Lobster Chinchoni

East Indian Lobster Curry

SERVES 4

‘Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?’ I chided Michael. I was watching a video of Chef Michael Swamy cooking for a Marathi cookery show. I had known him for about six months by then and he never mentioned that he had been on TV. Michael just shrugged. I went back to watching the video.

Michael was making a very interesting East Indian dish called lobster chinchoni. The East Indians are a Roman Catholic community, based primarily in and around Mumbai. They were evangelized by the Portuguese around the fifteenth century, but retain much of their older traditions, including speaking in their native language, Marathi.

I could see that Michael was struggling with the language, but his cooking techniques were impeccable. I was actually watching the video to see how my friend Michael appeared on television; but, as the video continued, my focus shifted from Michael to the lobster and my interest was piqued. The lobster chinchoni looked so mouth-watering that I could’ve just put my hand in through the laptop screen, dipped my finger in the gravy and licked it. I knew right away that this dish would have to be in my book. So, here’s Chef Michael’s lovely lobster recipe.

INGREDIENTS

Spice paste

10–12 dried red Kashmiri chillies

200 g fresh coconut, grated

12–14 cloves garlic, roughly chopped

2 tsp cumin seeds

1 tsp turmeric powder

Curry

2 (about 500 g each) lobsters, cleaned

3 tbsp oil

4 tsp tamarind pulp (p. 13)

1¼ tsp salt or to taste

METHOD

In a bowl, soak red chillies in 1 cup of hot water for 15 minutes. In a blender, combine chillies with the soaking water and remaining spice paste ingredients. Grind to make a fine paste. Clean the lobsters and remove the flesh. Discard the shells. Put oil in a pan over medium heat. When hot, add ground spice paste and fry for 2–3 minutes. Mix in ½ cup of water with lobster flesh, tamarind pulp and salt. Cook till lobster is tender. Serve hot with sanna (p. 218).