Prawns on Lemongrass and Caramelized Pineapple with Lime

Ever eaten Prawns on sugarcane? It's a popular Vietnamese snack.
This dish is a twist from the original version changing the sugarcane to lemongrass.
So, if you ever had lots of sugarcane from Chinese New Year, you can try making these with sugarcane instead.

I love lime with pineapple. Normally I don't eat pineapples except in bakes and with it caramelized it's just super. Lime somehow enhances the flavour of pineapple to become something I find hard to describe. It's so tropical that serving these with the lemongrass prawns will be perfect. Initially I wanted to put each prawn stick into each ring, but I could only manage to make 2 rings. So, make do la. The judges almost didn't taste the pineapple but I told them to try it because I spent so much time preparing it. But Chef Ryan ate the pineapple first instead of the prawn. They all said very nice too :)

If you look at the way I fried the prawn sticks, I fried them over a banana leaf. Weird right? I wanted to give it a smokey feel, like how grilled fish will smell like. That was my intention. It did smell so good.

Prawns on Lemongrass Recipe

Recipe source: Wendyywy

250gm prawns
1 tsp finely chopped red chilli
1 tsp fnely chopped shallot
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1 Tbsp finely sliced green onion
1/3 tsp salt
3/4 tsp sugar
1 heaped tsp cornstarch
Dash of fish sauce
Few sticks of lemongrass, I used 4
1 egg
2 Tbsp cornstarch for dusting

1. Peel and devein prawns. Bash up prawns with the side of cleaver until it looks pasty.
2. Mix with everything else except lemongrass, egg and the cornstarch for dusting.
3. Clean lemongrass and lightly bash up the base to release flavour
4. Divide prawn paste according to amount of lemongrass.
5. Wrap the base of each lemongrass with prawn paste, it will look like drumsticks.
6. Heat a pan and put in sufficient amount of all, about 1cm tall for some decent pan frying. Put in a piece of banana leaf.
7. Coat the prawn paste with beaten egg and roll in cornstarch.
8. Fry the prawn sticks on top of the banana leaf until golden.
9. Drizzle with spicy lime dressing and serve hot.


Spicy Lime Dressing
1 lime, zested
1 tsp lime juice
1 tsp fish sauce
1 Tbsp Thai Sweet chilli sauce
2 bird's eye chilli
1 tsp finely chopped shallot
1 clove garlic, finely grated
1 tsp sugar (or more)
Some vinegar or more lime juice to adjust the acidity

Just mix everything together and taste. It should be well balanced, limey, sweet, and spicy. Adjust the taste as needed.


Caramelized Pineapple with Lime.
Recipe source: Wendyywy

Few fresh pineapple rings
Some butter
some lime juice
some sugar

Fry pineaaple rings with butter until both sides look golden. Add in sugar and continue to fry until caramelized. Sprinkle with lime juice and dish up.