I COME from Boston where you get the most fantastic seafood in all of the East Coast in the United States. And I�ve lived in California, which is famous for its markets, and where the quality of the seafood and vegetables is just superb. As a chef, I rely on quality products, because any good dish needs great products. There�s no compromise on quality. And so when it was suggested to me in Bombay that I do a 13-day seafood festival at the JW Marriott Hotel, in which all our restaurants would exclusively serve fish, crab, prawns, clams, squids, and lobster in Indian, Thai, Continental and Italian cuisines, I jumped at the idea. �Why not,� I said, imagining Steamed Crab, Seafood Brochettes, Bouillabaisse, Zuppa Di Pesce and Boston Crab Cakes.

Because in the fitness of things, we are sitting right on the ocean, so the ambience is perfect. And at the JW Marriott, it is like having the world in one hotel, because there are so many different styles of cuisines to experiment on at the Lotus Cafe, Saffron, Mezzo Mezzo and Spices that serve Italian, Japanese, Thai and Indian cuisines.

Among the first things I did, of course, was visit the local Bombay fish markets. I have no idea where they are! I was taken there. I visited, I think, the Sassoon Dock in the city and Khar Danda in the suburbs. They are fish markets where huge amounts of fish get sold every day. These are the best places to go if you are a serious seafood eater. You get the best fish here. It is fresh and comes to you right off the boats. The quality too is excellent. All the chefs personally select the seafood the JW Marriott buys. In France this is very common. I had a restaurant called the Bel-Air in Laval from where I used to drive 45 minutes every day to the fish market. Here in Bombay, of course, the hotel also relies on seafood suppliers. But for a chef to go to the market is like for a child to go to a candy store! All the goodies are there staring at you. It is the very thing to do. Besides, it is exciting to see different products. The mind starts imagining what it can do with them. All chefs have recipe books in their heads. And we are constantly looking for ideas. That�s what a market does to us. It gives us inspiration! We see things and get more ideas.

But coming to seafood... and to prawns, which is the most common seafood of all, it is easily available everywhere in the world, and perhaps the most economically priced too. I must say that I have never seen prawns the size you get in Bombay anywhere in the USA. From the baby shrimp to the U5 size, in which you get just three per kilo! It�s amazing. It is not true that the bigger a prawn, the less tasty it is when cooked. The taste of a prawn depends on its freshness and the cooking technique involved. Prawns are the same as lobster, their meats have a similar texture.

If a prawn is not fresh, the dish will turn out to be very mushy and soft. And if it is overcooked, then the prawn tends to get rubbery. When it is cooked to the point of being just done, then the prawn retains all its natural juices, and the flesh is succulent and just firm to the bite. In fact, the less you handle the prawn, the better. A barbecued prawn with lemon and butter will give you the natural flavour of the seafood. If you try to get too exotic with your recipe, you will ruin the flavour of the prawn.

I generally select prawns depending on what I am going to be using them for. If I�m mixing a salad, I�ll take the baby shrimp. If I�m going to be grilling, or barbecuing them, then I go for the big tiger prawns. Whereas I�ll use the medium-sized prawn if I�m going to be using it as a stuffing or if I�m experimenting with a batter and deep-fried recipe. I�ve had shrimps off the Goa coast simply grilled and served with lemon butter and rice. It was out of this world! The prawn lends itself to all kinds of cuisines. It�s a worldwide product. I�ve had prawns in Asia, France, California. I might not get a tandoor to do a Tandoori Jhinga in Alaska, but the prawn is there waiting to be adapted to some other culinary technique. I like lightly sauteeing the prawn in a pan or grilling it. And I was astonished by the tandoor. What a phenomenal way of cooking! It�s been in India for hundreds of years and you cannot get a more authentic way of cooking than this. It�s amazing how much food can be prepared in that oven.

Chef Gary Palm�s tips for cooking prawns
I�m sharing the recipes of 10 prawn dishes that ours chefs Koizumi, Vilaiwan, Iqbal, Elton, Kurly and Vinay created for the Seafood festival at JW Marriott. The ingredients for most of them are locally available. If you are going to be attempting to follow them, it would help if you keep the following tips in mind:
1. Make sure the prawns are absolutely super fresh when you start off. If the prawns are alive, there will be nothing like it, because you cannot get more fresh product than that.
2. Don�t overwork the prawns. Don�t hide the natural flavours. Instead, enhance them. Use just a little ginger and garlic, a touch of salt and pepper, little lemon juice, then grill them on medium heat and brush the prawns with clarified butter to keep them moist... this makes an awesome recipe. Try it!
3. Buy a lot of prawns per person when you go to the market, don�t stinge. After shelling them, the portion becomes small, and you will discover that you do not have enough for everybody at your table.
4. Experiment with different flavours, don�t be afraid to try out new recipes.
5. Use different sauces, relishes, dips and curries. Don�t always cook prawns in a sauce. Sometimes use the sauce as a dip rather than cover the prawn with it.
6. When you deep freeze prawns, you lose some of its texture and natural flavour. But if you must deep freeze them, then peel them and store them in a plastic bag. Don�t wash them because they lose their flavour. And defrost the prawns in the fridge itself, not in natural water, that�s the safest way. Also, don�t pack too many in the bag, four to five are enough, and keep them flat when freezing.

About the author
Chef Gary Palm has a passion for visual appeal and expresses his culinary genius by artistically presenting his dishes. On special occasions, he does �Food as Art� dinners, amazing guests with edible plates of art that resemble some of the great classics. He once ran his own restaurant in Laval, France, before going on to hold positions at the Ritz-Carlton in Seoul and the Loews Hotel in Monte Carlo. He was also Bill Clinton�s official chef during the President�s stay at Hotel Del Coronado.

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