Teriyaki Prawns 笑哈哈 - CNY Spread #5

After making a few tedious dishes... maybe a 5 minute dish will be a good choice.

It's quite a no brainer.. with just prawns, some salt and teriyaki sauce.... oh yeah, oil as well.

Creamy Prawn Curry @ Chingri Malaikari @ - AFF Indian Subcontinent #10

I love love love this prawn dish! And I'm going to repeat this dish quite often in the future. It's very nice.

After I cooked this dish, I realized why this is a dish that Bongs will serve whenever they have guests. It's because it is easy and delicious!

Frying the prawns before adding to the gravy is a lovely step to add flavour. Just like Cantonese way of cooking prawns, we like to give the prawns a high heat searing or a quick deep fry to enhance the flavour. And don't leave out the shells. That's where the flavour is. If you sear it with or without the shells, the fragrance will be obviously different. And to see this technique applied to this prawn curry is really an eye opener.

In Bangladeshi restaurants, it's usually cooked with large prawns or lobsters, shell on. But since I have some medium prawns, I just used that. Some recipes didn't mind using smaller prawns and some even use the prawn flesh only, without any shells at all.

I cooked this dish with reference to two recipes, taking some part from this and some part from that. I prefer cumin over coriander and I prefer red chilli powder over fresh green chilli. The rest pretty much remains for both recipes.

Mustard oil is an important ingredient when it comes to cooking seafood in Bangladesh, and I substituted it with oil flavoured with mustard seeds. I know it could be different, but that's the best that I can do.

I'm really glad I tried out this dish.

Creamy Prawn Curry Bangladeshi Style
Reference: Food Punch and My Saffron Kitchen 

300gm prawns
1/4 tsp salt
pinch of turmeric

1 tsp mustard seeds
3 Tbsp oil
1cm ginger
1 small onion

1 inch cinnamon
3 cloves
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1 small Indian bay leaf
1 tsp chilli powder
1/2 tsp turmeric powder

150ml coconut milk
100 ml water

1. Clean prawns and marinate with salt and turmeric.
2. Grate or grind ginger and onion to a paste.
3. Heat wok/pan and put in 3 Tbsp oil. Put in mustard seeds and let them cook until they sputter. Turn off the heat and remove the seeds*.
4. On high heat, sear the prawns until they curl up. Push them to the side, and let excess oil drip down into the wok.
5. With the same oil and wok , on medium low heat, saute cinnamon, cumin and cloves first, for a few seconds. Add in ginger and onion, and saute until it looks glossy. Add in chilli powder and turmeric powder and cook for around 10 seconds.
6. Add in water and coconut milk. Stir it gently all the while. Add in some salt to taste and cook until the gravy reaches your preferred consistency
7. Add in the prawns and bring it back to a boil. Turn off the heat and dish up.

* I sprinkled the fried mustard seeds onto some stir fried cabbage. No wastage.

I am submitting this to Asian Food Fest Indian Subcontinent Month, 

hosted by Alvin of Chef and Sommelier

Indonesian Curry Prawns 印尼咖喱虾- Hee Hee Ha Ha #3

I am not sure of the origins of this dish. But it's a popular prawn dish in Malaysia's Chinese restaurants.
Maybe due to the use of shrimp paste in this curry dish, I am not sure. It could just be a name for this dish.
So, if you know of the origins, do let me know.

Drunken Herbal Prawns 药材醉虾 - Hee Hee Ha Ha #2

A very easy to do dish that doesn’t need much cooking skills. But ingredient is very important here.
The prawns must be fresh, if not, it won’t be nice.

So for newbies, don’t worry too much if you need to cook prawns. It’s just about boiling, no splattering, no stir frying, no knife skills to employ. Most of all, it keeps the kitchen clean

Gon Jin Ha Look @ Cantonese Pan Fried Prawns 干煎虾碌 - Hee Hee Ha Ha #1

I learnt to cook this dish from my late 3rd uncle.
Every year he will cook this dish for us on the first day of Chinese New Year. It's been 5 years since I last had it from him.

Men from my family had good cooking skills. My brother can cook too, but he doesn't do it often. Whenever my grandpa steps into the kitchen, all the women only becomes assistants. Same goes to my great grandpa who was a traditional baker who also roasts his own coffee.

