Piri-piri prawns

Piri-piri prawns
Piri-piri prawns

Another quick and dirty one today. This recipe’s a great addition to a table full of tapas. Good prawns, sweet, fat and succulent, are at their best when treated simply. Here, they’re just flavoured with garlic, piri-piri chilli peppers and olive oil, and cooked very quickly.

I get a bit repetitive with the following whinge every time I blog about prawns, so skip this paragraph if you must – but the lack of availability of raw prawns with their heads and skins still attached in this part of the country (and, to be honest, in many other parts too) absolutely infuriates me. If you’re in Cambridge, you can sometimes find big, whole tiger prawns at Seatree on Mill Road (a fish and chip shop with a small wet fish counter). I’ve not had great success with the fish stall on the market, which smells far more strongly than a good fish seller should. Aside from this, you’re out of luck for dedicated fish sellers. Get into the supermarkets early and you might get lucky; there are sometimes raw prawns in the freezer cabinet too. Good luck with heads and shells, though; as you can see, I wasn’t able to find prawns with heads although I did get lucky withs shells. Both add flavour – there’s real depth of flavour in those shells, and the squishy bits that some people call brains (actually the prawn’s hepatic organ) are really delicious if you can get around the squick factor. Do not hang out with Chinese families if the squick factor is a problem for you. We tend to crunch those shells and suck the brainy bits out at the table, and it’s only partially because we think they’re totally delicious. At least ten percent of our motivation is to put off the people we’re eating with so they leave some extra prawns.

South African piri-piri peppers are botanically indistinguishable from Thai bird’s eye chillies (cili padi or phrik khi nu if you’re in an oriental supermarket). Use whichever you can get your hands on.

To serve two with crusty bread to dibble in the juices, you’ll need:

750g raw prawns with shells and heads on (500g if, like me, you couldn’t get your hands on heads and shells – mine had shells but had been decapitated.)
5 fat, juicy cloves garlic
2 bird’s eye or piri-piri chillies. These are very hot, but if you’re brave you can add another one.
4 generous tablespoons fruity extra-virgin olive oil
Salt and pepper
1 tablespoon parsley to scatter

If your prawns are frozen, defrost them thoroughly and dry them on paper towels.

Warm the olive oil over a medium flame in a large frying pan and throw in the roughly chopped garlic, Sauté, keeping everything on the move, until the garlic is softening and giving up its scent (about a minute). Add the prawns and chopped chillies to the pan and continue to sauté until the prawns have turned from grey to pink (3-5 minutes). There is nothing as good as the smell of prawns cooking with garlic – your kitchen will smell wonderful.

Season with salt and pepper, transfer to a serving bowl and sprinkle with the parsley. Eat immediately, while they’re still piping hot.

Banh xeo – Vietnamese savoury crepe

Banh xeoPancake day is coming up on March 8. I’m all for a lovely dessert crepe, but this year, I feel like ringing the changes a bit and making pancakes a savoury course.

I’ve been obsessing a bit about Vietnamese food ever since tasting the best pho I’ve ever had in California last month. Conversations have been had on Twitter (which revealed that your best bet for a Vietnamese meal in London is probably Viet Grill in Shoreditch – I’ve not had a chance to go yet, but I’m assured by a huge number of London diners that it’s as good as you’ll find in the UK), and while mulling over just how well the Vietnamese work soup, sandwiches and other staples, it struck me that they also make a pretty damn fine savoury crepe, just right for Shrove Tuesday.

Banh xeo are a spectacularly tasty plateful, with a scattering of sweet prawns, tender onions and savoury pork – this is another use for any leftover roast belly pork you might not have got through in Monday’s stir fry – and a shatteringly crisp batter flavoured with coconut and turmeric. Rice flour is what glues the whole thing together and gives it its light crispness; despite the visual similarity to an omelette, there are no eggs in this particular pancake, which makes it a good choice if you’ve got someone who can’t eat them visiting at this time of year.

