The Good Crustacean

I love sea food in general, but back home crustaceans were an important part of my diet. Shrimp, Prawns, Crabs, Clams (though I am not sure if clams are classified as crustaceans, i love them) and Dried shrimp. There is one more variety of shrimp called as "karandi" in marathi. This variety is actually smaller than shrimp can makes tasty curry, fritters and pattice. There is even one more smaller variety of shrimp called as "zavala". This variety is so tiny that there is no way you can remove the shell or anything else. The only option is to eat it whole (eyes and all) But the shell is so soft and the fish so tasty that you wont even feel anything whle biting. There is no aftertaste as such. These make very very tasty curry, fritters and dry gravy kind of entree.
The reason I am inclined to write this blog is, being a sea food lover and being restricted here in the US by the variety of fish (salmon and tilapia are good but the fish from Arabian Sea are more tasty), the minute I find good quality Indian fish I am excited and salivating by the mere thought of curry and fried fish. Today in our local market I found some good quality head-on, tail-on, the whole shell on- tiger prawns. I had seen them before but wasnt sure if they would taste as good as my beloved Indian prawns. But this time, I decided to be a little daring and buy some and make curry.
I got home, put the kid to bed and rolled up my sleeves and got to work. Cleaning, de-veining, washing, marinating, ...I was in crustacean heaven. All the time I was thinking of the possiblities of the prawns. Curry?? Biryani??? Fried Prawns?? Sukka Prawns??? Prawns Koliwada????? mmmmm...But at the back of my mind there is still a teen-weeny doubt about the taste. And mind you I am a very good cook when it comes to fish, but somehow the farm raised prawns here do not make good curry as back home.
So the prawns are marinated and in the freezer rightnow. I have deciede to make curry and some fried prawns. S loves them. I have kept the head on the prawns( removed the eyes and the eeeky parts). This gives a different flavor to the curry. Lets see what happens. Will definitely write about it. I can just smell the curry and hot chappatis and rice right now. Hope it turns out the way my mom makes them
Hope they are The Good Crustacean.