Prawns Fry

Prawns fry is a dish of stir fried shrimp with onions, spices and herbs. It is super quick to make under 20 mins and tastes delicious. Serve it as a side or roll it in your roti, chapati or tortillas to make a quick wrap. This simple shrimp fry is made in South Indian Style and is known as royyala vepudu.

The recipe starts with a brief marinade where you toss the cleaned shrimps with a few ground spices, salt and lemon juice. Rest them briefly for 10 mins until you chop the onion and get the other ingredients ready. This step helps the prawns to get rid of raw seafood smell and soak up the flavors of the spices.

While you can make this without onions for a super-fast dish, I prefer to use them to add some flavour and body. The stir fried onions also soak up the flavors of the shrimp and actually taste very good. You can also transform this to a prawn ghee rice by stirring in some cooked rice and additional ghee. This is how we often eat at home.

The other options would be to serve this with rice-rasam, Lemon rice, Ghee rice, Kuska or coconut rice and coconut milk rice. A raita or plain yogurt compliments the meal.

I have used tiger prawns here, you may use any other of choice including the small baby prawns. Also to save time you may opt to use cleaned shrimp (deveined & tails removed). You don’t need to follow the recipe exactly, just use all the spices to preference & heat tolerance.

I used garam masala here but for flavor variations you may use other spice blends, like example:
Use ground black pepper and ground fennel to make pepper fry
Use pav bhaji masala for a different flavour
Kadai masala is another spice blend I use a lot of times.
This Madras Curry Powder is my new favorite for a punch of South Indian flavors.

More Shrimp Recipes you may like
Prawn Curry
Shrimp Tikka Masala
Prawn Pulao
Chilli Prawns
Prawn Biryani
Shrimp Pakora

Photo Guide

How to make Prawns Fry (Stepwise Photos)

1. Devein and clean prawns. I used about 10 tiger prawns (200 grams). Rinse them thoroughly. To remove fishy smell, they can be rinsed with water and little vinegar. You can also use lemon juice and salt to rinse. If using frozen prawns, you will need to soak in hot water for a while. This will help to soften them. Drain off water completely. Add 2 teaspoons lemon juice and ½ tablespoon oil. Mix well.

2. Add 1½ teaspoon ginger garlic paste, ½ to ¾ teaspoon red chili powder, ⅛ teaspoon turmeric, ¼ teaspoon salt, ½ to ¾ teaspoon garam masala and ½ teaspoon coriander powder (optional). Mix and set aside for at least 10 minutes, while you chop the onions and green chili.

3. Heat 1 tablespoon oil or ghee in a hot pan. Add ½ teaspoon cumin seeds and a green cardamom (optional).

4. When the seeds begin to sizzle, stir in the onions and slit chilies. Sprinkle a pinch of salt.

5. Saute until the onions turn transparent or light golden and add the marinated prawns.

6. Add curry leaves and stir fry until they swirl up to a C shape.

7. The prawns will swirl up completely, meaning they are cooked thoroughly. If you want add more red chili powder, salt and stir fry for just a minute. 1 tbsp fresh grated coconut can also be added at this stage. Stir fry until the coconut begin to smell good.

Serve prawns fry with rice. You can also add some cooked basmati rice, little more ghee, salt to the pan. Mix and stir to make prawn ghee rice.

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