Prawn Masala Unde is the Tea-Time Snack You've Been Missing
I first tasted prawn masala undes one summer in Mangalore and knew, without a doubt in my mind, that I had found my favourite food. Ruia Safir explains prawn masala unde and the Mangalorean community of Bearys. She makes a case for why this Beary specialty should be a staple in every kitchen.
Mangalore has no great wars or monuments to diplomatic legacy, but in a hundred years if someone cooked and served the prawn masala unde at their table, our work here will be done.
The unde is one of the most beloved specialties of the Beary community in Mangalore. The community itself is small and possibly overlooked, but our cuisine stands apart: pache curry (green curry) with idiyappam, jackfruit and cucumber sweets, kurchi (pony fish) curry, and the pinde (a smaller, more misshapen version of the unde).
‘What’s your mother tongue?’ Nothing stressed me out more than this question, when I was a young girl. Answering ‘Beary’ was usually accompanied with confusing explanations:
“It’s what the Muslim community in Mangalore speak.”
“No, it doesn’t have a script.”
“No, it's not the same as Tulu.”
The explanations grated at me. I could make peace with overlooking smaller dialects or cultures. But this was Mangalore! Home of ghee roast and kori roti, prawn sukka and fish curry, and objectively (or perhaps, subjectively) the greatest food on earth.
Outside my little bubble of Bangalore, even less was known about this cuisine. I’ve always felt that no history textbook narrating wars could possibly be as important as those preserving culture: the stories we tell about each other, our myths, legends and recipes. If we knew how to make Rome’s immortal concrete decades ago, perhaps many more monuments would still be standing today. Someone forgot to write down that recipe. A recipe for concrete, yes, but a recipe nonetheless. Nothing was built in a day, not Rome and definitely not her recipes.
Ursula Le Guin refers to The Carrier Bag Theory of evolution in her literary analysis: “We've all heard about all the sticks and spears and swords… but we have not heard about the thing to put things in, the container for the thing contained.”
History often forgets to preserve the domestic.
My mother, again objectively, is the best home cook there is, living up to a certain hearsay about Mangloreans and cooking. She makes the perfect choux pastry, a notoriously difficult task; I've had dreams about her Thai curry; many that have tasted her tiramisu say it rivals the best ones from Venice.
However, she simply couldn’t (or wouldn’t) make my favourite food, something she grew up eating. I first tasted prawn masala undes one summer during vacation in Mangalore and knew, with no doubt in my mind, that I had found my favourite food. With the best components of Mangalorean food — coconut, rice flour and prawns — all packed in perfectly round picnic-sized parcels.
My mother and I sat down together to stuff the rice balls, while my mother reminisced: Her mother, too, would enlist everyone to stuff the balls, and they would all gather together, watching Chitrahar, and prepping dinner. The kids would compete to see who could stuff the most prawns into their undes, without it cracking. Prawn undes aren’t really a festive or culturally significant dish, but I believe we often need a ploy to get the family together, without occasion.
We stuff our food with community, it is our little container for culture.
RECIPE FOR PRAWN MASALA UNDE
Ingredients
For the filling
3 medium onions
1 large tomato
Coconut oil, as needed
Curry leaves, a sprig
2 tbsp Mangalore fish masala paste / red chilli powder and turmeric
Grated coconut
1/2 kg prawns
For the outer covering
3 cups Pathir powder/rice flour
Salt, a pinch
Method
Heat up the coconut oil in a pan and add in the curry leaves
Finely chop the tomatoes and onions
Fry the onions until translucent and then add in the tomatoes
Fry for two minutes and then add the fish masala paste (this can be substituted with turmeric and red chilli powder). Fry for another two minutes and add half a cup of water
When this starts to boil add the grated coconut and boil until the water dries up. Your masala is now ready
Add the prawns to this and let it fry for 10-15 minutes or until cooked
For the outer covering, take pathir powder (you can use regular rice flour), salt and mix in two and a half cups of water until it becomes a smooth dough
Roll the dough into small balls and create small wells. Add the cooled filling before closing the dough over it, bringing the edges of the dough together to enclose the filling, shaping it into a ball.
Place the dumplings in a steamer basket and steam for 15 minutes or until cooked through.
Serve hot.
A recent graduate of Trinity College Dublin, Ruia Safir is on a mission to find literary significance in absolutely everything, be it book or brunch.
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