Pumpkin Prawn Pilaf - Pumpkin #3

I tried a pumpkin prawn pilaf recipe from a local women magazine, and unfortunately, I found it lacking in flavour (just my own opinion). Personally (you may think otherwise), I will prefer more spices to go with it. The recipe for 4 servings also called for 3 cups of raw basmathi of which is quite a lot! 3 cups raw basmathi will give you around 9 cups cooked (unfluffed) rice and imagine after fluffing.....woah...I can't imagine 4 persons eating that. When I tried out the recipe to serve 3 big eaters plus kids, I cut the rice to half and the rest remained. It looked fine, proportion of rice and prawns looked good, but tasted not as good as I hoped, since making seasoned rice is usually quite straightforward with not much techniques involved. I wonder how many of you have encountered such problems with recipes from women magazines.

Prawn Noodles - Soupy Noodles #1

It was almost Chinese New Year (somewhere Dec 2011) and I have a lot of prawn shells in the freezer that needs clearing up. I’ve never made prawn noodles before and I’ve been planning for my maiden attempt since months ago. I finally made it when I got some nice fresh prawns again.

I thought it’s difficult. But hey no, it took me just a little while to make this for dinner. The most difficult part could be cleaning the shallots and that’s just it. The rest was quite a breeze.

Krill Steamed Egg 虾皮蒸蛋 - Eggs #2

Krill… Can be found in wet markets, sold as fresh “geragau” or. It is also used to make cincalok (watch out for a cincalok recipe from Cindy, Melaka's host for August) and belacan. And there is also dried ones labeled as udang kapai.

Some sold are dyed with food colouring, therefore, looking peachy. Go for those that looks pale. It’s really cheap, and once you’ve tried it, you will know that it’s actually quite flavourful.
Besides being cheap.. krill is also very nutritious. Antartic krill is a good source of Omega 3, but those sold here… are not from Antartic, just locally caught. It may not be as superior, but then again, won’t be too much worse, right? It’s still protein.

Picture of dried krill, here

Hot and Spicy Mayonnaise Prawns - Prawns Week # 3

Recipe tried out: Nov 2011

Another spicy prawn??
Err.. sorry if you hate spicy food.

I think I might have overdosed on the mayo, hence, these prawns look heavily coated unlike love2cook's, of which looks perfect for me. I prefer hers.

But for those of you who love mayo, then throw that white grease in.

Sesame Orange Shrimp - Prawns Week # 2

For this year's Chinese New Year, my FIL went all the way to the coastal areas to get seafood.
He bought few large fishes, 2 kg of prawns, crabmeat and lots of other stuff. We took one kg of the prawns and used it to prepare a dish for the reunion dinner. We found that the prawns to be.... not very fresh.

Garlicky Spicy Prawns - Prawns Week #1

Recipe created in July 2011

I bought these prawns on a trip to the night market and they looked really fresh.
I had no idea what to cook with them yet and the next day I knew I just got to cook them asap.
I used what was in my pantry and came up with this dish.

Take note that the garlic was sauteed on low heat so that they dry up and get crispy, then only later, the prawns are returned on high heat. This way, everything remains fragrant and not soggy.

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.

Prawn and Mango Salad - Mango Week # 3

Cheese Baked Rice with Prawns - Seafood Week #4

It’s been long long time since I had mozzarella cheese on my dinners, besides pizza.
Today I’m yearning for some. And the week before, I’ve just bought 500gm of mozzarella.
I was thinking of doing seafood with the rice, but my squids are all frozen in one lump, so I can’t get some out. I only have prawns, that were separated into portions. So, I only used prawns.

Baked rice needs a creamy sauce, and what’s better than béchamel sauce. Bechamel sauce needs milk and I don’t have milk, then I went to the nearby Indian eatery to get some fresh cow’s milk. You can use any milk you like, just that this fresh milk is the only milk available by now within walking distance as all the shops are closed on a Sunday evening. For baked rice, the sauce is not as thick as those used for baked pasta, so, you might find this to be much more liquidy than the original version.

