A home-chef is whipping up a feast of Goan dishes with ingredients from Karnataka, a cuisine served only in her hometown Karwar
Chicken shagoti and polo
Though it’s a coastal town in Karnataka, Karwar is also a stone’s throw away from Goa. And this is where the 35-year-old Andheri resident Arati Naik picked up her culinary skills from her grandmother. This, she adds, was essentially an amalgamation of flavours from the two adjacent states. "Just like all the other Hindus in the state, my family migrated from Goa to Karwar during Portuguese occupation,"Naik explains. She began honing her skills in the kitchen at the age of seven when she would visit her grandparents in Karwar, and picked up techniques like scaling and preparing fish and making her own masalas in a way unique to the town.
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Arati Naik
Naik, who works in an IT company, has now signed up to curate a pop-up to introduce Mumbaikars to dishes like sungatache ambat (prawns curry) and dike sungatachi kismori (dried prawns chutney), using ingredients from Karnataka such as Byadagi chilli and replacing Goan souring agents such as vinegar and kokum with tamarind and raw mango.
Clams and breadfruit
One of these dishes includes the shagoti, a take on the Goan xacuti, made using different masalas that include poppy seeds and aniseed. "Ours is thicker as we roast the onion and coconut. We serve it with dosa. It’s a festive food. My grandmother used to crack open eggs on the leftover curry and we would eat it for breakfast with bread," Naik shares.
The drumstick and prawn curry is also typical, and marries the drumstick from the south Indian sambhar to a Goan prawn curry. While Karwar is known for its smoked, fried, dried and curry mackerel fish, they also have a spicy version of it where they use the triphala, just like some Goans do. Naik adds, "We add prawns or clams to veggies to elevate the flavour. We don’t use curry leaves, add tadka or garam masala in our fish curries as it’s a light preparation."
Prawn and drumstick curry
Ingredients:
250 gms medium prawns, 1 drumstick cut into 2’’ pieces, 1/2 chopped onion, 1 tsp turmeric, 2 tsp coconut oil, salt to taste
For curry paste:
1/2 shredded coconut, 1/2 onion chunks, 1.5 tbsp coriander seeds, 5 dried red chillies, 1-2 tamarind pieces, 2 garlic pods, 1 tsp turmeric, 1 tsp black peppercorn
Method: Marinate the cleaned prawns with 1 tsp turmeric and 1 tsp salt. In a pan, dry roast the red chillies, coriander seeds, onion and black peppercorn. Once cooled, grind these along with the rest of the curry paste ingredients. Add just enough water to grind them to a fine paste. In a deep bottomed pan, add 1 tsp coconut oil and let it heat up. Next add the chopped onions and fry for a minute and then add the drumsticks. Stir together for a minute or so and add the prawns. Once the prawns start turning pink and leave water, add the curry paste. Adjust the water to make it consistent. Let it rise to a good roiling boil and then turn off the gas. Don’t overcook otherwise the prawns will become rubbery.
Check the salt according to taste. Serve with steam rice.
On September 22, 1 pm
At Lallubhai Park Road, Andheri West.
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Cost Rs1,250
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