Mango Chilli Prawns
We got a packet of king prawns in our last shopping, as a treat, and a couple of mangoes and chillies that needed to be used up, so I decided to try some improvisation. This is the result:
And here's the recipe for future reference. It serves a few people - I made it for two and we had too many prawns.
Mango Chilli Prawns
Cooked, peeled king prawns (about 24-ish)
Half a mango
Half a lime
About 2cm^2 of root ginger
About a tablespoon of fresh coriander
Chillies to taste
Soy sauce to taste
Two tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
About two teaspoons sugar
Salt and pepper
Boiled rice
Four pieces of pak choi, washed (the large-leafed, white bulbous based variety)
First, make the marinade. Juice the half lime into a bowl big enough to hold the prawns - I have no juicer, so I just squeezed it then used a spoon handle to smush the pulp to get more juice out.
Peel and cut half the mango. The easiest way I've found to do this is to lie the mango flat and run a horizontal knife round its circumference, cutting into the flesh all the way into the stone, so the two halves are only held together by the stone. Now twist the halves to rip the stone out. Skin one of the halves and cut into little chunks. Dump them in the lime juice.
Prepare the ginger. Chop a bit off the root, skin it, slice thinly, rotate, slice the other way, then attack the slivers of ginger with a knife until they're nigh unrecognisable. I don't normally go this far, but I've found that unlike myself, people dislike finding bits of ginger in their food. I guess I'm just a ginger fiend. Dump the shredded ginger into the bowl, too.
Now, cut the chillies. If you're not keen on fiery food, slice them lengthwise and remove the seeds, then chop into slivers. Otherwise, just slice them up into little chilli rings. I used one seeded chilli and one de-seeded, which made the dish rather a bit too hot and caused the drinking of many glasses of milk. A couple of de-seeded chillies would probably be more to my liking - of course, if you enjoy burning your mouth off, chuck more in. Rip up the coriander into little bits and toss it in, too.
Finally, add the sweet chilli sauce and some salt and pepper (a good couple of shakes), stir everything around until it's well mixed, cover the bowl and leave it for a bit. In my case, I left it for all of thirty seconds and it came out just fine, but half an hour might make for even tastier prawns.
Heat up a frying pan and dump everything in. Add about a quarter of a cup of water and fry for a bit until the water's bubbling. Taste the sauce. If it's too lime-y, add some of the sugar. Once it's sweet enough, add a couple of shakes of soy sauce until the sauce is savoury enough.
The prawns are already cooked, so they don't need long - I didn't realise this, so mine came out a bit tough. Maybe thirty seconds tops once the water's bubbling. While they're cooking, scoop the rice onto the plates. Once the prawns are done, decant them onto the plates and quickly rinse out the pan. Add about a centimetre of water to the pan, plus a few dashes of soy sauce, lay the pak choi on the bottom and cover with a lid or plate. Put back on the heat until the water's bubbling, then drain the pak choi and arrange them on the plates.
Finally, tuck in!
And here's the recipe for future reference. It serves a few people - I made it for two and we had too many prawns.
Mango Chilli Prawns
Cooked, peeled king prawns (about 24-ish)
Half a mango
Half a lime
About 2cm^2 of root ginger
About a tablespoon of fresh coriander
Chillies to taste
Soy sauce to taste
Two tablespoons sweet chilli sauce
About two teaspoons sugar
Salt and pepper
Boiled rice
Four pieces of pak choi, washed (the large-leafed, white bulbous based variety)
First, make the marinade. Juice the half lime into a bowl big enough to hold the prawns - I have no juicer, so I just squeezed it then used a spoon handle to smush the pulp to get more juice out.
Peel and cut half the mango. The easiest way I've found to do this is to lie the mango flat and run a horizontal knife round its circumference, cutting into the flesh all the way into the stone, so the two halves are only held together by the stone. Now twist the halves to rip the stone out. Skin one of the halves and cut into little chunks. Dump them in the lime juice.
Prepare the ginger. Chop a bit off the root, skin it, slice thinly, rotate, slice the other way, then attack the slivers of ginger with a knife until they're nigh unrecognisable. I don't normally go this far, but I've found that unlike myself, people dislike finding bits of ginger in their food. I guess I'm just a ginger fiend. Dump the shredded ginger into the bowl, too.
Now, cut the chillies. If you're not keen on fiery food, slice them lengthwise and remove the seeds, then chop into slivers. Otherwise, just slice them up into little chilli rings. I used one seeded chilli and one de-seeded, which made the dish rather a bit too hot and caused the drinking of many glasses of milk. A couple of de-seeded chillies would probably be more to my liking - of course, if you enjoy burning your mouth off, chuck more in. Rip up the coriander into little bits and toss it in, too.
Finally, add the sweet chilli sauce and some salt and pepper (a good couple of shakes), stir everything around until it's well mixed, cover the bowl and leave it for a bit. In my case, I left it for all of thirty seconds and it came out just fine, but half an hour might make for even tastier prawns.
Heat up a frying pan and dump everything in. Add about a quarter of a cup of water and fry for a bit until the water's bubbling. Taste the sauce. If it's too lime-y, add some of the sugar. Once it's sweet enough, add a couple of shakes of soy sauce until the sauce is savoury enough.
The prawns are already cooked, so they don't need long - I didn't realise this, so mine came out a bit tough. Maybe thirty seconds tops once the water's bubbling. While they're cooking, scoop the rice onto the plates. Once the prawns are done, decant them onto the plates and quickly rinse out the pan. Add about a centimetre of water to the pan, plus a few dashes of soy sauce, lay the pak choi on the bottom and cover with a lid or plate. Put back on the heat until the water's bubbling, then drain the pak choi and arrange them on the plates.
Finally, tuck in!