Bechamel Sauce
20gm butter
1 Tbsp flour
350ml milk
Salt and pepper to taste

Heat butter on medium low heat in a saucepan. With a whisk in hand, put in flour and stir until no lumps are seen. Let it cook for a while then pour in milk and gently whisking all the while. Bring to a boil and season with salt and pepper. Remove from heat and set aside. Stir the sauce once in a while, to prevent a skin from forming on top.

The Rice
Adequate rice for 2 persons

As many prawns as you like n
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 eggs
1 medium sized carrots, finely diced (5mm)
Salt and pepper
Cooking oil
As much sliced spring onions as you like
As much mozzarella cheese as you like

1. Preheat oven at 180/200C.
2. Heat wok on high. Put in 1 Tbsp of oil and put in prawns, spread around in a single layer. Do not toss them around. Let them cook until they start to curl and turn pink, then flip them over to fry the other side. When both sides are cooked and fragrant, dish up and set aside. Wash wok.
3. Heat wok and put in 2 Tbsp of oil. Put in garlic and cook until fragrant and slightly golden.
4. Put in carrots and rice and toss until rice is hot.
5. Push rice aside and put in eggs.
6. Push rice back onto eggs and toss everything until eggs are cooked. Season with salt and pepper, make sure it’s not as salty as your usual fried rice.
7. Place rice into individual baking vessels.
8. Top rice with béchamel sauce. Then arrange prawns on top of sauce. Then sprinkle spring onions and finally the mozzarella cheese, as much as you like.
9. Place the baking pans into a large shallow pan and put into the preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes or until golden.

See the sauce in there?

I was delighted with the outcome of the rice. The sauce was the right thing to add and the extra step of frying the rice made everything more flavourful. The spring onions were the best addition (never see anyone adding this), as when baked right under the cheese, it imparted a wonderful fragrance to the baked rice.
But let me warn you, if you are on a diet, just put that aside when you savour this rice. Definitely calorie laden, but definitely satisfying (IMPO).

See the stringy mozzarella cheese? Yummm

I wonder if you noticed the different coasters? My girls love to play with them and they always get missing.

Which is why you see mismatched coasters. I can't find matching ones!

Chinese Chives and Dried Krill Fritters - Seafood Week #1

I am a teacher. Still am. I am just on leave. I have not resigned. I teach Living Skills in school, or Kemahiran Hidup as called locally. In Living Skills, there are 4 electives to be chosen, something like a minor thingy, namely home econs, technical studies, agriculture and accounts.

When I was teaching in PESS, I was given 1 class with home econs as an elective in the subject.
The class was split to 2 for the subject and the other teacher sharing the class with me was Meldylocks. Home Econs consist of sewing and cooking basically, but the school didn’t encourage cooking. Yes!!! You heard me. So, it was all talk and chalk. Both of us were like “Huh??”How can cooking class be just talk and chalk?

I have taught Home Science for 2 years in Selancar and there will be cooking lessons for every chapter. I have never encountered a situation like such. Our subject form supervisor in PESS told us, there was no budget, and that she was told by the subject supervisor that we just explain, no need to do practical work. Meldylocks and I just couldn’t bring ourselves to teach this way. In the end, we used our own money and bought some ingredients to teach our students about “Batter”. This is the recipe that I made with them to demo “thick batter”. It was a nice experience with the students and I left the school the next year and came to where I am now. Ex 1-Teratai of 2007, if you happen to read this, I was happy to conduct those lessons with you gals.

Jicama and Krill Fritters (cucur udang geragau)
Source: Wendyywy

1 cup all purpose flour
½ cup water
1 egg
1/3 tsp salt
¾ cup dried krill, 虾皮
½ cup chopped Chinese chives
½ cup grated jicama (sengkuang)

Pouring chilli sauce

Every 2 part of chilli sauce, mix with 1 part water.

Make as much as u need.

1. Put dried krill in a sieve and rinse under running water for few seconds. Drain.
2. Mix water, and egg together. Pour into flour and salt, and mix until well combined
3. Put in rinsed krill, grated jicama and chopped chives and mix.
4. Heat some oil for deep frying.
5. Put in ½ tablespoon of batter and deep fry until golden. Repeat until batter is finished.
6. Serve with pouring chilli sauce.

