes three minutes

Ingredients

Serves 2 · dimmer marks are storecupboard

• 350gprawns — raw, shell off, deveined
• 70gbasmati rice
• 1½ tbspoil
• 2onions
• 1 tintinned tomatoes
• 1 thumbginger and garlic
• 2green chillies
• 2 tspgaram masala, turmeric and kashmiri chilli
• 1 handfulcoriander
• 1lime

Method

6 steps

1. chop · 8m

   Onions diced fine, ginger and garlic to a paste, chillies slit lengthways.

2. fold · 4m

   Prawns tossed with turmeric, a little chilli and salt and put back in the fridge while the masala is made.

3. fry · 20m

   Onion browned properly in the oil, then ginger-garlic, then the spices, then the tomatoes cooked down hard until the oil separates back out and the masala is dark rather than red.

4. boil · 12m walk away

   Rice on: rinsed, twice its volume of water, lid, lowest heat.

5. fry · 4m

   Heat up, prawns in, and turned for three minutes at most — until each one has gone from grey to opaque and curled into a C. Curled tight into an O they have gone too far, and no amount of sauce brings them back.

6. finish · 2m

   Off the heat, then coriander and lime. Salt now rather than earlier, since the prawns went in already salted.