I had such fun doing my first ever Instagram Live with my Guild of Film Writers chum Bruce McMichael tonight. We were talking about the book Nobs and Nosh
which contains thoughts from many movie stars about food, and a few recipes. I made one of them, the Donald Pleasence Prawn Curry while we chatted. Here’s blog post that has Donald’s recipe and a few links to things that came up in conversation. Bruce has put the whole chit chat on his Instagram feed – he’s at @lemongrovepics. My internet connection was a bit hokey and I was talking 19 to the dozen, but if you want to know more about my movie star recipe collection, do zip on over to Instagram and tune in.
First up, here’s Liberace making lasagne – check out his chopper! This makes me laugh every time I watch it, and I’ve watched it a lot.
Here’s Robert Morley presenting a cooking show featuring Robert Vaughn – excruciating but fascinating!
Here’s a link to my Joan Crawford cookbook.
Here’s a link to my Cooking With Columbo book.
Here’s the Donald Pleasence recipe in the Nobs and Nosh book (where they spelled his name incorrectly)
Here’s the Donald Pleasence recipe in The White Elephant Celebrity Cookbook with clearer recipe directions.
Got the name spelling right on the recipe, but not on the illustration – oops.
Here’s a link to a third variation of Donald’s curry, in this version he has named it No-Name Curry but it’s essentially the same recipe using tinned salmon rather than prawns. I think I went a bit off piste and added some fresh coriander when I made this in 2017…
Here’s my tin of hominy – what shall I do with it?!
If you would like to test a recipe for the Murder, She Wrote cookbook just leave a comment on this post or drop me a line via the Contact Page.
So now to the recipe. I made half of Donald’s recipe in the cookalong I did with Bruce. I couldn’t work out via Google how much a pint of peeled prawns would weigh so I just got some glasses out (purchased from my nephew’s brewery, not nicked!) and went old skool.
It was a really simple recipe and the curry was absolutely delicious! I thought it would be a super creamy sauce but it was actually quite a dry curry. A really light supper or something that would be nice as part of a big curry buffet I reckon. Here are a few process photos with a couple of notes.
I made half of Donald’s recipe so my 1 and 1/2 pints of prawns was about 400g. I dotted them with about 1 and 1/2 tablespoons of butter
and baked them in the oven set to 165 degrees C for 10 minutes.
While they were cooking I made the sauce. Dhaniya is better known here as coriander and I used about 1/8 teaspoon of garlic granules.
I was quite heavy handed with the coconut, because I love coconut. I was chatting while I sprinkled it on so can’t be sure, but probably used about 4 heaped dessert spoons .
Yum! Thanks Donald PleasEnce with an E. I am mortified to discover that in the Cooking With Columbo book I spelled Donald’s surname correctly twice but incorrect once. SORRY DONALD! Now I am going to scour my previous blog posts to check I’ve spelled it correctly whenever DP gets a mention. That is a mistake I don’t think I’ll ever make again. Seared into my brain now!
As someone who has seen the Mississippi as it passes through Minneapolis, yikes!
The only thing I can think of for hominy is hominy grits, but I don’t know if they’re the same type of grits, and also I’ve never actually had any.
Oh, what about using it in bread?
Oooh VT, I do like the idea of using it in bread. Grits are a 100% mystery to me, we don’t have them in the UK so I must do a bit more research. I can’t even remember where I got that tin of hominy from, but I know it was for a movie star recipe. It might have been something one of my chums brought me back from America, or I might have got it via eBay which I often do when there’s an American ingredient we don’t have here. Of course, I can’t remember what movie star recipe this is actually an ingredient for! My mind is a sieve these days! It’s going back in the cupboard in case I suddenly remember…
Cook the hominy with some sausage and chopped onion. That’s how I make it.
Oooh, thanks Rachel, that sounds GOOD!