Steamed Tofu with Prawns and Glass Noodles

When I saw this on 3 Hungry Tummies, it looked so so delicious.
When I served this for dinner, everybody says it's so delicious.
Credits to 3 hungry tummies for creating this yummylicious dish.

I did some minor adaptations, by lining the base with glass noodles instead of wrapping the tofu with it, so that the glass noodles will have juices from the tofu and prawns because glass noodles need a lot of liquid during the cooking process. And I also used soft tofu, instead of firm tofu.

It's actually very simple, not much rules here.

Steamed tofu with Prawns and Glass Noodles
Recipe source : 3 Hungry Tummies

Ingredients:
As much soft tofu as you like,
As many prawns as per pieces of tofu.
As much glass noodles as you like, just soak them until they get soft before you use them.
Garlic oil for drizzling
Light soy sauce for flavouring
Sliced spring onion for garnish, and definately extra aroma and flavour.

Method
1. Soak glass noodles until soft, Drain and snip shorter. Place in steaming dish.
2. Cut tofu into prefered sizes. Arrange on top of glass noodles
3. Arrange one piece of prawn on each tofu.
4. Steam on high heat for 10 minutes.
5. Drizzle with garlic oil and light soy sauce and top with sliced spring onions.

Prawns with Thyme and Lemon

I’m cooking dinner for 6 tonight and I’m scratching my head on what to cook. I’ve got the vege prepared, the egg prepared and the meat/seafood??? Not yet. What should I do…..

I’ve got prawns in my freezer.. No chicken and I don’t want to serve pork tonight. So, I’ll cook the prawns. And they’ve been frozen for more than 2 months, I definitely do not want to steam them. And I don’t have a lot of spring onions in my fridge. I have a half used up lemon…

What shall I do? I’ve got thyme. Shall I try thyme with prawns. Well, you see, I’ve never used thyme before. I don’t know if it works, because different herbs work well with different stuff. So, I googled, Prawns + Thyme. Phew, this combination is not alien. There are dishes where prawns are cooked with Thyme.

So, here is my version of Prawns with Thyme, a sudden new recipe.

Prawns with Thyme and Lemon
Recipe Source : Wendyywy


500gm prawns, with shells
2 cloves garlic
2 Tbsp finely chopped onions
1 loosely filled Tbsp thyme leaves
1 tsp lemon zest
¾ tsp salt
Olive oil for cooking

1. Clean prawns and snip off the legs and half the head(until past the eyes) with scissors. Pat dry prawns.
2. In a hot wok, put in 2 Tbsp olive oil and slide in the prawns. Let them spread out around the wok and do not move them until the underside looks pink. Flip them and let them cook until curled up and pink all over. It should smell wonderful. Dish up set aside, try not to take up the oil.
3. In a clean wok, Heat 2 Tbsp olive oil and put in onions and garlic. Cook until garlic is fragrant, then put in lemon zest and thyme. Put in salt and cook for a while until it smells fragrant.
4. Put prawns back into wok and toss for about 20 seconds.
5. Dish up and serve.

Assam Prawns - Version 2

I changed my assam prawn recipe. Although Grandaunt's way of doing it was fragrant and good, but actually the prawns tasted dry. So, I improved the recipe and when I used tamarind paste instead of the pulp, the recipe is more accurate (for others) because one does not need to take into account the amount of seeds the pulp may contain.

Simple and tasty.

500gm prawns (weighed with shells)

½ red onion

2 red chillies

1 tbsp Tamarind paste (Adabi brand)

2 Tbsp sugar

½ salt

4 Tbsp oil

1. Clean prawns, remove shells (but leave the tail) and vein.

2. Finely chop red onions and chilli, or you can use mill/food processor.

3. In a hot wok, put in oil and put in prawns. Spread them around. Flip them when they look curled.

4. Cook prawns until both sides have turned orange/red, not for too long. Lift up prawns and drain excess oil properly back into wok with spatula.

5. On medium low heat, sauté onions and chilli until very fragrant, and half dried. Put in tamarind paste, salt and sugar. Continue to fry until very fragrant and almost dry (like crumbled blue cheese) 

6. Turn heat to high, put in cooked prawns (they should release some water, so don’t worry about being too dry), toss for about 10 seconds or until gravy is thickened and sticking to the prawns.

