Prawns in Coconut Milk

This is one of my MIL's recipes. She learnt cooking from her MIL who hailed from one of the Batak tribes in Sumatra. Hence my FIL is a descendant of the Bataks. Hmmm.... interesting!

I used to cook this quite frequently before. I had actually forgotten about it until my hubby's friend gave us some freshwater blue prawns. Some of them were really huge and had very long 'pincers'.

Since freshwater prawns are not as 'sweet-tasting' as saltwater ones, I thought that it would be better cooked in spices. So what better way to cook them was in "Udang masak Lemak" as my MIL would term it!

They sure have long nasty-looking pincers!

Ingredients:

Large prawns, about 10 or more

To be ground together:

14 candlenuts (buah keras)

2 medium-sized onions

5 or more fresh red chilli

4 chilli padi

1 thumb-sized turmeric (kunyit)

1 pce 6cm-lemon grass (serai), sliced

30g belachan

3 medium potatoes, cubed to preferred size

1 litre water

1 fresh coconut milk (obtain 250ml 'first' milk & 1 litre 'second' milk

Oil

2 pces 10-cm lemon grass, bruised

Kaffir lime leaves (optional)

Salt to taste

1. Heat enough oil and saute ground spices bruise lemon grass till fragrant.

2. Add 'second' coconut milk and potatoes. Add salt and cook till potatoes are soft. Remove from pot.

3. Add prawns and 'first' coconut milk and bring to boil until prawns have just curled up nicely.

Turn off heat and serve with rice.

Not so nasty but tasty!

Check out the bulbous head!