Prawn Pistachio Pasanda

This is a very flavoursome curry, the pistachios really make this dish and the taste is quite different to your normal creamy base.

It features in ‘Curry Up’ but this is a slight variation from the cookbook and uses powders not the seeds.

You can use chicken, veggies, tofu or whatever you fancy in the curry. Also, you can make this Vegan, just use coconut oil to replace the ghee, coconut cream to replace the yoghurt or soya yoghurt, and replace the honey with maple syrup.

Ingredients:

Serves 2

1 tbsp. ghee

1 onion, chopped roughly

1/2 chillies depending on taste, removed the stem

3 cloves of garlic, peeled

50g ginger, chopped roughly (no need to peel)

1 heap tbsp. Coriander powder

1 tbsp. Cumin powder

1/2 tbsp. Fenugreek powder

8 green cardamom, seeds only

1 tsp turmeric

1 cinnamon stick

60g pistachio nuts, de-shelled

50g coconut cream block

100ml water

1 tbsp. Tomato puree

200g natural yoghurt

Juice of 1 lemon

1 heap tbsp. runny honey

2 tsp. garam masala

10-12 large prawns (5/6 person)

Method:

Heat the ghee and fry the onions, chilli, garlic and ginger until the onions have softened but not browned. Add the coriander/cumin powder, fenugreek, cardamom, turmeric, cinnamon and coat the onions with these spices. Season with salt. Add all of this to a blender/ smoothie maker with the pistachios and coconut cream block. Blend to a smooth paste.

Scrape this paste back into the pan, also pour a little water into the tub and shake to get out all of the paste, pour this into the pan too. Keep the heat on a simmer and cook this paste a little more, add the 100ml water. Add the tomato puree and the yoghurt.

Make sure you keep stirring as this will stick and spit a little. Add the lemon juice, honey and the garam masala and taste. Add more salt if needed.

Add the prawns and cook for 5 minutes, or until cooked.

Serve with extra chopped up pistachios sprinkled on top.