Goan Escapades (Part 1) - Prawn Balchao

Apart from one of the best training interventions in the last few years, the trip to goa was a great culinary adventure. The hotel we stayed in, Park Hyatt Resort & Spa, is a fantastic property. The hotel beach is amazing and their food is lip smacking. I would though give their Italian restaurant a pass.
One of the restaurants that I made a beeline to almost everytime was Casa Sarita. It is named after Chef Sarita who heads the restaurant and literally translated means "House of Sarita". Chef Sarita is an amazing cook and has designed all the dishes on the menu. She has been featured on various food shows on NDTV, IBN and has even had Karen Anand take recipes from her (You can hear that in the video). What is even more interesting is to note that she is self taught and has not been to a cookery course or college. What came as a pleasant surprise was the fact that Casa Sarita has been featured in the Conde Nast Hot List Tables 2008 in Indian category. This annual list names the best in the global dining scene and this is one of the four Indan restaurants featured. One bite of the food and you wonder why not ...the food is great, the staff fantastic and the chef great.
Chef Sarita was extremely obliging in letting me record her while she cooked and let me post those signature dishes on this blog. This recipe for Prawn Balchao is the first one in the series. Since it was not a planned event, the videos have been recorded on various digicams available to the group that was along with me. I am still sourcing out various other videos containing recipes and pardon the noise in the background (you can hear my irritating voice trying to make small talk with chef Sarita) and me trying to capture every little nuance of this cuisine.