Sweet and Sour Prawns

Cookbook Challenge Week 20

Book: The Food of China: the Journey for Food Lovers Theme: Tangy Recipe: Sweet-and-sour Prawns and Vegetables

Who came up with this bloody stupid theme? Oh wait, it was probably me. Anyway, I had capsicums lying around the house from Jim’s garden and since I have everything else around the house, I figured I should kill two birds with one stone (hang on, this sounds a lot like the last post, doesn’t it?) Although I hardly think sweet-and-sour prawns could pass for ‘tangy’ theme but it’s better than being yet-another-week behind, which I’m about to be,  since I’m off to Vanuatu for a week next week. Yay!

Sweet and Sour Prawns (for two)

1. 12 large green prawns, shelled, deveined and semi-butterflied*
2. 1 small red capsicum, diced irregularly
3. 1 small green capsicum, diced irregularly
4. 2 slices of ginger, chopped
5. 2 cloves of garlic, chopped
6. 4 white parts of the spring onions, chopped
7. 2 tbsp of chopped spring onion leaves (green part

Prawn marinade

1. 2 tbsp Shao Tsing rice wine
2. 1 tbsp corn flour
3. 1 tsp sesame oil
4. 2 slices of ginger, bruised

Add the ingredients together and mix well. Add prawns, toss and leave to marinade for 15 minutes.

Heat 3 tbsp of oil in a wok until very hot. Remove the ginger pieces from the prawns and drain. Fry the prawns in hot oil for a few minutes until the prawns changed colour. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Remove some of the oil until there are about 2 tbsp of oil left.

Fry the white parts of the green onion, garlic and chopped ginger until fragrant. Add the capsicums and fry quickly for two or three minutes. Add the prawns back. Make sure you keep the heat nice and high all the time and stir quickly.

Sweet and sour sauce

1. 1 tbsp of corn flour
2. 1/3 cup of water
3. 1 tsp sesame oil
4. 2 tbsp white (or rice) vinegar
5. 2 1/2 tbsp tomato ketchup
6. 2 tbsp sugar
7. a dash of white pepper
8. 1 tsp light soy sauce
9. 1/2 tsp salt

Add the sauce to the prawns and stir quickly until the sauce boils rapidly. Remove from heat and sprinkle with green parts of the spring onion. Serve with ‘special fried rice’ – Josh insisted. You can force some culture into the boy but you can only take it so far.

Photography courtesy of Josh. He abused the hell out of the flash (I feel the need to report that)

* Shell and devein prawns as usual then use a sharp knife to score deeply along the length of the prawns (but don’t cut it apart) so that the prawns open out when cooked (‘butterfly’). I usually have a bag of IQF (individually quick frozen) prawns in the freezer. You buy them from Asian grocers for about $20 for a 1kg bag. They are very versatile. These are the prawns the big chain supermarket sells as ‘prawn cutlets’