The Gas and film Disaster, and Butter Garlic Prawns. Continued from Fridays incidents

Post the gas debacle on Friday, we woke up to a fresh morning the next day. The first thing on our mind was to procure the LPG, so that the half cooked chicken could be finished and then polished off. I had gone out to buy some smokes as we had run out of it, and I chanced upon a vendor. It was just blissful to meet him. We did manage to get a cylinder at a premium price of course but it didn’t matter.

The chicken was prepared and devoured by us and we settled down to watch some television. In all this fun I completely forgot that an old colleague, Mukesh was to come home. We used to work together during my Star TV days and now he once again works for the same company as me. He had a review meeting on Monday so I had asked him to come for the weekend so that we could chill. In between all the lazing he calls that he will be reaching home in an hour, so I asked Sagar if I could call him over as well. Sagar was cool about it so Mukesh came over. The dude walks in with beer, and we knew Saturday is going to be interesting. Well I guess I said that too early, during one of those beers we decided to go and watch a film that night. Believe you me it was a disaster. The director lost the plot somewhere and we felt lost for sure. The only saving grace of the film was the female protagonist. She was like a breath of fresh air in all the pollution and chaos caused on screen. Anyways we all make mistakes.

Sunday first half was really lazy until Sagar had to go fetch his mother from the airport, Yes !!!! Exactly the same aunty whose world famous Pepper chicken I spoke about earlier. So I will get to eat the real deal and I shall tell you all about it. So, we headed home and on the way decided to eat something good. The mood was fish / seafood so we chose to stick to my tried and tested Butter garlic Prawns and Surmai (King fish) baked in tomato sauce (my first attempt which Mukesh volunteered to try) to be served with steam rice. Of course we planned to have some caprioska by the time the food got ready. The mood was set, there was good music , cocktail and of course  hopefully good food. I shall start with the Butter Garlic prawn. Trust me guys you can’t go wrong with this and it’s a must try. I mean you just can’t go wrong with delicious ingredients like Butter, Garlic and Prawn. They all are in their own self divine. Here you Go:

What you need:

Butter 300gms  ( Be liberal )

Prawns 20 medium/ large, with the tail, but not the really huge ones. Makes it look good.

Pepper as per taste

Lots of Garlic Very finely chopped.

Fresh Garlic paste.

Spring onions 2

What you need to do:

Wash and DE-vein the prawn. Add a couple of teaspoons of vinegar to the prawn while washing. It will help you lower the fishy smell ( Thanks S.K for this tip, would have never known without you telling me about it. Its such a help while cooking fish). To this add 2 tbsp of fresh garlic paste and leave it in the fridge.

Now chop the spring onions along with the bulb but keep the bulb separate.  Fine chop the garlic and by lots I mean a lot. At least 25 clean cloves.

Once that’s done, take a non- stick pan, on a high flame add the butter to it. When the butter begins to sizzle, add the garlic and the bulb of the spring onion to it and keep stirring. Once it’s slightly brown add the greens of the spring onion and flow that up with the prawns after 2 minutes. Don’t cook the greens too much. Now keep stirring, and add the pepper powder. Stir for another 2 minutes and turn off the Gas. Remember to have the flame on high all through. The whole process should take you not more than 8-9 minutes.

Note:

Ø  Please try and use peppercorns that you have powdered in a mortar and pestle or even a blender so that it’s not completely a powder but also has granules. Crushed peppercorns. You can use white pepper if you know someone who is allergic to pepper. 

Ø  The easiest way to finely chop the garlic is, take a chef knife, place the garlic on the chopping board in a heap place the tip of the knife on the board and just move the base of the knife up and down like a hand pump, bring the garlic in a heap every now and then.

Ø  Remember, prawn cooks really quickly, if you over cook, it will become rubbery. Hence the time span for your entire cooking process should be, 4minutes for the garlic and spring onion bulb to brown, 2 minutes for the spring onion greens and 3 minutes for the prawns. You can adjust the time as per your choice though. The prawns will turn pink and its done. One final thing if you feel the prawn isn’t cooked after 3 minutes don’t panic or over cook. Just leave it covered for a few minutes. And it will cook in the heat.

Ø  And lastly, I haven’t mentioned salt as butter will have its share of salt. So add salt only if you want more. A good cook always tastes his food. Don’t be shy to do that.

Go ahead and enjoy. This one is a guarantee.