Cook Jhinga Mehrunnisa, The Easy Way
Ingredients
Big tiger prawns – 7 to 8
First marinade
• Ginger and garlic paste – 2 tsp
• Turmeric powder – 1/4 tsp
• Lemon juice – 1 tbsp
• Salt - as per taste
Second marinade
• Curd (thick) – 4 tbsp
• Kashmir Chilli powder – 1 1/2 tsp
• Roasted cumin and coriander powder – 1 tsp
• Lemon juice – 1 tbsp
• Oil – 2 tsp
• Garam masala – 1 tsp
• Salt - as per taste
Garnishing
• Onion (cut in rings) – 1
• Lemon
• Coriander leaves
• Chat masala – 1 tsp
Method
• First remove the head and deveined the prawn without removing its outer shell and tail. You can remove the shell but keep the tail. Remove black thread properly.
• Make a long cut on top of the prawn or make a slit, so that marinade penetrates well inside the shell of the prawn.
• Mix the first marinate and apply well on the big prawns.
• Refrigerate for 1/2hr.
• Preheat the pan add 1 tbsp of each coriander seeds and cumin seeds and roast them till you get nice aroma and its colour is slightly changed to brown. Allow to cool. Add all the ingredients of second marinade in a bowl and combine well, the marinate should be thick.
• Apply on each prawn well, so that the marinate penetrates inside nicely. Remember as the shell is on top, if the marinade is not penetrated inside well, after cooking the prawn meat may taste bland.
• Marinate for 2 hours or overnight in the fridge. Take out from the fridge 1/2 hour before cooking.
• Put in skewer and grill in tandoor or barbeque. basting or drizzling with oil, little by little in-between as per your choice. In the end only, I added butter to give extra taste and glaze.
• Prawns do not take more than 15 minutes to get perfectly grilled.
• Drizzle lemon juice and sprinkle chat masala just before plating.
• Serve Tandoori Prawns with Mint and Coriander Chutney.
-- Shaeem Mohammad Quraishi/Lucknow
(The author is a Lucknow-based freelance consultant chef with more than two decades of experience both in India and abroad. He specialises is Indian cuisine. Chef Shaeem began his culinary journey at The Ashok (ITDC) New Delhi, moved to Middle East thereafter, and has worked in luxurious properties such as Marriott, Millennium and Copthorne, ITC Fortune. Sarovar, Radisson hotel groups).