The Maharaja’s King Prawn Pilau
with Cardamom and Cashews
One of the key flavours in tonight’s little taste of India is cardamom. It might look like a raisin with a suit of armour, but getting into it is pretty easy. Put the pod on a chopping board and either crush it using the back of a spoon or the base of the handle of your chopping knife, but be careful it doesn’t ping away ;-)
The quantities provided above are averages only.
Boxes and ingredients are packed in facilities that handles Peanut, Nuts, Sesame, Fish, Crustaceans, Milk, Egg, Mustard, Celery, Soya, Gluten and Sulphites. Due to the war in Ukraine, it has been necessary to substitute sunflower oil with rapeseed oil in some products without a label change. The FSA have advised that allergic reactions to rapeseed oil are rare.
Ingredients
1
Onion
1
Garlic Clove
½
Red Chilli
1
Sugar Snap Peas
2
Ginger
1
Cashew Nuts
(Contains Nuts May contain Sesame, Nuts, Peanut)
1
Ground Coriander
Turmeric
1
Basmati Rice
2
Cardamom Pod
1
King Prawns
(Contains Crustaceans May contain Molluscs)
½
Coriander
½
Lime
Nutritional information
Utensils
Instructions
Peel the onion and the garlic before dicing both very finely. Cut the red chilli in half lengthways. Remove all the seeds before finely dicing up as much as you dare (we used 1 tsp). Cut your sugar snap peas in half.
Peel the ginger using the edge of a spoon. Next just finely dice the ginger.
Toast your cashew nuts in a large non-stick pan on medium high heat. They will take a few minutes to brown off but watch them like a sheepdog as they can burn really quickly. Remove them from the pan and keep them for later.
Turn the heat to medium and add a tsp of butter (if you have some) together with 1 tbsp of oil. Gently cook the onion for about 4 mins until soft. Add the fresh ginger, garlic, ground (not fresh) coriander, turmeric and chilli. Cook for 2 more mins.
Add the rice and cook for 2 mins before adding 350ml of water, a ¼ tsp of salt and the crushed cardamom pods. Bring the water to the boil, put a lid on the pot and turn the heat to low. Cook for 10 mins then leave off the heat for another 10 mins. Don’t peek under the lid until 20 mins are up or your rice won’t be perfect!
While the rice cooks, heat 1 tbsp of oil in a non-stick pan on high heat. Cook the sugar snap peas for 4 mins, then remove. Meanwhile, chop up your prawns into pea-sized chunks. Once the sugar snap peas are removed, add 2 tsp oil and fry the prawns in the pan with a pinch of salt and pepper and cook until they have just turned pink.
Once your rice is cooked, fluff it up with a fork. Add in the prawns, sugar snap peas, chopped fresh coriander and cashew nuts. Lastly, squeeze over a tbsp of lime juice.