Chunks of banh xeo are traditionally eaten wrapped up in a lettuce leaf with some herbs, then dipped in a bowl of nuoc cham – a spicy, piquant, salty sauce made from fish sauce, limes, garlic and chillies. I’ve included a recipe for the sauce below. This is one of the few occasions on which an iceberg lettuce is a variety I’ll actually recommend – its texture is great here. Take the stem out with the tip of a knife and chop the lettuce in half . You can now separate the large leaves of the lettuce into cups just the right size and shape for wrapping things up in. I’ve suggested you use mint and coriander because they’re easily available in the UK, but if you can get your hands on any other Vietnamese culinary herbs, they’re wonderful here. Try Vietnamese Herbs for pictures and more information on herbs for growing and eating.

I used a 20cm non-stick frying pan to make these, and served two to each person. You’ll be working a bit of a production line, so you’re best off eating in the kitchen – serve each pancake as it comes ready, and be prepared to jump up and down a bit from the table to get the next one ready as you eat. To make eight pancakes, you’ll need:

Banh xeo
375g rice flour
1 heaped teaspoon turmeric powder
400ml coconut milk (1 can)
400ml cold water
1 teaspoon salt
350g roast pork belly
350g raw peeled prawns
300g beansprouts
2 medium onions
Flavourless oil or (preferably) lard, especially if you can save some from roasting the pork, to fry.

To serve
1 iceberg lettuce
1 large handful fresh coriander
1 large handful fresh mint

Nuoc cham
75ml water
2 heaped tablespoons soft brown sugar or palm sugar
75ml fish sauce
Juice of 4 limes
1 tablespoon rice vinegar
2 fresh birds eye chillies
4 cloves garlic

Lettuce and herbs
Lettuce and herbs for wrapping the banh xeo

The pancake batter needs half an hour to rest, which gives you plenty of time to get all the pancake ingredients ready to go. Everything should be chopped and positioned to cook immediately; things move quite fast once your ingredients are in the pan.

Sieve the rice flour and turmeric into a large mixing bowl with the salt. Combine the coconut milk and water in a jug and beat it into the rice flour mixture bit by bit with a hand whisk until you have a smooth batter about the texture of double cream. Set aside at room temperature to rest.

While the batter is resting, slice the pork belly into about 32 thin slices, and halve and slice the onions. To make the nuoc cham dipping sauce, pour the water, straight from the kettle, over the sugar and stir until all the sugar is dissolved. Leave to one side to cook a bit while you chop the chillies and garlic, then pound them in a mortar and pestle. Add the chillies and garlic to the sugar and water with all the other liquid ingredients and put to one side until you are ready to eat. Put the lettuce leaves and herbs in a serving dish in the middle of the table.

When the batter has rested for half an hour (you can leave it for up to four hours if you want), get your frying pan as hot as you can on top of the stove, and melt a tablespoon of lard in it. Throw in four slices of pork, four prawns and a small handful of onion pieces (about a quarter of an onion), and stir-fry for a minute or two until the prawns are pink and the onion is starting to soften off. Use a ladle to pour a thin layer of the batter over the ingredients in the bottom of the pan, and scatter a small handful of beansprouts over the surface of the pancake.

Allow the pancake to sizzle away for 5-7 minutes, until the bottom is golden-brown and very crisp, and the softer top cooked through. Fold in half around the beansprouts and slide onto a plate to serve immediately, to be wrapped in pieces in the lettuce with some herbs, and dipped in the nuoc cham.

Glass noodle salad

Glass noodle saladA friend complained the other week that there aren’t enough noodle recipes on this blog. So here, just for you, Andras, is a noodle salad.

The noodles in this salad are glass noodles, made from mung beans (the same beans that beansprouts…sprout from). Don’t be tempted to substitute rice noodles, which have a very different texture. You’re unlikely to find glass noodles at your local supermarket, but any oriental grocer will carry them – they are sometimes marked “bean thread” or “pea thread” noodles. Check the packet – the only ingredient should be beans, or bean flour.

Texture’s all-important in this salad. The moist crunch of the lettuce against the dry crunch of crispy shallots, the slip of the noodles and the dense pieces of chicken and prawn all add up to a world-beating mouthfeel. A Thai-style dressing, with herbs, fish sauce, palm sugar, chillies and limes, gets the tastebuds in every part of your tongue working. We ate this as a main dish; it’s great as a side-dish too. For some reason, this is one of those recipes which demands to be eaten outdoors, so consider making it for a picnic or to serve at a barbecue.

