Chinese Chili Prawns

Chinese Chili Prawns are a staple in Szechuan style Chinese cooking, personally I love Chinese Cooking due to the dynamic flavors and since I have a particular interest in spicy food, this is a recipe that I like to make. If done right you have a sweet spicy and sour dish that’s perfect served over white rice. This is a quick and simple dish that may require some preparation with the prawns but aside from that it’s quite easily done.

Difficulty: Intermediate

This is a very straightforward dish and aside from the preparation that I explained in my previous post, there’s no other skills needed for the preparation of this dish. Then again there will be some people who may have trouble getting used to the preparation hence the Intermediate rating.

Tools Needed

Knife – again I’m using the Santoku Knife but any knife used for chopping will do.

Wok – this will help make mixing the sauce and stirring the prawns with the sauce much easier. In case you do not have one, any rounded pan will do. An example would be the common non-stick frying pans that people use for omelets and pancakes.

Ladle/Large Spoon – this is needed to assist in mixing the sauce and stirring the prawns with the sauce.

Ingredients (Serves 1-2)

6 Medium sized Tiger Prawns shelled and deveined with heads separated – to see how this is done please see my previous preparation post here

1 Shallot Onion – this is to add aroma and texture to the sauce

2 Tablespoons Chili Bean Sauce – this sauce can be found in most supermarkets. It’s a generic Szechuan sauce that gives a certain sweet and spicy taste unique to the cuisine. If you want to make the dish hotter feel free to add more of this

1 Tablespoons Chinese Garlic Chili Sauce – again this is a chinese sauce found in most supermarkets. In the event you cannot find this sauce don’t fret. You can simply create this by mixing mild chili, vegetable oil, a little sugar and garlic.

2 Tablespoons Tomato Ketchup – this is a slightly modern version of this dish so we add ketchup to provide a slightly sour taste and make the dish a bit milder.

Corn starch – place this in a bowl with just enough to coat the prawns once. Add a couple of dashes of salt to the bowl and mix it well.

Salt and Pepper to taste

Steps

1. I’m assuming you’ve already prepared the prawns. If you haven’t please refer to the Cooking 101 Article on this. After preparing the prawns, peel and chop the onion. Note that we need it finely chopped as seen in the photo so that the prawns are not overpowered by the onions.

2. Coat the prawns in corn starch. We will not be using eggs or any other binding agent. Just make sure that the cornstarch envelops the prawn completely. The purpose of the cornstarch is to provide an absorbent outer layer for the sauce to bind to later on.

3. Turn on your stove to medium or medium-high head and once it’s hot enough add enough oil to your wok or pan to cover about a quarter to a half of the prawn. You’ll know the wok is hot enough if when you splash water on it the water droplets roll around instead of bubbling or just staying there, be careful that it’s not too hot though because the oil will ignite if it is. Just be careful when you’re adding the oil, if the oil smokes but doesn’t bubble that’s ok, but if it bubbles raise the wok off the stove to prevent it from lighting up.

In adding the prawns there’s no need to deep fry the prawn since we plan to use some of this oil as shortening for our sauce. So we want it to be as thick with prawn flavor as possible. Make sure there’s enough oil though that it doesn’t disappear from sight due to absorption when we add the prawns. Once you’ve done this just add the prawns and watch it cook. Observe the prawn as it changes color, when the tail end completely becomes red-orange and the cornstarch on the body has browned take it out and place it on a table napkin to dry.

Tip: do not flip the prawns until the side that is being fried is cooked already. This will ensure that the coating binds to the prawn and not to the bottom of your pan.

looks good enough to eat with a little soy sauce right?

4. Now we take the prawn heads that we spearated earlier. Remember that the jelly inside shouldn’t have leaked. If there’s too much oil left in the wok/pan after taking the prawns out, just remove the excess. We want just enough to cover the bottom of the wok/pan. Now you toss in the prawn heads and as they turn red-orange crush them with your spoon/ladle. This will enable the jelly inside to mix with the oil and produce the shortening medium you need for the rest of the sauce. After the resulting liquid is nice and pink remove the heads.

When they come to this color, this is when you crush them to get the “jelly” out.

5. As you see in the previous picture you won’t have much of the shortening liquid so before the liquid simmers and reduces away due to the heat add the Chili Bean Sauce, Garlic Chili oil and Ketchup and stir them together. After stirring reduce the heat of your stove to low. You should come up with the red liquid that will be the sauce you will use to coat the prawns you just fried. Take a quick taste test and add salt and pepper to adjust it to your liking.

6. Add the prawns and stir fry them in the sauce until they’re fully coated in the sauce. When that happens add the onions and stir again and let the whole mixture set with occasional stirring to prevent burnt spots  for about a minute or two for the onions to cook

Upon placing the prawns immediately stir-fry them into the sauce, this is a very quick step and you do not want the prawns to lose their crispness.

7. Once you’ve finished doing this place the mixture on a plate and serve it with white rice. White rice would go best with this dish as a complement to the spicy and strong taste of the dish.

And your dish is now complete. As you can see it’s very simple to make since all it requires is lightly frying the prawns and mixing the flavors of the sauces to make the main sauce then mixing everything together. Enjoy!

Variations:

You can also add an egg to the mixture as an additional neutralizer to the taste of the sauce. This makes it a milder dish and moves it closer to Spanish-style Gambas.

You can opt to use chopped green onions/scallions instead of shallots as well. This would add a different texture and a slightly different aroma to the dish. This depends on your preference.

Personally I like my food salty, but for people looking for a sweeter taste you may add half a teaspoon of honey or brown sugar to the mixture. Be careful when adding these though because if you add too much the sauce will glaze over.

- Gerald