Asian style prawns - crikey they were good

So while I'm fooling around waiting for eggs to cool down, I'll tell you about some prawns I made last night.

I use a lot of garlic, ginger, coriander, lime juice (and rind), and I keep these on hand in 15 gram cubes, vac packed in the freezer for unbelievable convenience. Sometimes some Ketsup Manis (which is LOADED with Palm Sugar - like a mere 67%!), and sometimes some fish sauce.

So last night it was a kg of Tiger Prawns, which yields about 550 grams of meat. Heat the oil (Olive this time), garlic and ginger in for a minute or so, ½ tsp crushed chilli, 1 tsp of Fennel seeds, add the prawns.

Fool around with them until cooked.

40-50mls of Lime Juice in, a bit of a sprinkle of Fish Sauce, and a good slurp of Ketsup Manis (prolly 30-40mls). Push that lot around for 30-60 seconds and done.

Man they were good! :2tsup: (even if I do say so myself). Nothing special or hard about it or even particularly skilful, but if I'd been served them in a Restaurant I'd have been very pleased. Maybe a bit more Chilli next time.

Can you please explain, in a bit more detail, what you mean by the first scentence of your second paragraph.

Why: because I’m a willing but slow cook, so I’m always looking for things that will reduce prep time. Maybe you’re onto something.

Cheers
Arron

Sure Arron. I'm a freezer maniac. I run two dedicated freezers (one frost free, the other not), and the fridge is all fridge with no freezer.

I'll buy perhaps 6-8 knobs of garlic, or 400-500 grams of Ginger and put them through a food processor (in their case a Bamix) and then get a silicon rubber mould for ice cubes (each hole is 20x20x20mm), freeze them, and then vac-pack them. They will last indefinitely at -18°C. No freezer burn because of the vac pack seal.

Pull a packet out of the freezer, cut off a cube (they stick a bit), reseal the rest and back into the freezer. Power level 4 in the microwave for 20-30 seconds, flip it over rinse and repeat and it's good to go. I think it took longer to type that than to do it!

Saves a helluva lot of prep time by doing it all in one go. Saves washing up too. Always have product on hand.

Same thing with Lime juice but for an added reason. They are plentiful and cheap in Feb/March, so I usually buy a hundred, juice them all and freeze them into 25ml ice cubes and also 100ml blocks (another silicon rubber set of moulds I have).

When it comes to cooking I do the same sort of thing. A couple of weeks ago I made about 35 litres of vege stock, and then from that (plus some previously frozen stock) I made 45 litres of four different soups. Frozen into 500ml blocks via 750ml rectangular food containers, two blocks into a vac pack bag etc etc. Dinner for two is a 10 minute operation of defrosting two blocks and heating them up.

Sometime shortly I'll be BBQing 15 kgs of chicken in three flavours. This is really efficient use of the charcoal Weber BBQ.

It's a lot of work for a 2-4 day session, and then sit back, take it easy and eat for a few months. :D



It does help that I have an excellent vac pack machine leftover from a failed cooking enterprise 10 years ago, but I'm sure that cheaper non-pro types are also pretty good. I'm still using spices, pulses, pine nuts, etc etc that were packed 10+ years ago.

Thanks Fence.
I’ll have to look at those vacuum sealer things. I know Aldi always seems to middle isle them. Might be a bit of a fail quality-wise but good starting point.

Cheers
Arron

Here you go Arron - next Wednesday at Aldi. I don't know how well they work. They are a "channel bag principle I think, and that means the bag has a system of microtubes that the machine sucks the air out of, rather than a vacuum chamber like mine has. You would do well to buy a few rolls of bags too - once you get the hang of it, you'll start vac packing everything (including tools you don't want to rust :D )

Hard to go wrong with Aldi - even if you "just don't like it" you can return it within 60 days.

Brett,
Sounds fantastically nice ,love prawns,
Um were was my invite tho [emoji849].
But you might want to sit down for this bit,can we leave that evil satanic filthy coriander out.Or have I just been shown the front door step lol.

Cheers Matt.

Nah, there was no Coriander in it - I was just saying I use it a fair bit. So no Coriander Pesto under a boiled egg on toast for you Matt?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Nah, there was no Coriander in it - I was just saying I use it a fair bit. So no Coriander Pesto under a boiled egg on toast for you Matt?

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Nooo
But I will have crushed avocado on toast with a lata in bed on Sundays tho please around 11 ish if that’s ok.