KY cooks – Fried Prawns with Soya Sauce

It’s time for another recipe sharing session. This time it’s seafood – fried prawns with soya sauce, a simple to prepare and yet pretty luxurious dish (just because prawns are so expensive these days).

I had some prawns in hand thanks for mom who actually works in a market, and since I ran out of asam to make my favorite nyonya style sam prawn, I went online to look for something simple to prepare, and landed on this fried prawns with soya sauce recipe from Babe KL. I know Babe KL & Capt’n Hook personally and was sure that her recipe wouldn’t go wrong.

trim off all sharp edges, add pepper, salt, corn starch

Anyway, here are the ingredients you need:

• big prawns, I had XL prawns, bigger the better
• 1 bulb garlic – chopped
• 2 inches ginger – cut into stripes
• 2 tablespoon corn starch
• salt & pepper
• 1 tablespoon worchestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoon dark soya sauce
• 1 tablespoon soya sauce
• a couple stalks of spring onion
• cooking oil

cook the prawns and place it aside

Prawn preparation steps:

• trim off the all appendages of the prawns with a scissor
• clean and pad dry the prawns with paper towels
• marinate prawn with salt, pepper, and cover with corn starch
• heat up some cooking oil and fry prawns till reddish (2-3 minutes)
• set prawns aside

ginger, then garlic, then prawns, and all the sauces, finally spring onion

there you go, classic fried prawns with soya sauce

So there, the dish really turned out pretty well, I actually wished that we had put in even more garlic & ginger cos they really brought out the taste of the prawns and went well with rice. For those who likes it a little sweeter, feel free to add a teaspoon of sugar too.

For more recipe from yours truly, click on my cooking category.

KY cooks – Steamed Pomphret (CNY reunion dinner)

My third dish for the Chinese New year reunion dinner to greet the Year of Boar is steamed Pomphret (Pomfret) fish. This fish is a little pricey, and especially so during the Chinese festive season, however, it is very difficult to find a better fish as far as steamed fish dishes go.

looking at this is making me hungry again

Ingredients:

• a good size pomphret fish (preferably around 1KG)
• shitake mushroom
• chopped garlic
• finely sliced ginger
• salt
• soya sauce
• pork fat (optional)

Steps:

• clean the fish throughly and rub both sides with salt
• put the sliced mushroom, garlic, and ginger evenly on the fish
• sliced some pork fat (I got them from the roasted pork in the HK kailan dish)
• add some soya sauce to the fish
• steam it for about 15 minutes, and let the fish sit in the steamer for another 5 minutes after switching off the fire
• be very careful not to spill the very hot dish while transferring it from the steamer to dining table

can you spot the secret ingredient?

This dish turned out excellent as expected, the secret ingredient (pork fat) makes the fish even smoother and adds a layer of that Year of Pig aroma that is irreplaceable. The garlic and ginger removes any fishy smell that might be present, and the mushroom gives a different taste and texture to enrich the whole experience.

I think adding a little bit of parsley might give a better presentation, sort of like how I dressed up the fried pomphret. You can try this method with other type of fish too, though the result might be less optimal.