To serve two to three as a main course or six as a side-dish, you’ll need:

8 large, raw prawns
2 chicken breasts, without skins
1 tablespoon tom yum paste
1 iceberg lettuce
100g glass noodles
1 handful (25g) coriander
1 handful (25g) mint
Juice of 4 limes
3 tablespoons fish sauce
2 teaspoons palm sugar (substitute soft brown sugar if you can’t find any)
1 red chilli
3 banana shallots

Stir the tom yum paste into the prawns and leave to marinade while you prepare the noodles (about 10 minutes).

Pour boiling water over the noodles to cover, and leave for 5 minutes until they are soft. Drain in a sieve, rinse in cold running water and transfer to a bowl. Use scissors to snip into the noodles so they are cut into pieces about an inch long. Cover and refrigerate.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a very hot frying pan, and cook the prawns until pink. Remove to a bowl. In the same pan, which will have retained some of the paste, sauté the chicken until it is brown outside and cooked through. Remove to another bowl. Leave the prawns and chicken to cool while you prepare the crispy shallots and dressing – when you come to make the salad, they’ll be close to room temperature.

Slice two long shallots into very thin rings, and shallow-fry in a couple of centimetres of oil, stirring occasionally, until they are brown and sweet (10-15 minutes). Remove from the oil with a skimmer and drain on kitchen paper. Set aside.

Slice the third shallot in half lengthways, and chop very finely. In a bowl, mix it with the herbs, chopped very finely, the sugar, lime juice, fish sauce and finely chopped chilli. Stir the dressing into the chilled noodles. Chop the chicken into dice the size of the top joint of your little finger, and toss the pieces, along with any juices from the chicken, with the noodles.

Slice the lettuce, straight from the fridge, as thinly as possible, and lay it in the bottom of a large serving bowl. Cover with the noodle mixture, and arrange the prawns on top. Sprinkle the crispy shallots over the dish and serve, making sure that some of every layer makes it onto the plate.

Dry prawn curry

I’m back from a couple of weeks mixing business with pleasure in Florida. More on what we ate later on – for now, here’s a recipe using a curry paste that sprang, fully formed, into my head while we were away.

I went out to Mill Road in Cambridge as soon as we got back to buy some lovely big prawns, still in their shells, at Sea Tree, a new-ish fish restaurant with the city’s only non-supermarket wet fish counter on the far side of the railway bridge; and some fresh spice ingredients at Cho Mee, my favourite of the oriental supermarkets on the town side. It made the whole kitchen smell of South East Asia. Serve the prawns with some fried rice (mine was based around three diced lap cheong, or Chinese sausages, fried until crisp, with spring onions, chopped snake beans, sesame oil and soy, then proteined up with a couple of eggs) or some plain rice and a flavourful stir-fried vegetable.

To serve two handsomely, you’ll need:

12 king or tiger prawns, shells and heads on
2 fingers fresh turmeric root (see below)
1 inch piece ginger
1 large shallot
3 large red chillies
5 fat cloves garlic
2 sticks lemongrass
30g coriander root
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
8 whole cloves
4 tablespoons vegetable oil
4 tablespoons soy sauce

You might not be familiar with fresh turmeric – it usually comes pre-dried and ground in little pots, by which point it has lost the greater part of its slightly bitter, prickly flavour and intense aroma. The picture here should help you identify it if you’re in a shop that stocks ingredients like this (an Indian or oriental supermarket should be able to help you out). Those roots are about the size of your little finger. Be aware that the yellow of the turmeric stains just as badly, if not worse, than the dried stuff does – this is curcumin, an antioxidant that is supposed to be wildly good for you. It’s also wildly yellow. So get ready for daffodil fingernails – they’ll scrub clean eventually, but it’ll take some work. I’ve also used the very aromatic roots of coriander from the same shop, which usually come attached to the leafy herb and are very inexpensive.

Use a sharp knife to peel the turmeric and ginger. Remove the skins from the shallot and garlic and chop the lemongrass into chunks. Put the lot in the bowl of a food processor with the dry spices, the chillies, the soy sauce (I used Kikkoman) and some flavourless oil. Whizz until you have a nearly smooth paste.

