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Chingrir Malaikari / Bengali Prawn Malai Curry

Chingrir Malaikari / Bengali Prawn Malai Curry

Chingrir Malaikari is a traditional Bengali dish in which the Prawns cooked in a coconut milk based curry with whole spices and other ingredients. Mildly sweet in taste, it’s flavourful and a favourite Prawn Curry among Bengalis.

Course Main Course
Cuisine Indian
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 20 minutes
Servings 5 People
Author Chandrima

Ingredients

  • 500g- Chingri / Prawn (I used medium-sized prawns)
  • 2- Onion (medium-sized)
  • 1 tsp- Garlic paste
  • 1 tsp- Ginger paste
  • ½ tsp- Turmeric powder 
  • 1 tsp- Cumin powder
  • ½ tsp- Coriander powder
  • Salt to taste
  • 1 tsp- Sugar
  • 1 cup- Thick Coconut milk (read notes)
  • 1 tsp- Kashmiri mirch powder
  • 2 Green chillies (halved)
  • Mustard oil

For tempering

  • 6- Choto elach / Green cardamoms (roughly crushed)
  • 4- Lobongo / Cloves
  • 4- Dalchini / Cinnamon 1" pieces
  • ½ tsp- Golmorich / Whole black peppercorns (roughly crushed)
  • 2- Tej pata / Bay leaf
  • 2- Shukno lonka / Whole dry red chillies
  • ½ tsp- Gota jire / Cumin seeds
  • ¼ tsp- Garam masala powder

Instructions

  1. Add salt and ½ tsp turmeric powder to the prawns, mix well and keep aside.

  2. Make a paste of the onions by using a food processor, and keep aside.

  3. Heat ½ cup of mustard oil in a deep frying pan/kadai and fry the prawns over medium heat. Fry them in batches, four prawns at a time. Fry each batch for 2 minutes, remove from the kadai to a bowl, and keep aside.

  4. In rest of the oil (there should be 3 tbsp oil in the kadai to make the curry, if not add some more oil at this stage), temper with the ingredients mentioned for tempering, and sauté for a few seconds.

  5. Next, add the onion paste, and sauté until light brown in colour.

  6. Add ginger-garlic paste, green chillies, kashmiri mirch powder, cumin powder, coriander powder and salt. Mix well, add some splashes of water to dissolve the spice powders, and keep stirring the masala until it starts leaving oil.

  7. Next, add ½ cup of warm water to this, mix well and add the coconut milk. Mix and give this a quick boil over medium heat.

  8. Reduce the heat, add the prawns. Mix and cook for 10-12 minutes.

  9. Add sugar and garam masala powder, mix gently and cook for 2 minutes more. Remove from the heat and transfer to a bowl.

  10. Serve hot with steamed rice.

Recipe Notes

  • If I’m not using freshly made coconut milk, then I love to use Dabur Coconut Milk for this recipe, it works quite well here.
  • In my recipes, I use 250 ml cups. 1 cup = 250ml.