[boar_d_laze]

Hmmm. Tikka is one thing and masala another. From what you've said in your first post and in your response to Phil, it seems that Indian restaurants in your neck of the woods like to dress shrimp tikka in a masala type sauce.

Cooking tikka requires a marinating your meat in a yogurt based marinade with plenty of paprika for color, and some relatively mild spices for a relatively long time -- then cooking with a mix of high direct and convection heat -- either contact as against the wall of a tandoor (which you don't have), or over a charcoal or gas grill (which you should). It can be done with any meat or fish; chicken tikka is by no means the only or the original. In fact, if I had to bet, I'd put my money on lamb or goat as the ace meat. But, I digress. So... shrimp, tikka marinated, skewered and grilled.

Throughout most of the United States and the UK, a masala is a relatively mild curry often enriched and thickened with coconut milk; although strictly speaking masala is just a spice mixture -- what we'd call "curry powder," the most famous of which (outside the US) is garam masala.

It's not exactly an Indian/Pakistani thing but the range of spice levels is often synonymous with types. Starting with mulligitawny as the mildest, then masala, then vindaloo, and finally phaal as the hottest. Depending where you are, the words can have additional meanings. For insance, vindaloo can mean vinegary as well as hot -- in the Goanese style. One thing that is consistent is that a phaal is way too hot for anyone who's not a total chili-head. Consider yourself warned.
To make a masla sauce of the sort I think you're looking for, you would fry some very thinly sliced onions until limp, adding some powdered spices (or a paste), and cooking the spices and onions down for awhile; adding some garlic, and some stock and perhaps a few other aromatics and vegetalbes like peppers; letting it reduce; then perhaps some coconut milk and allowing it to further reduce and thicken. FYI, Most of the thickening is actually caused by the onions dissolving and the spices forming an emulsion. Finally, you'd either add the shrimp and allow it to just heat through in the sauce, or plate the shrimp (perhaps over rice) and saucing them on the plate.

Cutting to the chase, it's barbecued shrimp in curry sauce.

If this sounds at all like what you're looking for, and you want me to write a recipe for you, it could happen. Worth having some discussion first though, to find out what spices and other Indian/Pakistani supplies are available to you in the heartland.

Making sense?
BDL