Prawn Patia and Notes on a Scandal

As promised a recipe. I've been rediscovering cooking Indian after a few years of 'I can't eat that! It's too f-ing hot!!' which limited me to butter chicken. Which is apparently an interesting side effect of kidney failure.

The following recipe called for 1.5kg of uncooked prawns. That would cost alot, so this was replaced with 350gm of cooked shrimps, some mushrooms and some peas. Tasted fine to me.

Process in blender: 400g can tomatoes; 2 large green chillis (i pulled the seeds out); 60g of jaggery (i have no idea wot this is, so it wasnt in mine); 1T tamarind concentrate; 1/4c tomato paste; 1/3c firmly packed fresh coriander

heat ghee (unsalted butter in my case) in pan, cook 2 large chopped onions and 4 cloves garlic until slightly browned; add 2t gnd coriander, 2t garam masala, 2t gnd cumin, 1t gnd turmeric, 1t hot chilli powder and stir until mixed and fragrant.
Add tomato mixture and 8 curry leaves (I didn't bother with this either) bring to boil, then simmer for 10 minutes to thicken it. Add shrimps, mushrooms and peas, cook and stir for 5 minutes and serve.

I served with rice and some raita.

The new Judi Dench movie, Notes on a Scandal with Cate Blanchett is excellent. Based on the Zoe Heller novel it concerns a meddlesome and manipulative old teacher (Dench) who has friendships with younger teachers (Blanchett). I'd say more but it would probably need spoilers so instead: great movie, brillant casting, tight script. The other actors including Bill Nighy are largely irrelevant and fade into the background, both in terms of story and acting. Although Nighy is really good at fading into the background and his character is largely irrelevant, so in that respect he was well cast. The music is a step up from a lot of movies, thanks to Philip Glass. Go see it, intelligent, funny, black and twisted movie - loved it!

b.