Daab Chingri

It is sealed inside a green coconut with dough and slow-cooked in the shell it is served in.

Shellfish. Not vegetarian — contains shellfish.

Ingredients

• 2 tender green coconuts
• 600 g large prawns, shelled
• 3 tablespoons mustard oil, or butter or ghee
• 2 onions, finely chopped
• 1 tablespoon garlic paste
• 1 tablespoon ginger paste
• 1 teaspoon turmeric
• 4 green chillies, chopped
• 1 teaspoon ground red chilli
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 150 g plain flour, for the seal

Method

1. IT IS SEALED INSIDE A GREEN COCONUT WITH DOUGH AND SLOW-COOKED IN THE SHELL IT IS SERVED IN. Its article gives the whole thing in two sentences and every part of it is unusual: the ingredients are mixed together and STUFFED INTO A HOLLOWED TENDER COCONUT, which is then SEALED -- with DOUGH OR MUD, which its article names -- before being SLOW COOKED, and the completed dish is SERVED IN THE COCONUT SHELL IN WHICH IT WAS COOKED. So the coconut is the pot. Nothing is browned, nothing is reduced; the prawns cook in the coconut water and the shell's own flesh, and the seal is what keeps that in.
2. THE COCONUT IS TENDER AND GREEN, NOT BROWN AND MATURE. Its article says tender. A mature coconut has little water and hard flesh; a green one has soft, spoonable flesh that becomes part of the sauce.
3. THE TOP IS CUT OFF AS A LID AND KEPT. A clean cut about a third of the way down, so the lid sits back on.
4. SOME OF THE WATER COMES OUT AND SOME STAYS. Pour off about half. All of it left in and the filling boils rather than steams; all of it out and the prawns dry.
5. THE FILLING IS MIXED RAW, WHICH ITS ARTICLE SPECIFIES. The ingredients are MIXED TOGETHER and then stuffed in. No frying first. Onions, pastes, turmeric, chillies and mustard oil rubbed through the prawns by hand.
6. ITS ARTICLE OFFERS THREE FATS AND THEY ARE NOT THE SAME. Butter, ghee or mustard oil. Mustard oil is the sharp, pungent version; butter the mild one. This page takes the mustard oil.
7. THE SPICES GO ON TOP, NOT THROUGH. Its article says ON TOP ARE VARIOUS SPICES -- so a layer rather than a marinade, and they steam down into the filling.
8. THE SEAL IS A FLOUR-AND-WATER DOUGH ROLLED INTO A ROPE. Pressed round the join. Mud is the other way its article names and a kitchen can manage dough.
9. IT IS SLOW COOKED, AND THAT MEANS AN OVEN OR A STEAMER. A hundred and sixty degrees for forty-five minutes, or standing in a covered pan of simmering water for the same. Then the whole coconut goes to the table.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under India · All recipes