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Prawns, Malay Curry Of
Pick some prawns from their shells; let them be a pint when prepared. Rasp the half of a large cocoa-nut into two spoonfuls of hot water, and then smooth it through a sieve. Stew the prawns very gently with a shredded onion and enough good mutton or veal broth to cover. See that the broth is well seasoned, and put in a stick of cinnamon. When the prawns are getting tender, mix two dessert-spoonfuls of curry-powder in a little cold broth, add it to the rest in the stewpan, and simmer for a few minutes. Take out the prawns, and strain the gravy over them into a clean pan; make hot, and add the rasped cocoa-nut, and flour enough to thicken, which should be mixed with some of the nutmilk. Let all simmer gently for a few minutes, and serve with juice of lemon and boiled rice in a separate dish. Time, one hour. Sufficient for a dish.
A Victorian Anglo-Indian curry that goes wrong in only one place: the prawns are treated like stewing meat. Everything else translates cleanly.
- Cook the prawns for minutes, not until "tender"Peeled prawns are done in two to three minutes in barely simmering liquid, and firm up to rubber after that. Build the broth, onion and cinnamon first, simmer that until the onion is soft and the liquid tastes of something, then add the prawns at the end. The stated hour is best read as covering the whole preparation rather than an hour of prawns over heat.
- A pint of picked prawnsVolume, not weight: roughly a pound of peeled prawns, which means about two pounds shell-on. Keep the shells and heads and simmer them in the broth for ten minutes before straining, which is the flavour the original gets from cooking the prawns to death.
- Rasped cocoa-nut and "nutmilk"Grating half a coconut with two spoonfuls of hot water and pressing it through a sieve is how a nineteenth-century kitchen made coconut milk; the water quantity is clearly understated for the volume of nut. One cup of tinned full-fat coconut milk does the same work. "Nutmilk" later in the recipe is that same liquid, used to slake the flour.
- Curry-powderTwo dessertspoons is about two rounded teaspoons each, so roughly four teaspoons total. Victorian commercial curry powder was turmeric-heavy and mild; a modern Madras blend is stronger, so start with less and taste. Frying the powder briefly in a little fat with the onion, rather than only slurrying it in cold broth, gives a rounder flavour.
- Mutton or veal brothBoth are hard to buy. Light chicken stock is the closest substitute; a shellfish stock made from the prawn shells is better still and more in keeping with the dish.
- ThickeningFlour slaked in coconut milk, then simmered a few minutes, is the method. Two teaspoons is enough for a cup or so of gravy. Do not let it boil hard once the coconut milk is in, or the sauce splits and turns grainy.
- Yield and serving"Sufficient for a dish" is the book's yield note, probably indicating one dish among several at a Victorian table; as a main course with rice it feeds three or four. The lemon juice goes in off the heat, at the last moment.
Cassell's prints this among a long run of curries that reflect how thoroughly Indian and Southeast Asian cooking had been absorbed into the British repertoire by the late nineteenth century, filtered through returning colonial households and the commercial curry powders sold by firms such as Crosse & Blackwell. The "Malay" label in Victorian cookbooks is loose, generally signalling coconut rather than any specific Malay dish, and the combination of coconut milk, onion, whole cinnamon and shellfish is at least consistent with the Straits Settlements, where Singapore and Penang were British ports and a familiar posting. What marks it as English rather than Malay is the base: mutton or veal broth instead of a pounded spice paste and stock made from the prawns themselves, and a flour-thickened gravy of the sort every Victorian cook could produce without thinking. Rice served separately, in its own dish, was the usual English convention for curry and remained so well into the twentieth century.