7. Dish up and serve.

Soy Sauce King Prawns 士油皇虾

No no.. the prawns aren’t that large, not king sized. It’s just the name, translated literally from it’s Chinese name.

I first tasted this about 5 years back at a friend’s wedding. And I found the taste to be very special, simple and light, infused with sweet smell of garlic and green onion.

Restaurants will first fry the prawns in deep oil in big batches and then proceed on to the flavouring part. But I don’t think cooking at home u’d want to use so much oil, and discard them later. So, I just pan fried them.
You might want to cook this for ur Chinese New Year reunion dinner. Simple and tasty. Cooking time is less than 5 minutes :)

Here is my recipe, recreated what I first tasted.

Soy Sauce King Prawns

-300gm large prawns (about 12 pcs, snip off the eyes, the sharp point of the head, and the feelers)
-Half bulb of garlic, peeled, cubed (abt 1cm)----Do not smash or crack the garlic.
-2 Tbsp quality light soy sauce
-Handful of green onions, cut into 2 inch lengths. Sprinkled on serving dish.
¼ cup oil or more

1. Clean prawns and dry them properly on kitchen towels.
2. Heat wok until very hot on high heat. Put in oil. Carefully put in prawns and make sure they are spread around with one side of its body touching the wok. Turn to medium heat.
3. When the prawn starts to curl, flip them over and push them aside, not too far off tho, just away from the oil will do.
4. Put garlic cubes into the center of the wok and let it fry until fragrant and golden. Meanwhile flip the prawns one more time.
5. When both sides of the shell looks well fried , Turn to high heat again.
6. Push the prawns back into the oil. Put in 2 Tbsp light soy sauce and toss a few times. Or until the soy sauce dries up a bit. Careful not to burn the sauce.
7. Place hot prawns over green onions. Yes, the green onions are cooked only with the heat of the prawns.
If u do not like to eat garlic or green onions, do not leave them out. They are crucial to the recipe. Just discard what u do not eat after u’ve eaten the prawns.

Lyanne: I'm flabbergasted!!!!!!! Scroll down to see why.

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Here's what happened..
After dinner that day,  I was doing the dishes and Mike was bathing. Suddenly I smell a wift of fragrance. I went out of the kitchen, saw my room light(table light) was on.. and there was Lydia playing with talcum powder... Lydia was smiling at my wide opened mouth.. No words, I have no words for her.
I quickly carried her out and asked Mike, who was out from the shower by now to quickly take pics of her, so that she'll know what she has done when she was 2. Hehehehehe.... recording her childhood embarassments. She thought she was very pretty, until I brought her to face a mirror later on. She looked at the mirror .. and was stoned by the zombie in the mirror. She quickly requested to wash off everything. Now, she no longer plays with talcum powder.
 :)

Assam Prawns 阿萨虾

This is another family favourite from Grandaunty.

When grandaunty made this dish last time, she’ll divide the prawns equally among family members. The children have lunch and dinner at home, and the adults only have dinner. If we’ve eaten all our prawns by lunch, then it’s no more by dinner. No stealing!!! So, we’ll eat half of our portion and save the rest for dinner. We learn to cherish our assam prawns.

This is a slightly different version that most of the assam prawns that I’ve eaten in restaurants. Ours is slightly carameled, rather sweet and made with very simple ingredients.

Ingredients:
300 gm prawns (as thick as my index finger when shelled, about 200gm)
3 Tbsp sugar
2 Tbsp tamarind paste
½ tsp salt
1 red chili, finely chopped.
2 Tbsp oil

Method:
1. Shell prawns, leaving on the tail.
2. Add in sugar and salt.
3. Marinate for 30 minutes.
4. Add in tamarind paste. Combine well using fingers, removing seeds (if there is) as the fingers rub the tamarind paste onto the prawns.
5. Add in chili. Mix well.
6. Heat wok, add in 2 Tbsp oil and wait until the oil is hot, pour in prawns.
7. Fry them until prawns are slightly caramelized. Dish up.



***
The remaining oil is best used to fry kangkung… or other belacan based dishes.

***
Cook prawns immediately after adding in tamarind. If not they’ll taste half rotten later.