Garlic Butter Prawns

Did I already tell you how much I love prawns? Prawns and shrimps are one of my favorite ingredients in cooking. They taste great and can make the taste of most of the food better. For example, I love to add a little bit minced prawn when I make fried rice, or spring roll, or any kind of dumplings.  Sometimes, I puree it together with wheat flour and spices to make a prawn batter, fry it, and add it in my soup. I really love it.

This time, I still have about 1/2 kg frozen tiger prawn in my freezer and I would love to make a nice dish out of it for our dinner. I will make a garlic butter prawns. This is one of the best prawns dish I've ever eat.

It is very easy to make. But, talking about prawn (and shrimps), is all about preparation. Peeling their skin is not really a fun thing to do especially if I have to peel skins of huge amount of  prawns. Removing their back is easier but still need quite a long time. I only need to make a shallow cut on the back of the prawn and remove the black vein. I've shown you how to devein a prawn without make a cut on it when I made ebi furai long time ago. It's more complicated and need much more patience. But thanks God, I don't need to do that for this recipe. I don't even need to peel their skin because I cheated!  Ho ho ho... I bought frozen peeled-deveined prawns. It really help to reduce the preparation times. I just need to thaw the prawns. Don't use a microwave to thaw a prawn or the prawn will be ruined. Just leave it in the room temperature for about 30-60 minutes. It's the best way to thaw a frozen prawn. Once they're thawed, remove the excess water, dry them well with kitchen towel, and the prawns are ready to be cooked.


Ingredients :

• 500 grams tiger prawn, peeled (Tip : you can always leave the tail on.), and deveined
• 50 grams (about 1/2 cup) white flour
• 2-3 tbs olive oil
• 15 grams (1 tbs) butter
• 30 grams  (2 tbs) butter
• 4 cloves of garlic, minced
• 2 medium chili pepper, remove the seeds and the stem and slice it thinly
• salt
• ground black pepper
• pinch of freshly chopped parsley

Preparation : 

1. First dust the prawns with flour lightly.
2. Heat some olive oil in a skillet. 
3. Once the oil is hot, place the dusted prawns in an even layer on the skillet and cook it until they turn pink. Flip them over one by one and cook the other side until they become pink. The total process will take about 1 minute. 
4. Take the prawns off the skillet and set it aside on a plate.
5. Repeat until all the prawns are cooked. 
6. Prepare another bigger pan. (Tip : I'm using a wok pan because my skillet is quite small. If your skillet is big enough to make a stir fry, remove the leftover oil and clean the surface with kitchen towel if needed and you can use it again for the next step. Be careful it's hot)
7. Heat the pan and melt 1 tbs butter. 
8. Once the butter is melted, stir in minced garlic and sliced chili pepper for about 1 minute or until they start to become tender and smell good.
9. Add precooked prawns and cook and stir them together for about 1-2 minutes until all the prawns are mixed well with all the garlic and chili pepper. 
10. Season it with salt and ground black pepper
11. Add 2 tbs butter into the pan and stir it just until the butter is melted. 
12. Turn off the heat and add some chopped parsley.
13. Serve immediately. (Tip : Serve it with hot steamed rice)

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Lumpia Udang (Prawn Spring Roll)

Two weeks ago, my daughter had Christmas dinner at her school to celebrate Christmas. I and my daughter love this event. My daughter always excited for this dinner because she's able to use a nice and pretty dress to school, has dinner together with her friends in a cozy and warm atmosphere. I like it as well because I had a chance to see her school with different atmosphere. There were a lot of Christmas decoration and most of them were made by the children. It was lovely seeing Christmas song and decoration everywhere, girls with fancy dress, boys with shirts and ties, and the smell of delicious dishes.  

It was a pot luck dinner. Every parents may bring one type dish to school for the children and the teachers. The dish could be a dessert, beverages, bread, salad, or any kind of finger food. Like as usual, my daughter always wants me to bring mini spring roll for Christmas dinner. She love it and she said everybody like it as well. It is prawn spring roll actually. Not vegetable spring roll. Well, it is as delicious as vegetable spring roll and very simple to make. Mayonnaise or sweet chili sauce is a perfect companion for this dish. Anybody wants to try? 

Ingredients :

• about 40 ready to use mini spring roll pastry skins, thawed
• 200 grams tiger prawn, minced
• 1/2 medium onion, minced
• 2 garlic, minced
• 5 scallions, chopped
• 3 tbs white flour
• 6 tbs corn starch
• 2 tbs tapioca starch
• 1/8 tsp ginger powder or 2 cm fresh ginger root, grated
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 1 tbs oyster sauce
• 1 tsp sesame oil
• 5-6 tbs water
• salt and pepper
• vegetable oil for frying

Preparation :

1. In a bowl, mix together minced prawn, minced onion, garlic, chopped scallions, flour, corn starch, tapioca starch, ginger powder, soy sauce, oyster sauce, sesame oil, salt and pepper.
2. Add water into the mixture and mix them together. Sometimes, the mixture could be too thick and not easy to be spooned. Add more water (1-2 tbs at the time) if needed to reduce the thickness of the mixture.
   
3. Lay a spring roll skin on the work top. 
4. Place about 1 tsp of mixture on the corner of  the skin. Make it into a long shape and fold over. 
5. Fold the left and right corner into the center. 
6. Roll the rest of the skin and seam the end with a little bit of water. ( Tip : see the pictures how to wrap and roll spring roll from my spring rolls recipe )
7. Preheat vegetable oil in a frying pan (about 175 C or 350 F).
8. Deep fry the spring rolls until they start to become golden brown.
9. Remove the spring roll from the oil and drain them well.
10. Remove the excess oil using a kitchen towel.
11. Serve them hot with chili sauce or mayonnaise.

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Ebi Furai (Ebi fry)

My daughter had a request for me yesterday. She wanted to have fried prawn for her dinner. So, i decided to make Ebi Furai. It is a very popular dish in Japan. I found the recipe for this this last year from Cooking with dog channel on Youtube and since then I became one of her fans. I remade her Ebi Furay recipe few times and they always become a hit. We all love it. It is so delicious. It is crispy outside and soft and chewy inside.

Ingredients (Serving for 3-4 portion):

• 15 prawns
• 3 tbs flour
• 2 eggs, beaten
• about 100-130 grams panko (Japanese bread crumb)
• about 2 cups vegetable oil

Preparation :

1. Peel the skin of the prawns but leave the tail on. 
2. Remove the vein using a tooth pick.
3. Wash and rinse the prawns under the running water.
4. Dry them well
5. Make a shallow diagonally cut on the bottom of the shrimp
   
6. Press the prawn on the cutting board to prevent the prawn curling up during frying process. 
   
7. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the prawn
8. Prepare the flour on the plate, beaten egg, and bread crumbs on another plate
9. Heat the oil on the pan
10. Dip the prawn into flour
11. Dip the coated prawn into beaten egg
12. Dip it again into breadcrumbs and coat it well. If you want to have a thick breadcrumbs blanket covering the prawn, dip it again into beaten egg, and coat it again with breadcrumbs.
13. Carefully put the prawn into preheated oil.
14. Deep fry the prawn until it become golden brown
15. Remove the prawn from the oil and drain it well.
16. Remove the excess oil using a kitchen paper.

The original recipe requires tartar sauce for the sauce. Too bad i run out mayonnaise and cucumber pickle so i could not make it. I was using sweet chili sauce instead. It was still great. 15 ebi furay on the plate, and 5 minutes later they were gone. POOF!! Disappear. Definitely going to make it again next time. 

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