This is my seventh post in the category of chutneys. My childhood memories of food are mostly connected to gruel and chutney which happened to be my mom's comfort food. This is how I remember it. We would refuse to eat our dinner or lunch when offered by our maidservant and wait for mom to come from the hospital. I can still see her entering the house clad in white. When asked what she would like for her dinner she would emphatically state 'kanjim, chammandim' or pickle if a chutney wasn't prepared that day. And with her spoon came 3 little spoons for watching mom relish her meal made us hungry and we all wanted our share. I doubt if mom ever ate peacefully till I was 10. I can still hear the maidservant yell ' pattini kidanna chantha pillere pole perumararuthu'- Don't behave like starving kids from the market. The translation cannot do any justice to how this comment sounded in Malayalam. In fact when we went for a vacation to Kerala and were asked by a bemused group of relatives what we preferred to eat, I blurted kanji chamandi to the dismay of them all who expected some fanciful hotdogs or hamburgers. Mom never failed initiating us to chillies so at our home we had nothing special prepared for kids. We ate what mom and dad ate. I see a lot of parents fussing over how their kids can't take spices but I still remember nibbling over a green chilli from a pickle and being warned b mom that too many chillies would give me a tummy ache. So chutneys happen to be a favourite. This time on our trip to Pichavaram my hubby an I asked the boatman what was famous in Pichavaram and doubting if we were non vegetarians, he paused and said dried prawns. And true to his word we found out families drying prawns on the road on our way back. We were super excited at this because we both loved dried prawns and I had conjured up ten recipes in which I could use dry prawns. We got nearly 2 kgs for Rs 125 and I think that was a great bargain. The moment we landed home after a long drive I went ahead and made this the same night for dinner. It's a simple chutney but requires coconut. I have spicy chutney for non coconut users but I''ll post it some other day.
Ingredients for Dry Prawns Chutney
Dry prawns- 25 g
Green Chillies- 4
Shallots- 5-6
Curry leaves- 1 sprig
Coconut- half a shell
Salt- to taste
Tamarind- size of a lemon ball
Directions
Fry the dry prawns in a pan with a tbsp of oil till it turns red. You can take away the head and tail of the prawns if you don't like it but I didn't. Let the fried prawns cool a bit. Meanwhile add all the other ingredients except salt and tamarind into a grinder bowl and coarsely grind it.
Now add the dry prawns and grind well.Transfer the ground paste to a bowl. Add salt and the tamarind pulp and mix well. Your chutney is ready. If you liked this chutney you should definitely try the dry fish chutney and it does not have coconut in it. Please check this post for the recipe. http://ooonuready.blogspot.in/2011/05/onakkameen-chamandi-dry-fish-chutney.html
I learned some new chutneys recently at my home because I wanted to cut down the use of coconut in chutneys. One of the best rated one by my family was a ginger chutney taught by my neighbor Rupa. I'll post them here soon, so stay tuned till then. God bless!
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