Prawn shells - What's in a name?

In her Blog-Tember challenge, Bailey Jean asks to write on the origins of the blog name.
It is a question that I commonly get asked by both regular and new readers to the blog as well. "Why Godyears?" The common assumption is that this is going to be a religious site and some are sorely disappointed to find a lot of things in here from dogs to fiction and even recipes now, but no God. Well, atleast, not the way they would have hoped for.

I actually answered this very same question in a 2013 interview with Blogadda.

"Many read the title and mistake it for a religious site. (God forbid! – no pun intended). 

The fact is that I was just finishing my final month of internship after completing my MBBS 

and was going to start life as a doctor. I found it ironic how everyone used to say 

“doctors are equal to Gods”. The title is actually a play on my ‘Doc Years’… my ‘God Years’."

A spontaneous play on words back in 2005 sitting in a crowded Reliance net cafe is where this blog began. Back then, I was just a lowly intern in the medical field. Who knew that we would go to reach this stage with awards, a post graduate degree, a decade of blog posts, nearly 40 published stories and a dozen interviews, ranging from newspapers to BBC?

Today's food post based on my mother's recipes (the theme I am running with this month) is also a play on words - Prawn Shells.

Relax. We are not going to use actual prawn shells here!
The shell here refers to the deceptive coating around the prawn dish we make that while maintaining the soft, malleable nature of a fried bread, also delivers a crunchy aspect courtesy of the semiya or vermicelli.

INGREDIENTS:

Cleaned and cooked small prawns 1/4 kg,

2 onions sliced,

capsicum n celery minced one each,

pepper powder 1/2 tsp,

oil 1/2 cup,

salt,

eggs 2

For the mash:  

boiled & mashed potatoes 4,

bread slices 2,

salt,

pepper powder 1/4 tsp,

semiya/vermicelli as required

RECIPE:

In oil saute the onions, capsicum & celery. Mix pepper and then mix the combination of mashed potatoes, bread slices, salt & pepper powder. Crush the semiya into bits. Make 8 balls of the potato mix, fill each with cooked prawns and a pepper & salt mix in each ball. Roll and dip in beaten egg & then roll in crushed semiya.  Deep fry it till golden brown.

Serve hot.

Soft, yet crunchy. And oh, so very tasty!

We Keralites are used to making various styles of seafood dishes as a main course so it is nice to showcase something a little different - a dish that is more in the vein of a teatime snack and yet, is different from the normal stuff you get in bakeries. 

And if you think about it, it is pretty easy to prepare, isn't it? So what are you waiting for? 

Click the image to convert it to its full size and download the recipe

Authors note:

I am participating in NaBloPoMo. You can read more about it here and join in the fun yourself, adding your posts here.

I am also participating in EverydayGyaan's September Blogging Challenge, WriteTribe's Monday Musings and Bailey Jean's Blog-Tember challenge. Do check them all out. So many inspiring themes to get you writing.

Over the course of the rest of this month, expect to see many more such dishes (ranging from seafood, desserts, starters and tea time snacks) - all prepared by my mother from recipes she has collected as far back as the 1980's - with some unique to Kerala cuisine and some variations of international dishes. 

Since the goal is to share, I will be looking to make all the recipes into easy downloadable single images so that you can save them on to your mobile/device and use them offline. Of course, if you do try them out, it would be awesome if you gave me (and her) feedback here on what you thought of the dish.

For the list of all the recipes so far (including seafood, egg dishes, sweets, twists on traditional dishes et al), click here:

For more food posts,  click here.