Chemmeen Muringavaal Curry (King Prawns and Drumsticks in Thick Coconut Gravy)

Chemmeen Muringavaal Curry (King Prawns and Drumstick in thick coconut gravy) is my mother's signature Dish. I don't think I had it from anywhere else before. It's my dad's, husband's and his friends' favorite curry. My mom makes excellent food in a very simple way, and yet they turn out too good . But She doesnt do as much as experiments as I do and doesnt dare to cook from magazines or books too much. This is one of the curries that my husband's friends ask my mom to prepare when they visit us. My husband always used to ask me to learn from her when I was living with my parents, I just felt so lazy to cook and so dint learn many of her recipes. I learnt my basic cooking by making distant phone calls to my mom and writing down the recipes and through enormous experiments done in my kitchen, until I got the desired result. My Husband is my greatest inspiration and critic. When anything goes wrong, he tells on spot and I try to correct it and make it perfect. If he wasnt there to critisize, I would have still been struggling to find where my mistakes are! Anyways, this curry can be made for lunch along with rice or for dinner along with neypathal (Fried rice pancake) which I will post the recipe soon, Thengapathal,Ottil pollichathu,marichedutha Appam,poori,chappathi etc.

Ingredients:
225 gm (shelled) Large King prawns (23 pieces)
2 large Drumsticks peeled and cut into 2" length (15 pieces)
1 cup chopped tomatoes (3 small ones)
2 cups chopped onion (2 medium)
Green chilli – 2 nos (slit lengthwise)(Optional)
1 tbs Kashmiri Chilli Powder
1 tsp Coriander Powder
1/2 tsp Turmeric powder
3/4 cup Freshly Grated Coconut or dessicated coconut
1tsp Fennel seeds (perumjeerakam)
Salt – as reqd
1 cup + 1 1/2 cup Water
1 tsp Mustard seeds
3 twigs Curry leaves
3 tbs Coconut oil

Preparation:

1. Keep a medium sized sauce pan on medium heat and add 1 tbs of oil.
2. Add onions, tomatoes, green chilli and salt and close the lid and cook for about 10 minutes or until onions turns translucent and cooked and tomatoes go soft.
3. At this point, add chilli powder, coriander powder, turmeric powder and prawns and stir well. Keep simmering on medium heat for about 3-4 minutes until the prawns and well coated in spices.
4. Add the Drumsticks and add enough water to cover it (I added 1 1/2 cups of water). Cover and cook until the prawns and drumsticks are cooked well for about 25 minutes.
5. Meanwhile grind the fennel seeds along with coconut and 1 cup of water. Keep them aside.
6. When prawns and drumsticks are cooked well, and the gravy is thick, add the ground coconut and boil for a minute.Turn off the heat and temper.

For tempering :
Heat another pan and add 2 tablespoon of oil. When the pan is smoking hot, add mustard seeds and cover with a lid. As soon as they finished spluttering, add curry leaves and let them splutter for a few seconds. Add this tempered oil to the curry made earlier. Serve hot with plain rice, thengapathal, ottil pollichathu,chappathi, poori, battura,fried Rice pancakes (Neypathal) etc...

Notes:
1. You can do the tempering in the beginning also.For that, Add oil,splutter mustards,curryleaves, then add onions and tomatoes and follow the rest as usual.
2. I normally skip the green chillies because the green chillies I get here are so spicy and it makes the curry very fiery.