Remove half of the paste to a container, cover with more oil and pop in the fridge to use later on. It’s worth always making too much curry paste – it hangs around for a week or so very nicely in the fridge, you can use it in plenty of different recipes, and it’s infinitely less faff than making it as you need it. Put the prawns in a large dish and cover with the remaining half of the curry paste. Set aside to marinade for 45 minutes to an hour.

When you are ready to cook the prawns, heat some more vegetable oil (about half a centimetre’s depth) in a large frying pan to a high temperature. Add the prawns – carefully, they’ll sizzle – to the oil with what marinade sticks to them and fry without moving them around the pan until the top side, not in the oil, has turned pink. Add whatever curry paste remains in the marinade dish to the pan and turn the prawns over. The shells on the side which has been in contact with the oil should have opaque patches alongside the translucent pink. Continue to cook until the other side of the prawns has opaque skins and the curry paste is brown and sticky. Serve immediately – and if you’re bold, you’ll eat the shells and suck the good stuff out of the heads.

Tom yum soup

Certain foods are perfect for times when you’re feeling a bit under the weather. Depressed? You need hot wings. Exhausted and frazzled? Mashed potato. Hormonal? Chocolate cake.

Right now, I’m sitting here with a streaming nose and stuffy head. It’s not swine flu, it’s hay fever. And there’s one sure-fire way to nip a stuffy head in the bud: tom yum. This hot, sour Thai soup is flavoured with some of the world’s most powerful aromatics, spiked with tongue-numbingly hot chillies and should be served hot enough to melt your spoon. Fantastic stuff.

You’ll need to make a trip to the Chinese supermarket for most of the ingredients here. To save yourself time when making soup later on, you can freeze any leftover kaffir lime leaves, chopped galangal and lemongrass in airtight containers.

To serve two, you’ll need:

1 litre homemade stock – pork or fish stock both work really well here
1 tablespoon tom yum soup paste (available at Chinese supermarkets and some Western ones too)
2 tablespoons fish sauce
2 lemongrass stalks
5 kaffir lime leaves
2 inches galangal
2 small shallots
3 bird’s eye chillies
1 tomato
1 carrot
12 fresh shitake mushrooms
8 fresh prawns (with shells and heads if possible – as usual, none of my local shops had any with shells on, which elicited loud cursing from me)
1 handful beansprouts
1 handful coriander
Juice of two limes

Wallop the lemongrass stalks with the end of a rolling pin until they are ragged, slice the galangal into thin coins, and remove the central stalk from the lime leaves. Slice the shallots finely, chop the chillies, dice the tomato, chop the carrot into julienne strips and slice the mushrooms. And breathe. Once you’re done with the chopping, you’ll be pleased to hear that you’ve done most of the work.

Bring the stock to a simmer, and stir through the tom yum paste and fish sauce. Add the lemongrass, galangal, chillies and lime leaves, and simmer for five minutes. Drop the tomato, shallots, mushrooms and prawns into the bubbling stock and cook for another five minutes.

While the tom yum is cooking, squeeze the juice of one lime into each of two soup bowls. Divide the raw beansprouts between the two bowls. When the five minutes are up, ladle the soup, aromatics and all (some people like to remove the lime leaves, lemongrass and galangal from the dish, but they will continue to flavour the soup once it’s in the bowls) into the bowls. Garnish with generous amounts of coriander and serve immediately.

Prawn and asparagus risotto

As a contrast to the budget-conscious meals I’ve been writing about recently, I decided to shove the boat out and make something with a bit of pre-Christmas luxury. Prawns, asparagus, saffron and salty, savoury pancetta cubes don’t come cheap, but if you mix them all together in a boozy risotto like this they’re delicious beyond all reason – worth every penny.

There are a few different kinds of risotto rice available in shops. I always use Carnaroli, which can be less easy to find than the more common Arborio. It’s worth hunting some down. Carnaroli rice has a slightly longer, slimmer grain than Arborio, and has a higher starch content and firmer texture when finished; you can hold a risotto made with Carnaroli rice at the al dente stage without worrying about the grain collapsing into a sandy sludge as Arborio might. That extra starch makes a world of difference in a risotto, resulting in a really velvety, creamy finish that you just don’t get with other rices. Carnaroli is still grown in the Po valley, where a network of canals constructed in the 19th century irrigates the rice terraces with water from the Alps. American readers can find Carnaroli produced in South America, but the Italian product, raised in the traditional way, is supposed to be the finest, and is really worth hunting down.

