Fried Prawns and Tang Hoon

A quick dinner for the work week. Just need to plan such that you have really good prawns.


Its a simple recipe inspired by the dish sometimes seen in Thai restaurants. The original is sometimes done with crab, and comes with loads of pepper and coriander. JK does not like pepper or coriander much, so some modification was needed. The really difficult part about this dish, getting it just perfect, is the timing and heat control. I like the prawns charred but just cooked and the tang hoon moist but not overdone. Let's try!

We need, of course, prawns and tang hoon, or bean vermicelli.

The prawns are from my regular fish monger at Yew Tee Wet Market. These were $12 to the kg and really nice. (Thank goodness Sheng Siong did not convert the place to some sad air-con mart!)

Prawns were trimmed a little, and that's it. I marinated them a bit with Chinese (Shaoxing) wine. fish sauce, pepper.

I fired up my trusty cast iron wok..... its the best thing ever, and in its 6+ years with me, has never been washed with soap (and thus retains the essence of past recipes ha ha). In go the prawns into a rather hot (almost smoking) wok.

In goes some whole garlic cloves. The prawns are starting to char a little, which is good.

In the meantime, chopping up some saw tooth coriander

Here we are.

I cooked the prawns till they are just red, and a little charred, but would still be a little raw within. High heat is needed for this.

Pushed the prawns aside a little and threw the parboiled tang hoon onto the hot wok to acquire the "wok hei".

The prawns are moved onto the top of the vermicelli and I poured in some stock with a touch of dark soya. I then covered the wok for like 2 or 3 minutes. This way, the prawns cook fully and every bit of delicious juice from the prawns flavor the vermicelli. Waste not the good stuff.

When I uncovered....

The prawns then had to be taken out first so that I could give the vermicelli a good stir.

And here is the vermicelli. Garlic was discarded.

And dinner is served. Takes about 15 minutes from start to finish.

It was a pretty luxurious weeknight dinner as we cracked the Moet and Chandon to celebrate JK's birthday. The prawns were soooo good, and the vermicelli was very flavorful.  Getting the texture and doneness of the vermicelli just prefect is still a challenge. This attempt did not quite do it.

Grilled Pork Neck - Yummy!

This is my clumsy attempt to try the recipe by David Thompson as posted by Chubby Hubby. Thanks for sharing a great recipe. Its got to work - grilled meat with a Thai sauce. Think fish sauce, chilli, meat on the grill - what can go wrong?  It was easy to do and left me and JK time to take some pictures. I followed the recipe loosely and there are some deviations.

So, here are the major ingredients. For the full recipe, do refer to the original source at chubby hubby's blog. I marinated the pork neck in fish sauce, sugar and (in deviation from recipe) lemon grass. The other  ingredients went to the sauce.

I marinated for several hours. Then, I heated up my grill pan and started cooking. The slow grill in this recipe allows me to start the grilling and prepare the sauce in the meantime. Ohh... the aroma of lemon grass on the grill........

I chopped up the some herbs for the sauce, here is basil (not in recipe), saw tooth coriander and chilli. The basil and saw tooth coriander are from my own little herb patch :). Saw tooth coriander is a beautiful herb, with an intense flavor identical to regular coriander (its the same chemical compound) but much easier to grow and maintain.

 And, I fried the chilli in a little oil (did not have the dried chilli called for in recipe)

In the meantime, the I tried to grill the pork on all sides. You see that fat and juice oozing out? It was not wasted, oh no, it went into the sauce!

And I got the sauce ready....

Added lemon (it should have been lime) juice and fish sauce ......

I left the coriander leaves out of the sauce, as JK hates this herb. Apparently, some folks can taste a substance in it and to them it tastes like soap. So I served this on the side (JK did not complain about the saw tooth coriander I did add)

And finally, after nearly an hour, I deemed the pork to be cooked....

And I curved it up....

And it still looked a little pink.... but that's the way I like pork - more juicy!

Here's the end product. The good news for me was that JK had a hard time deciding if the sauce should go on it - the pork was almost good enough on its own.

It was delicious, if I say so myself. Thanks to a great recipe. This is the first really new idea I have tried in a while! Eaten with hot jasmine rice and some fresh vegetables and of course, beer! It was a very nice dinner, and the sauce really brightened up some weeknight dinners later in the week. It's great over fish fingers too :)

Lobster Dinner

 
My adventure on Valentine's Day.

Reluctant to pay an inflated price for dinner on this special day, I took matters into my own hands. This is the lobster I got from the Greenwood Fish Market. I must say I have never handled a live lobster before. I read about it, and the kind folks at Greenwood Fish Mart offered some advice (they would of course have split it for me).

So, I got hold of a knife.....

As you can see, it was a pretty large specimen.

Spliting the lobster was not as hard as I imagined:

And it was done, interestingly, there is an instant color change :

And having split it, I was really a little lost..... What exactly was edible and what not? I read about it all, but to see it was a little puzzling.....

I eventually figured that the dark green stuff is the roe and the light green stuff tomalley, all of it is edible

I removed and set aside all the green stuff, and started on the lobster half:

And the other half....

And of course we need some fire:

In the meantime, we start on some pasta

And we start to plate the lobster:

This frees up the pan, and we start to cook the tomalley and roe. The roe turns a very attractive bright orange, and the tomalley more or less retains its color. 

And in some cream

And in goes the pasta

And final assembly:

 

Ready to go!