Prawn pathia
RAIN, RAIN, GO AWAY, COME AGAIN ANOTHER DAY
The rain has absolutely nothing to do with it, but it just threw down a little downpour as I started this, and come to think of it, the subject of this article is a good antidote to the weather. And look, here comes the sun. Love you Melbourne.
Rambling again.
It's a lucky dip day - there were various things I could write about, but I felt like a bit of serendipity. My pick was a book called Pasta and Noodles, published by Penguin and written by a lady called Merry White. The page opened to Prawn Patia with Vermicelli.
At first I thought this was very ho hum. I am not sure whether I have ever used this book and I had no idea who Merry White is/was. Indeed I have no real idea why I bought the book - no doubt it was an impulse buy. It was first published in 1976 and by Penguin in 1979. But dig a little and you find quite a few interesting things.
First of all Merry White. At the time she was described as a graduate of Harvard, in sociology, a free-lance caterer and writer of cookery books. Look for her now and you find she is a professor, no less, of anthropology at Boston University - a top university I would guess. Nowadays she seems to be most interested in Japan, but is still writing about food - though in a more sociological/anthropological/historical sense. Coffee and Japan seem to be her current thing. Coffee? Japan? So that's interesting - how somebody's life can change like that.
Then I checked out the dish online, to find Wikipedia implying that it was a dish mostly found in English Indian restaurants - a bit like Chicken Butter Cream which is apparently an English invention. Well so says Madhur Jaffrey. And again it is interesting is it not how cultures fuse with each other? For when I looked into it more, it seems that pathia is actually a Parsi dish and the Parsi are originally from Persia. They are followers of Zoroastrianism and live mostly in Gujarat, and Mumbai, in India. They left Persia between the 8th and 10th centuries to escape persecution by the Moslems. Apparently the Persians rebelled against the Arab invaders for almost 200 years, with the period being known in Iran as the Period of Silence. The Zoroastrians were the first to worship just one god I think (well it probably depends who you listen to) - and I think the association is with the sun - well it would be.
Apparently Zoroaster the prophet (also known as Zarathustra - of Thus spake Zarathustra and the music by Richard Strauss that opens the film 2001, fame), taught that good and evil were opposing forces and that one's duty was to choose between the two. The Parsis are also the sect that leave their dead in the Towers of Silence to be consumed by vultures - a practice that is disappearing for all sorts of modern day reasons. Generally speaking they have kept themselves separate from the Indians, to the point where the population is declining because of the insistence on marrying within the community - they are well educated, there is a degree of inbreeding and low fertility. All interesting stuff and you can find out lots more on the net of course.
But back to the food. Pathia or Patia as it is sometimes spelt, is a traditional dish - sweet and sour, tomatoes, chilli, no ginger, lime juice - these seem to be the constants. However, when I looked in my Indian guru cookbooks, they all seemed to add ginger. and so does Merry White. She also leaves out the lime juice. The same sauce can be applied to chicken, fish and vegetables, but in this recipe is applied to prawns. Which we don't eat, because David doesn't like them. So it is unlikely that I am ever going to make it - particularly as it does feature chills which he has also decreed he no longer likes. I could try with chicken one day perhaps, as one of several dishes in an Indian banquet. Because it does sound quite nice.
The last thing I want to say about this dish is that Merry White serves it with vermicelli, which doesn't sound very Indian, but certainly meets those cross-cultural criteria. In her introduction to the book, Merry White says, "All of these cultural cross-currents stimulate a cook's imagination. Besides tasting good and being economical, noodles are wonderful for their versatility. ... Armed with no recipe but with a knowledge of the properties of the ingredients, I can produce an interesting meal quickly. Noodles are a great liberator." I suspect that this particular recipe has vermicelli to meet the criteria of the book, but really it would be better served with rice. She says that she first tasted it in London - which would back up Wikipedia's claim that it is English, and she has been searching for the taste ever since. This is one of her versions - the Indian one. She also has a Chinese and Thai version.
PRAWN PATIA WITH VERMICELLI
1/2 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, 1/2 teaspoon crushed hot red pepper, 3 tablespoons corn oil, 1 tablespoon groundnut oil, 2 large onions, sliced, 1 green pepper, finely chopped, 1 teaspoon finely copped fresh ginger, 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped, 4 fresh green chillies, finely chopped, 500g prawns, peeled combined with 1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric, 1 x 440g tin tomatoes, roughly chopped, 4 tablespoons water, 500g vermicelli, chopped fresh coriander for garnish.
Heat a heavy frying pan. Stir the salt, cumin and red pepper i it over a high heat for 1 minute, then lower the heat, add the oils, the onion and the green pepper and stir for 5 minutes until the onion is wilted.
Add the ginger, garlic and chillies and stir for another minute, then add the prawns. Add the tomatoes and the water and stir. Let simmer until the mixture is fairly thick.
Boil the vermicelli al dente, and drain well. Serve with the prawn mixture poured over, and garnished with the chopped coriander.
Pretty simple. Think I'd add lime juice instead of water though.
Whilst I have been writing this the sun has shone, it has looked like rain, more sun and now gloom again. Melbourne ...
