It’s hard to get bored with food if you always tweak the recipes you use. I do that, even with my own creations. If the result is great, I’ll share it as an update, which is what I am doing today.

In May, I posted an article and recipe for Fusion Duck Curry. At the time I was eating the curry, I made a note that I would like to try it with the addition of curry leaves and garam masala.

Well, some time has passed and I was asked if I would cook the dish again. As I did that, I saw my note to try the variation. So I added 3 sprigs of curry leaves at the same time as the sliced onions, and ½ teaspoon garam masala together with the other spice powders. I also reduced the water to 1 cup, and reduced the heat to get the barest of simmers. Cooking time was the same.

It worked wonderfully, with a thicker, more flavourful gravy. Try it, you will not be disappointed I assure you.

As a kid, whilst Ceylonese Banana Leaf Cuisine was a treat, prawn or shrimp curries were not on my list of favourites. When it came to prawn curry, we had a choice of ‘wet’ prawn curry, ie a prawn / shrimp curry with gravy, generally with smaller prawns, or a ‘dry’ prawn curry, ie. stir-fried prawns, generally larger ones. The larger ones would be salt-water prawns, as Tiger Prawns were unknown back then.As we bought the curries from restaurants, the prawns were usually cooked shell-on to save time, hence my dislike of them; I was never one to eat the heads, so the shell was just a needless nuisance at that time.

Today, a spicy stir-fry of prawns (shrimp) has certainly become one of my favourites, though I do remove the shells for cooking. And yes, I am partial to a nice prawn curry with gravy.

The stir-fry that I like is a visual treat with the different colours of the ingredients and the great texture of the dish - yellow from the turmeric, red from the slivers of ground chilli and sliced onions, green from the sliced chillies and curry leaves, black from the pepper and mustard seeds and the golden colour of fried garlic. All these, with a taste and aroma to match.

Full Article and Recipe