Prawn Patia for #RandomRecipeChallenge

I am either very brave or rather reckless.  The other night, I invited folks over for dinner to try out a whole new randomly chosen recipe, one I had never made before.  Granted, they were mostly college students and two of them were my daughters so it wasn’t a tough crowd.  But time was getting short (again!) for participating in +belleau kitchen's Random Recipe Challenge where, according to this month’s rules, we were supposed to make a recipe we had clipped and saved from a magazine or newspaper and this was the clipping I had chosen for this month.

It has been among my recipe clippings for a very long time but I had yet to try it.  I have no idea of its provenance so I can’t give credit where due.  But I looked up Prawn Patia on the ever-helpful internet to discover that it is originally a Persian dish that made its way to India with the Parsees.  Who knew?  All I can tell you is that it was roundly acclaimed delicious and I am sorry it took me so long to get around to cooking it.  If you have cookbooks you are under-using or clippings that have been neglected, you might want to start accepting the Random Recipe Challenge as well!

Ingredients
1 1/2 lbs or 600g raw prawns or shrimp (peeled and deveined)
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon turmeric (I screwed up and used ground cumin instead – didn’t miss it, still delicious.  If you are a fan of cumin, you might want to do the same.)
1 teaspoon cayenne
3 onions
3 large tomatoes or 5 Roma tomatoes
Olive oil
1 large bunch cilantro or fresh coriander
1-2 green chilies or jalapeños
3 cloves garlic
2 inches or 5cm piece fresh ginger
2 teaspoons ground cumin
1 heaped teaspoon brown sugar
1 tablespoon fresh lime juice (As you can see, the original recipe called for tamarind but I couldn’t find any here in Providence.)

Method
Put your prawns in a large bowl and sprinkle on the salt, cayenne and turmeric (or cumin - see note above in Ingredients.)  Give the whole thing a good stir and set aside.

Slice your onions finely then chop your tomatoes.

Sauté the onions, with a good couple of glugs of olive oil, in a large pot that is big enough for all of your ingredients.

Meanwhile, peel and mince the ginger and garlic.  Finely chop your fresh pepper/s.

Wash the cilantro and chop the stem end of the bunch.  Add the chopped stems to the prawns and stir.  Chop the rest of the cilantro roughly and set aside.

Yeah, there are some leaves in there too.  Don't sweat the small stuff. 

Cook the onions down until they are completely soft and possibly a little golden in color.  Add the garlic, ginger and peppers to the pot and cook briefly before adding in the tomatoes.

Cook until the onions and tomatoes have melted into a sauce.  Add in the cumin and stir well.

Add the prawns and half of the chopped cilantro. and cook until the prawns are done, which shouldn’t take more than 10-15 minutes.  Taste for salt and add a little more, if necessary.

Add in your fresh lime juice and brown sugar.  Stir well and serve.

Use the balance of the chopped cilantro for garnish.  I served this on top of coconut rice that my younger daughter made with this recipe except we skipped the extra grated coconut.  The coconut flavor made a lovely addition to the dish.  In fact next time, I might just add the coconut milk to the prawns and serve this over normal white rice.

Enjoy!

Head on over to Dom’s blog and have a look at all the lovely Random Recipes my fellow bloggers have posted this month.  

Rich Gingerbread Muffins with Honey Ginger Glaze #MuffinMonday

Rich Gingerbread Muffins are perfectly complemented by a honey ginger glaze and decorated with crystallized ginger. These are a treat for autumn, Christmas or anytime! 

When my girls were still living at home, we had an afternoon routine.  When they got back from school, I had a snack ready for them.  Sometimes it was simple and healthy like apples cut into little boats with sweetened yogurt in which to dip them.  Often it was cookies or muffins or a cake that I had baked.  We’d sit around the coffee table and they would eat their snacks and we would talk about the day, anything interesting that happened at school or something they learned.  Then we’d move onto what they had for homework.

This took as little as 15 minutes or sometimes as much as half an hour but I loved the time reconnecting with them and fueling them for the homework ahead.  Around this time of year, one of the favorite treats I would bake was gingerbread.  I’d usually double our favorite Good Housekeeping recipe to make a big pan and it didn’t take more than a day or two for the whole thing to disappear.

We lived in the tropics so there weren’t any seasonal hints that Christmas was coming.  But the rich, spicy aroma of gingerbread baking in the oven was enough to get us all thinking Christmassy thoughts.

When I got this week’s Muffin Monday email, I was delighted to see a gingerbread recipe.  I haven’t made any yet this year and my Christmas spirit could sure use a boost.  In usual Holiday Series pimp-my-muffin fashion, I have added in mincemeat pie filling, a honey ginger glaze and some chopped crystallized ginger for topping.  

Rich Gingerbread Muffins with Honey Ginger Glaze

The house smelled like old times and I am grateful that my girls will be home soon for the Christmas break, because it made me miss them even more.  

Ingredients
For the muffins:
1/2 cup or 110g sugar
2 1/2 cups or 315g flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 cup or 120ml molasses or treacle
1/2 cup or 155g mincemeat pie filling
1/4 cup or 60ml milk
2 large eggs
1/2 cup or 120g butter, melted and cooled

For honey ginger glaze:
1/2 cup or 120ml honey
Small slice fresh ginger
1 tablespoon butter
Pinch salt

For sprinkling on top:
1/4 cup pieces of crystallized ginger

Method
Preheat the oven to 350°F or 180°C.  Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper cases or butter your muffin pan liberally.

