Butter Prawn

One fine day my good friend Dona's husband Angshuman (from Chennai) posted on his Facebook wall that he loved his dinner of Butter Prawns. And instantly I was tempted to make them. I always have frozen processed and semi-cooked prawns in my freezer so making them right away was not a big deal for me. 

How to make it....What all to use... etc. were the questions that popped in my head...

I definitely had butter with me (how can I possibly make butter prawns without lots of butter)...I made a quick plan to use some garlic and the shallots I had got almost a week back but not used till now..Since the germination of the whole idea to make butter prawns came all the way from Chennai I thought of using Curry leaves too...Now let's get going and make this delicious prawn!!

What all I used :

(Serves 2)

• Prawn - about 20 of them

• Garlic - few pods

• Curry leaves - few

• Green chilly - 2-3

• Shallot - 2-3

• Butter - a generous scoop

How I made it :

• Since the prawns I used here are already processed, I am saving a lot of time. You please clean, de-vein and wash your prawns properly, if you are using the raw / fresh ones.

• I had kept the tails on, just to add that crunchiness. If you want you may take them off too.

• Use any kind of prawns you want - jumbo, small, anything that you can lay your hands on.

• Using shallots was just an instant idea that came to me. Shallots are almost like the regular onions, so in case you don't find shallots, use the red onions instead. First look of Shallots for you -

 

• Peel the garlic pods and chop them into fine tiny pieces.

• Now take a open wide non stick pan, put it on medium heat.

• Add the butter in it and let it warm up, leave bubbles and turn slightly golden. Keep a close eye on it as very quickly it might just get burnt (we don't want that!!!).

• Add in the chopped garlic and fry them on low heat.

• Wash the curry leaves and add them now.

• Fry the garlic till they turn slightly golden brown.

• You should have got your prawns ready by now.

• Chop the green chillies into tiny pieces so that they get mixed well with other ingredients.

• Chop the shallots (or onions if you using them) into very tiny pieces. I want you to get the taste of the shallots but they should be tiny enough that once they get cooked you will not be able to separate them much from the prawns.

• Once the garlic is golden brown, add the prawns. Also put in the green chillies.

• Mix well and sauté them on medium heat. If you using raw / fresh prawns (small-medium sized ones), you will need about ten minutes to get them cooked, and also better to cover and cook them - generally works out quicker!!

• For my semi-cooked prawns, I gave them about two minutes and then added the finely chopped shallot.

• You will see by now that the prawns will be getting a nice brown colour now and let us not forget the buttery aroma.

• I wanted my prawns and shallots crunchy so I let the whole thing fry a little bit extra. But you might just want to switch off the gas in about maximum three-five minutes once you have added the shallots (since they have been cut so tiny they will get cooked pretty fast).

You can serve it as a starter or else you can savour it as a dry side dish in your main course.