by Jhumki Sen

Created on: November 22, 2010

Mustard shrimp steamed in a young coconut shell

 If you thought chicken tandoori, and paneer butter masala were the highlights of Indian cuisine, reset your buttons, my recipe Daab Chingri (shrimp cooked in tender coconut and its juices) will have you thinking of Indian food in a whole new way.  When it comes to food and cooking, Indians are perhaps second only to the Italians to claim supremacy in the realm of taste and variety of their cooking. For my favorite Indian recipe I will draw on a poignant childhood memory, this is a dish specific to Bengal region of India.  The keys to success for this recipe are the mustard oil and an actual young coconut. Any substitution of these two ingredients will mess with the taste…

Get two pounds of tiger shrimp (prawns as they are called back home), clean, devein, and wash them. In a bowl mix together salt, turmeric (a teaspoonful of each will do) and the fish.

If you have freshly grated coconut, that is ideal, but if you don’t, get a cup of the frozen kind, add a little milk to it and microwave for about 45 seconds to get its juices flowing. Add that to your fish.

Slit small Indian chilies lengthwise and drop them in as well.  If using any other kind of chili peppers get the hottest kind you can find.  The aroma of the fresh chilies as much as the heat contributes to the overall effect.

Pour about a third of a cup of mustard oil into the bowl. Like I said before, any other oil will not have the kick that complements the chilies and the coconut. Get a bottle at you local Indian grocery store.

The other main ingredient is freshly ground mustard seeds.  Don’t get the powdered or the paste kind.  The Indian store sells the whole brown mustard seeds that you can soak for a few hours and grind to a fresh aromatic paste.  About 2 tablespoons of that should go into your mix. Mix gently and preheat your oven to about 300 degrees.

Chop the top off the coconut (daab), drain the water (drink it, it is delicious sweet and refreshing with a cube of ice), and clean the outside with a damp cloth. Pour the shrimp mix into the cavity of the coconut.  Young coconuts have sweet and tender flesh on the insides that will integrate with your shrimp and do great things to it.

Top off with just a little more of the mustard oil, and cover loosely with the chopped off top.  Set it in the oven and bake for about 20-25 minutes.  The smell of the mustard seeds and the juices from the coconut will be a sign that your fish is done. Shrimp does not take long to cook and over cooking will toughen the flesh.

Remove from the oven and let the steam escape by venting the lid. Serve the shrimp in the coconut shell, a better bowl would be hard to come by.

Steamed rice is the perfect side dish, and a Bengali would dig into it with his hand. Feel free to use a fork yourself. If you are feeling less than adventurous, use about a spoon and a half of the mustard paste, but do not skimp on the oil or the coconut.

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