Thai Green Curry Prawns and Salted Egg Spinach

These were part of Saturday's dinner with my daughter's family.
I cooked braised belly pork in dark soya sauce, fried chicken wings in sweet sauce, green curry prawns and salted egg spinach.

I have a container of green curry paste prepared some time ago. I always make huge batches of different types of spices and freeze them. It makes cooking easy and convenient. I don't have to 'crack my head' as to what to cook as the various spices are ready at hand. Just thaw and cook - sambal, assam, curry, lemak and what have you!


Spices for Thai Green Curry: (approximately 1 1/2 rice bowl)

1 tablespoon coriander seeds (ketumbar), roasted
2 teaspoons cumin seeds (jintan puteh), roasted
1 teaspoon black peppercorns
2 teaspoons blachan
8 large green chillies
1 cup shallots
5 cm galangal (lengkwas)
12 cloves garlic
1 cup coriander leaves including roots
6 kaffir lime leaves
3 stalks lemon grass (serai)
2 teaspoons grated lime rind
2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoon oil

Just place all the ingredients and blend. Store and freeze.

For the prawns, I use 3 tablespoons of the paste and saute in a little oil before adding the prawns and stir fry a little before adding some coconut milk and sliced chilli padi. There is little gravy, so the prawns are cover with the paste. I didn't use salt as the stock is already flavoured.






Salted Egg Spinach

3 salted egg
6 cloves garlic, sliced
1 cup chicken stock
600g spinach, use more leaves with the thinner stalks


Boil garlic in stock. Add 3 yolks and drizzle a little egg white. Do not use all the egg whites or it will be too salty. When the yolks are about to cook, add the spinach and boil till just cooked.

Spicy Dried Shrimps

Spicy dried shrimps or 'Hae Bee Hiam' as it is known in Hokkien, a Chinese dialect, is a versatile dish that can be eaten with rice or used as a spread or filling in sandwiches.

At our recent bloggers' meet, I made some sandwiches with it.

My recipe is easy to follow though one must be prepared to stand by the stove for at least half an hour, depending on the preparation or the amount to be cooked. I would usually cook a substantial amount and store it in the freezer to be used at whim.

The Recipe:

A

300g dried shrimps (Be sure to buy the better quality that doesn't have a very strong smell)

B

12 shallots

3 cloves garlic

4 fresh red chillies

5 dried chillies, pre-soaked

4 chilli padi (optional)

1 pce 4-cm lemon grass, thinly sliced

8 kaffir lime leaves

oil

sugar to taste

How It Is Done:

1. Be sure to pick out all foreign objects like tiny stones, crab claw bits etc from the pile of dried shrimps. Rinse the shrimps twice then soak in enough water for half and hour or more. Drain and grind to the fineness or coarseness preferred. (Try not to add water when grinding as this will make the ground shrimps too wet and it will take a longer time to cook.) Set aside.

2. Grind all the ingredients in B.

3. Heat some oil (I used about 100ml) and put in the shrimp, ground ingredients and kaffir lime leaves and mix it well. Stir mixture over medium heat until it starts to dry out. Add sugar to taste. Salt is not required as the dried shrimp is quite salty itself.

You can either continue to cook till it dries out to 'floss' condition (which is quite dry) or if you prefer the moist kind, just cook for about 30 to 45 minutes.

I would recommend using a non-stick wok or pan.

This is quite moist because I wanted it to be easily spread on bread.

The kaffir lime leaves lent a very nice flavour to the shrimp.

These were the sandwich rolls made for the bloggers' meet.

I used soft bread slices, with edges removed. Next I spread a layer of shrimp and added some thinly sliced cucumber strips and rolled it tightly like a spring roll. I then used a piece of plastic to wrap the roll to keep the shape. To serve, remove the wrap and cut it into two. Enjoy!

Thai Prawn Salad with Coconut Milk Dressing

My daughter had some friends over for potluck. She wanted to go Thai and came across a very easy-to-prepare salad. She sliced the fruits and I helped her with the prawns. The prawns had to be simmer-cooked and timing had to be precise to make them crunchy and not overdone. I didn't want to waste the prawn heads and shells, so I made prawn stock and freezed it for future use.

What you need in this salad:

12 large or 20 medium-sized prawns
3 tablespoons lime juice (big lime used in Thai cooking)
2 teaspoons lime rind, finely grated
3 or 4 teaspoons soft brown sugar

1 or 2 oranges
1 mango
1 capsicum
a few slices of pineapple

1/2 cup coconut cream (I used 1/2 packet Kara coconut cream)
3 tablespoons fish sauce
fresh coriander leaves
kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded

What you have to do:

1. Remove the heads of the prawns and shell the prawn leaving the tail intact. Slit the back of the prawns and devein.

2. Prepare a pot of salted water (make sure it is salty and don't worry about the high salt content) and bring to boil. Lower heat and put the prawns in until they turn red. Remove the prawns immediately the moment they turn red (this is crucial to get it crunchy and not hard) and douse them straightaway into a bowl of iced water (salt all washed away!). Allow the prawns to cool, then drain.

3. Mix lime juice, rind and brown sugar. Add in the cool prawns and mix. Set aside for 15 minutes.

4. Meanwhile prepare the fruits. Remove the skin and pith of the orange and cut into segments.
Peel the mango and slice in thick strips. Slice capsicum into strips.

5. Arrange the fruits on a serving plate and place the prawns in the centre.

6. Mix the coconut cream and fish sauce together. Heat slightly over low fire. Cool and drizzle over the salad. Garnish with coriander leaves and kaffir lime leaves.
(The fruits and prawns were refrigerated before drizzling the cream and it turned out to be a cold salad.)



The pictures were taken by my daughter. She did the arrangement but forgot the garnishing.