Mix your sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ground ginger and cinnamon in a big bowl.

In a smaller bowl, mix your molasses, mincemeat pie filling, milk, eggs and melted butter.
Whisk well.

This stuff looks black and, frankly horrible, and it made me burst into a song from my childhood.  Which is still circling in my head like an earworm so permit me to share.  After all, an earworm shared is a gift that keeps on giving.  Merry Christmas!  No need to thank me.

“When up through the ground come a bubbling crude.  Oil, that is!  Black gold!  Texas Tea!”   Sorry, sorry!  Back to the recipe at hand.  Like Jed’s find, your black gold is going to make you rich.  A rich gingerbread muffin, that is.

Pour your wet ingredients, here on out to be known as black gold, into your dry ones and fold until just combined.

Told you it was black!  Everybody, sing with me! 

Spoon or scoop the batter into your prepared muffin cups.   I could have managed to just squeeze all that batter into 12 cups but my dear husband was taking these muffins in to his office to share and I figured 16 was better than 12 for those purposes.

Bake in your preheated oven for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick or wooden skewer comes out clean.

Meanwhile, chop the crystallized ginger into little bitty pieces and set aside.

Remove the muffin pan from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes.

Remove the muffins from the pan and cool completely on a rack.

Once your muffins are cool, you can make the glaze.  Measure out your honey and butter into a small saucepan, adding the one slice of fresh ginger and the pinch of salt.

Let it come to a boil and then continue to boil for a couple of minutes.

Allow to cool slightly and then, using a spoon, start drizzling your glaze on the muffins.

Top each glazed muffin with some crystallized ginger and then drizzle a little more glaze to make sure the ginger stays on.

If your glaze starts to get too thick as it cools, just warm it gently on the stove until it is drizzling consistency once more.

This one is for Cecilie.  The cut of wood off the bottom of our Christmas.  Mmm. Pine.

Enjoy!

Pumpkin Hazelnut Marshmallow Muffins #MuffinMonday

This week’s Muffin Monday recipe was left WIDE OPEN.  No specific recipe to recreate, just a main ingredient to include: Pumpkin.  I think the point was Halloween but I decided to go all Southern Christmas on you.

You know those baked yams or sweet potatoes we make for the holidays down south?  You’ve had them:  Baked with brown sugar and cinnamon and nuts?  Plus mini marshmallows sprinkled all over?  (If you haven’t had them, my condolences.) Anyhoo, here they are in muffin form but made much easier because you just have to open a can of pumpkin, which is an excellent substitute for sweet potato, and you are ready to mix it up and bake.

Then again, sometimes the hardest part is opening the can.

Guess whose can opener went in the airfreight shipment to Dubai?  Thank God for my handy husband and his hacksaw.

The whole house smelled like Christmas.  Is it too early for your house to smell like Christmas?  I thought not.

Ingredients
For the muffins
2 cups or 250g plain flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup or 95g light brown sugar
1/3 cup or 80ml buttermilk (You can substitute 1 teaspoon of white vinegar and enough milk to make up 1/3 cup or 80ml - which I did.)
2 medium eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup or 80g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
11 1/2 oz or 330g canned pumpkin (about 3/4 of the regular sized can)
3/4 cup or 120g hazelnuts or pecans (Set aside 12 for the tops of the muffins after roasting)  I used hazelnuts.
1/2 cup or 25g mini marshmallows

For the topping:  About 1/4 cup or 55g sugar mixed with 2 teaspoons cinnamon plus one nut per muffin.  You may not use all the cinnamon sugar but save the balance in a Ziploc for cinnamon toast.  Your family will thank you.

Method
Preheat the oven to 375°F or 190°C and grease your muffin tin well or line with papers.

Pop the nuts in a baking pan and put them in the preheating oven.  Set a timer for three minutes.

Put flour, brown sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and ginger into a large bowl.  Mix and mash the lumps of brown sugar until you have a lovely homogeneous mixture.

Yeah, the cinnamon and ginger aren't there in the photo but they got in the muffins. 

Shake the nuts when the timer goes off and reset it.

In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, buttermilk (or substitute), vanilla and butter together.

Shake the nuts when the timer goes off and reset it.  The brown skins should start coming off as your oven gets up to speed and the nuts start actually toasting.  (If you are using pecans, just remove them from the oven at this point or after they have browned slightly.)

Add the pumpkin to the wet ingredients and whisk to incorporate.

Shake the nuts when the timer goes off.  If they smell like they are toasted and the skins are mostly starting to fall off when you shake the pan, they are probably done.

Pour the nuts into a clean dry tea cloth or towel and rub them until the peels are off and you can pick out the clean nuts.  Keep rubbing until the hazelnuts are all (mostly) peeled.  A little skin won’t kill you, as far as I know.

Set aside 12 nuts to top the muffins and chop the rest roughly.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold until just mixed through.

Fold in the marshmallows and chopped hazelnuts.

Divide the batter between your muffin cups and then top with a generous sprinkling of cinnamon sugar and one toasted hazelnut each.

Bake in the preheated oven for around 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Remove and allow to cool for a few minutes before removing the muffins from the tin and cooling further on rack.

May I be the first to say to you, Merry Christmas!   If I am not the first, you need to find some less crazy friends to hang around with.  It’s not even Halloween, for goodness sake!

Enjoy!