Quick Malaysian prawn curry

This Malaysian prawn curry is another of the dishes from my father's travels in Asia in the 1960s recorded in his personal journals. It's quick, easy and delicious and easily adapted if you prefer chicken to seafood or want a vegan option.

Ties that bind

This Malaysian prawn curry is another one of the dishes my father recorded in his journals while sailing all around the world in the 1960s. My father Denton describes how he and a colleague met up in Singapore with a young sailor for whom they had written successful letters of recommendation for the guy to be accepted on a prestigious deck officers' training programme. He records only his nickname: Blue Bottle. It's a convoluted reference to 'The Goon Show', because this guy had apparently shouted, "He's fallen in the water!" when some drunk sailor returning from shore leave missed his footing. And, of course, the nickname stuck.

Meeting for lunch on a hot day in Singapore, Blue Bottle insisted they have lunch at the establishment his family had run near Clifford Pier since decamping there from West Sumatra in the 1930s. Blue Bottle explained that the clientele were mostly seafarers; where he had first found a passion for wanting to go to sea, eavesdropping on stories of faraway places as he did his homework at one of the tables near the back.

Denton, of course, could not resist an opportunity to charm a recipe out of anyone. And, with Blue Bottle's aunt running the show on that day, and Blue Bottle captive to translate, it was a slam dunk as the kids say...

This is a delicious dish that really is quick and easy and has long been a go-to favourite when wanting to knock up something rapidly that also delivers on flavour.

This recipe is for 2 to 3 diners, but can be readily scaled up for larger groups in a fairly obvious, proportional way.

What should also probably be stated is that like a laksa or certain Thai curries, this is a curry where the sauce will remain fairly "thin". Here, you spoon the rice into the curry and not the other way round. Sorry if you already get this, but some people with whom I have shared the recipe have expected the sauce to "thicken up". Nope.

Tiger Balm Gardens (now Haw Par Villa); Singapore

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

• The sambal is at the heart of this curry, not in the sense of a Cape Malay curry (where it usually denotes a condiment) but as a paste that is used to kick-start the dish. It's somewhere between an Indian or Thai curry paste and a sambal oelek used in many Malaysian or Indonesian curries. So, take the time to get it right and cook it slowly

• With this one, it's really important to get to grips with how the whole tomatoes should cook in the sauce. You want them at the point that they cook and split, but are not entirely integrated into the overall the sauce. You still want that "explosion" of each tomato as you bite into it. Don't risk overcooking them

• Towards the end of the cooking process, you might notice how the oil and non-oil elements start to slightly separate. No, you haven't done anything wrong. In fact, the local yardstick is that that is when you know it's optimally cooked

Shopping list

for the Malaysian curry paste

• 4 small onions (or shallots), peeled and cut into large pieces

• 2 thumb's lengths of galangal; sliced

• 2 thumb's lengths of lemongrass; the white parts

• 3 thumb's lengths ginger; peeled

• 2 tspns mild Kashmiri chilli powder

• A large clutch of fresh coriander

• 1 tspn concentrated tomato purée

• 1 tspn coarse sea salt

• 4 tbspns peanut oil (or coconut oil)

• 3 cloves

• 1 tspn whole black peppercorns

• 3 fresh red chillies (i.e. mild-moderate varieties), deseeded

• Water, as needed

for the Malaysian prawn curry

• Approx. 350g raw king prawns, shelled

• 1 large red bell pepper; sliced vertically

• 200ml coconut milk (full fat)

• Approx. 125g baby corn; cut into large pieces

• 3 large sticks of celery; sliced into thick pieces

• Approx. 400g whole cherry tomatoes

• The juice and pulp of 1 fresh lime

• A stick of cinnamon

• 3 thumb's lengths of lemongrass; washed

• 3 or 4 green cardamoms; bruised

• 1 whole star anise

• Approx. 2 tbspns peanut oil (or sunflower oil)

• water, as needed

sides and condiments

• Rice — usually simple steamed white rice or jasmine rice

• Peanut and cucumber salad — I've not done it here (mainly because I didn't have any decent cucumber in) but this simple salad of diced cucumber, crushed peanuts, and chopped chillies dressed with a lime, minced raw ginger and soy dressing is one of my favourites

  
  

Cooking Method

the Malaysian curry paste

1. Add all of the larger solid ingredients to a mini-chopper or food processer and chop finely (you can also opt to do this with a pestle and mortar as per the original recipe). Then add the chilli powder

2. Slowly add the oil and tomato purée and chop into a thick paste containing "bits". You can do this some days before and store, covered in the fridge, returning to an ambient temperature when ready to cook the dish

the Malaysian prawn curry

1. Heat a little of the oil on a medium heat in a pot or wok with a lid. Add the cardamoms, lemongrass, cinnamon and star anise. As soon as the aromas are released, add all of your sambal (curry paste), reducing to a low-medium heat and stirring as it cooks. After about 5 or 6mins, it should begin to become a darker red

2. Add the bell pepper and stir in. Cook in the sambal for about 3mins, then add the celery pieces. Add approx.150ml water and stir in. Cook for a further 5mins.

3. Squeeze in the lime juice and pulp; add the baby sweetcorn. NB: if it has already become a little thick, add a little more water so that there's sufficient liquid in the pot for the veggies to cook at least half-submerged. Cover and simmer for approx. 10mins

4. Add the coconut milk (and a little water if needed). Re-cover and simmer for another 6 or 7mins, stirring occasionally. While it is simmering, add an additional handful of finely chopped coriander and stir in

5. After a couple of minutes, the sauce should be fairly smooth and well combined. Add all of the tomatoes at once. Re-cover and simmer for a further 7 to 10mins. You're waiting for that magic moment when the tomatoes have burst but are not yet fully disintegrated

6. Add all of the king prawns and stir in. Increase the heat slightly and cook uncovered for about about 4mins, stirring so that you can see when they are all fully cooked and fabulously pink. When that happens, immediately remove from the heat, and cover to keep warm

7. Plate or decant to a serving dish and take to table with the rice and any other desired side dishes

Alternatives

Until the king prawns go in, this is effectively a vegan dish. Unlike many spice pastes from neighbouring regions of Asia, this one does not involve any fish sauce, for example. One of the ways in which it is traditionally served as a vegan dish is with "puffed tofu". These are pieces of deep-fried tofu that are simply added at the same stage as the king prawns in the recipe above.

The carnivore versions of this dish most commonly involve very thin strips of beef marinated in ginger and soy that have been wokked for about 1min so that they are still fairly rare and finished off in the curry as with the seafood. In the case of chicken, it's marinated in the same way, but wokked until cooked before being added to the curry in the last minutes of cooking.

Pairings

As with many other curries, I usually seem to have this one with beer, with which it works really well. My default recommendation is obviously Tiger Original, something deeply bound up in my memories of my father and uncle and voyages to Singapore — as a kid I actually thought they brewed it in the Tiger Balm Gardens (now Haw Par Villa). However, on this occasion, I've ended up having it with a spritz of sparkling water and a dab of lime juice on ice, which is a great option.

When it comes to wine, I obviously instinctively head for one of my beloved South African chenin blancs: "the world's white wines most able to butch up to curry". But to say which in particular, I could not. This is a quick and easy (and obviously delicious) dish, so it's not one on which I have spent too much time contemplating the wine choice.