Chemmeen Pananungu Peera / Recipe for Prawns and Ice apple in Coconut masala!

Pananungu/Nungu/Ice apple is a seasonal fruit and in the Summer season, you will see cart vendors selling this in bulk. Ice apple is a powerhouse of nutrients. For beating the Summer heat and to avoid dehydration this fruit is consumed. I came across many posts on drinks using Pananungu. I wanted to try something different with this and made my favorite Kerala dish using Ice apples. Peera is a dish cooked with hand-crushed masala made of grated coconut, ginger, green chillies, garlic, curry leaves, shallots, and turmeric powder. Ideally, for the Peera recipe, we use Prawns/Anchovies/Sardines. Adding chunks of Nungu in this recipe was purely experimental and the result was fabulous. My family and I just loved it. So here is an amazing recipe with Ice apples - 

Ingredients

Pananungu/Ice apples (cubes)  - 3 pieces/1 cup

Cleaned and deveined Prawns  - 500 gms

Coconut (grated)                       - 2 - 2.5 cups

Green Chilli                              - 6-8 nos

Shallots                                     - 8 nos

Ginger (finely chopped)            - 1" inch

Garlic                                        - 6 cloves

Turmeric powder                       - 1 tsp

Kudampuli/Malabar Tamarind  - 3 pieces (soaked in water for 15mins)

Water                                         - 1/2 cup

Coconut oil                                - 1 tbsp

Salt                                             - as required

Curry leaves                               

Preparation

1. Remove the Ice apple skin and cut it into small cubes.
2. In a bowl, mix grated coconut, slit green chillies, chopped ginger and garlic, crushed shallots, curry leaves, and turmeric powder. Combine it and crush the mix using hand.
3. In a cooking/earthenware pan, add cleaned prawns and the coconut masala. Mix well.
4. Add turmeric powder (optional), half cup water, kudampuli pieces and combine well.
5. Keep the pan on low - medium flame and cover and cook for 10 mins. Add salt in this stage.
6. Once the water content is almost dry, add the ice apple cubes.
7. Stir it and cook for another 1-2 mins.
8. Drizzle coconut oil and sprinkle a handful of curry leaves.
9. Switch off the flame and let it rest for few mins.
10. Serve Prawns -Pananungu Peera with rice and curry.

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