Sri Lankan (Ceylon) Prawn or Shrimp Curry.
Friday, July 11th, 2008As 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.