Burmese Prawn Curry Recipe
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This Burmese prawn curry is the recipe featured in our first ever Cooking with Grandma video. In the video, Alvina Mangrai shows her granddaughter Alyssa how to make the curry that she first learned to make when she was pregnant and living in the United States after moving from Burma. Pat Tanumihardja, author of the blog The Asian Grandmothers Cookbook, transcribed the recipe and shared it with CHOW. She’ll also include it in her book, due out in either late 2009 or early 2010. This curry can be served with Alvina’s coconut rice, also shown in the video.
What to buy: Sambal oelek is a straight-up chile sauce, without garlic or any other flavors added. It is commonly used in Asian cooking and can be found in the Asian section of your market or online.
Photograph by Michael Skrzypek
- 1 pound medium prawns, peeled and deveined
- 5 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
- 2 teaspoons fish sauce
- 1 1/2 teaspoons Madras curry powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons turmeric powder
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger (from a 1-inch piece)
- 1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
- 2 teaspoons paprika
- 1 teaspoon prepared chile paste, such as sambal oelek
- 1 tablespoon chopped cilantro, plus a few extra sprigs for garnish
- Coconut Rice for serving
- Combine prawns, 1/2 the garlic, the fish sauce, curry powder, turmeric, and black pepper in a large bowl and set aside to marinate for 10 minutes.
- Heat the oil in a medium nonstick skillet over medium heat until it starts to shimmer. Add the remaining garlic and the ginger and cook and stir until fragrant, about 45 seconds. Add the onion and cook and stir until soft and translucent, about 3 to 4 minutes. Add the paprika and chile paste and stir until the onion is evenly coated.
- Add the prawns and arrange them in one layer on the bottom of the skillet. Raise the heat to medium high and cook until just opaque, about 3 minutes, turning the shrimp over halfway through. Then stir until the shrimp are fully cooked (cut into a piece for a peek). Sprinkle with chopped cilantro and stir with a couple more flourishes.
- Garnish with cilantro sprigs and serve with Coconut Rice and a vegetable side dish.
This is just so so the flavor is dominated by tumeric which destroys all the other flavors of the dish. It is shame the food does not eat like the photo looks
In the video, Grandma cooks the onions until translucent prior to adding garlic, and then ginger. She also made a couple of fish sauce additions to these sweating aromatics.
Spicy but bland? Now there's a recipe I can't wait to taste.Phewww!!!!!!
This was just ok. I found the curry mixture completely overwhelmed the shrimp with a strong bitter flavor. Spicy but bland. A suggestion from my hubby was maybe it needed to have some sweetness to it. I won't make this again. However, I think the coconut rice has potential.
I'm not familiar with Burmese food, but this recipe has a very similar flavor to a Syhleti (North-Eastern Bangladesh, formerly Assam) shrimp dish I grew up eating but have never known how to recreate. That being said, I did change a key ingredient. I don't use curry powder much and decided to just use what I had on hand - Spice Islands basic - which after googling around found out doesn't contain the curry leaves madras curry powder does but does contain dill seeds and quite a bit of turmeric, so I only added an additional 1/2 tsp. I also did the onions before the ginger/garlic.
Too bad others didn't enjoy it because I loved it. Thank you, Grandma Alvina!
Ahh, excuse me, I see that I misread: she learned after moving from Burma. Still, she apparently approves of this as a Burmese recipe...
cornFusion, the lady from whom the recipe was transcribed (and in the video) is Burmese. Unless there are significant ingredient discrepancies between the two, I think that a Burmese woman making a curry she made growing up in Burma is fairly authentic...
Just a thought!
Didn't care for this at all really. I think I'll make it again, and dump a can of pineapple in with it. It needs some sauce...
Lob
i would love the Bazun See Byan recipe, cornFusion...
Charming video, and tasty-looking dish. But this recipe is flat-out wrong. Alvina clearly put the onions in the oil first, and then the garlic, and finally the ginger. If you follow this recipe and put the garlic and ginger in first you will either burn the garlic or end up under-cooking the onion in a rush to add liquid in time to save the garlic.
This is more of an Indian Curry than Burmese - so not quite authentic, If you wish, please let me know and I shall be happy to provide a dish that is (not so easy to make but) authentic called "Bazun See Byan".