Thai prawns to blow your socks off

Well, I real­ly should be get­ting Avery to bed (she’s wrapped up, post-bath, in her blue jam­mies, blue dress­ing gown, new blue slip­pers from the enor­mous sale at the Lit­tle White Com­pa­ny), but I invent­ed a shrimp dish tonight that made us curl up our toes and sigh. So I’ll share:

Thai Prawns with Coconut Milk
(serves 4)

2 tbsps sun­flower or oth­er mild oil
5 cloves garlic
1 small hot red chili
1 large (1–2 inch?) knob gin­ger, peeled
2 tsps turmeric
1 tsp cumin
juices of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 lime
large hand­ful corian­der leaves
large hand­ful pars­ley leaves
1 red onion, quartered
sea salt
fresh ground black pepper

1 kg king tiger prawns, heads removed

1 soup-size can coconut milk
red pep­per flakes to taste

bas­mati rice for four (put to steam)
ten­der­stem broc­col­i­ni to saute in olive oil

4 kaf­fir lime leaves
12 basil leaves, chiffonade

Prob­a­bly your prawns will arrive to you frozen. Mine did. If so, place them in a bowl and let them thaw. Save the thaw­ing liq­uid. If they come with heads, remove them and rinse.

So. Put all the ingre­di­ents up to and includ­ing the black pep­per in a Cuisi­nart and whizz till a nice paste. You will have to take the lid off and scrape down the sides sev­er­al times. Next, heat the oil in a heavy skil­let or wok and throw all the paste in. Stir round till siz­zling, then throw in the prawns. Stir and toss and turn until the prawns are pink all over instead of their orig­i­nal grey, then smack each prawn against the side of the wok and remove to the even­tu­al serv­ing bowl.

Now pour into the wok the prawn thaw­ing liq­uid, and the coconut milk. Stir over medi­um heat until bub­bling and taste. Add the lime leaves and as many pep­per flakes as you need. Leave off the heat while you steam some bas­mati rice and saute some ten­der­stem broccolini.

When the rice and broc­col­i­ni are ready, remove the lime leaves from the sauce and add the prawns. Chif­fon­ade the basil and add to the sauce. Heat over high heat until bub­bling, then pour over the rice.

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Here’s the $64,000 ques­tion. To shell the shrimps before serv­ing or NOT. You could shell them after sautee­ing in the paste, before adding to the sauce. If you don’t, you’ll be left with a most messy but DIVINE dish, and need­ing a body plate for every two peo­ple for the shells and legs. But I wor­ry that shelling them will lose some of the flavour in the sauce. Up to you.

Must get Avery to bed. This din­ner we had in the glow of the enor­mous bou­quet of yel­low tulips that my sis­ter, broth­er in law and lit­tle niece sent to Avery to con­grat­u­late her on fin­ish­ing her exams. Such a ges­ture makes any din­ner taste bet­ter! Any­way, I want­ed you to have this recipe in time for your din­ner. Nighty-night.