We have heard of braised pork, braised duck, even braised egg or beancurd… how about braised prawns and dry ones some more ? Hehehe. I realised I haven’t been cooking prawns for quite sometime, hence I decide to look for different ways to cook them and I chanced upon this dry braised prawns which on first look, does bear a striking resemblance to sambal prawns, but is quite totally different.
It tastes spicy because of the spicy bean paste, sweet and sourish because of the tomato sauce and definitely savoury due to the various seasonings combination. I like it alot personally and in fact when I prepared extras of these prawns for my lunchbox the following day, I realised they tasted even better on the 2nd day. Not sure if my tastebuds has gone wrong though ! Hahaha !!
The sauce is cooked first before stirring it into the prawns. Deep frying the prawns in some forms of starchy flour prior to sauteing them do give the prawns more texture and taste too. I believe the name of the dish comes from braising the prawns in the sauce till they dried up.
It’s quite interesting to note that dishes that come off as wet ones, will always be rejuvenated by the smart chefs into dry creations eventually. Just like how we used to enjoy the wet hor fun (rice noodles) originally, now we have the dried version as well. Even simple foods like instant noodles where it began with the soupy types only, but eventually all kinds of dried instant noodles rolled out. So that probably explains for these dry braised prawns too !!
If you are running out of ideas on how to prepare your prawns, do give this a try !! Pretty sure it will be an absolute twist to your usual dinner menu. ^-^
Dry Braised Prawns
Ingredients
For the Ingredients
- 25 pcs of medium to large prawns
- 1 onion sliced
- some potato starch flour
- some cooking oil
- some water
For the Prawns Marinade
- 1 tbsp shaoxing huatiao wine
- 1 tsp pepper
- 1 egg
For the Seasonings
- 2 tbsp minced garlic
- 1 tbsp minced ginger
- 2 tbsp spicy bean paste
- 1 tbsp tomato sauce
- 2 tsp sugar
- 1 tbsp shaoxing huatiao wine
- 1 tbsp sweet rice vinegar
- 1/2 tbsp worchester sauce
- 1 tsp light soya sauce
- 1 tsp sesame oil
- 1/2 cup water
For Thickening Solution
- 1 tsp corn flour
- 2 tbsp water
For Garnishing
- 1 spring onion chopped
Instructions
- Marinate the prawns with the marinade and set aside for 30 mins.
- Heat up cooking oil till very hot. Coat the prawns with potato starch flour and deep fried till golden brown. Remove and let drain on paper towel. Set aside.
- Heat up 2 tsp of cooking oil in a small pot and stir fry the minced garlic and ginger till fragrant. Add in the spicy bean paste and continue to stir well.
- Add all the rest of the seasonings ingredients and bring it to a boil. Thicken with the corn flour solution and remove from flame once thicken. Set aside.
- Heat up 1 tbsp of cooking oil in a wok and add in the sliced onion. Stir fry till fragrant.
- Add the deep fried prawns and the sauce from the previous step and 3 tbsp of water. Taste to determine if more water is required.
- Stir well to ensure all the prawns are well coated with the sauce. Remove from flame and garnish with the chopped spring onion. Serve hot.
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