To serve four, you’ll need:

320g Carnaroli rice
1 litre fish or chicken stock
1 large glass white wine
2 banana shallots
3 stalks celery
4 cloves garlic
100g pancetta cubes
a few sprigs of thyme
2 teaspoons fennel seeds, ground coarsely in a mortar and pestle
1 large pinch saffron
1 large pinch chilli flakes
180g raw, shelled prawns
150g asparagus tips
1 large handful grated parmesan
1 handful chopped parsley
40g butter
2 teaspoons olive oil

Put the saffron in an eggcup and pour over boiling water. Bodge the saffron around in the water with a teaspoon, and set aside while you prepare the other ingredients.

Chop the shallots, garlic and celery finely. Sauté the pancetta in a teaspoon of olive oil in a large, heavy-based pan over a high heat for about five minutes until its fat is running, then add the butter, shallots and celery to the pan with the fennel, reducing the heat to medium. Sauté, keeping everything on the move, for two minutes, then add the dry rice to the pan, and continue to sauté until any liquid from the vegetables has started to absorb into the rice. Pour the glass of wine and the contents of the saffron eggcup into the pan and stir until it is absorbed. Add a ladleful of the hot stock to the rice and bring, stirring, to a gentle simmer. As the stock is absorbed, add another ladleful while you stir. Continue like this for about 18 minutes, stirring and adding gradually to the liquid in the pan, until the rice is soft, tender to the bite and velvety.

When the rice is nearly ready, saute the prawns in a a teaspoon of olive oil with a pinch of chilli flakes until they turn pink, and chop the asparagus tips into bite-sized pieces. Stir the asparagus into the hot risotto for two minutes. The heat from the rice will cook them to a bright green. Immediately before serving stir the prawns (with any juices and the butter from the pan) and parmesan into the mixture with salt to taste (you shouldn’t need much, depending on the saltiness of your pancetta and stock) and a handful of chopped parsley.

Fisherman’s pie

They tell me it’s brain food. I remain unconvinced – I am absolutely no better at doing sums than I was before I cooked this, but I am deliciously full and thinking hard about marine biology.

This is a lovely take on fisherman’s pie, a thousand miles away from any variant you may have eaten in the school dining hall. Some of the fish is fresh, some smoked, and this gives it a deep, warm background without overdoing the smoky flavour. Sweet peas and prawns are balanced by a hit of lemon juice and nutmeg, and creamy mash makes a golden lid for the whole thing.

Although this is a fish dish, you’ll find it keeps well overnight in the fridge. This amount made two filling suppers for two greedy people with a sharply dressed green salad. I used frozen haddock fillets here, but you can use any firm, flaky white fish, frozen or fresh.

To serve four, you’ll need:

500g haddock fillets
200g smoked haddock
100g smoked salmon
100g peeled prawns, raw if possible
150g butter
50g plain flour
570ml milk
50g frozen peas
2 eggs
2 teaspoons capers in white wine vinegar
Juice of ½ lemon
A few gratings of nutmeg
1kg potatoes (choose a floury variety like King Edward)
3 tablespoons double cream
Cheddar cheese to sprinkle

Preheat the oven to 200° C (400° F).

Lay the haddock (defrosted if frozen) and smoked haddock in the baking dish you plan to make the pie in – it should have a capacity of between 1.5 and 2 litres. Pour over half the milk and dot with 25g of butter. Season with plenty of pepper and bake for 20 minutes. Pour the liquid from the baking dish into a measuring jug, top up with the remaining milk and reserve. Remove any skin or bones from the cooked fish and flake it into large pieces in the baking dish.

Hard-boil the eggs, and quarter them. Combine them in the baking dish with the flaked fish, drained capers, the frozen peas, the prawns (raw or cooked, but defrosted if frozen) and the smoked salmon. (I used Waitrose’s flakes of hot-smoked salmon – if you can’t find hot-smoked salmon use the regular variety and use scissors to cut it into bite-sized pieces.)

Peel the potatoes and set them to boil as usual for the mashed potato topping. While the potatoes are boiling, melt 75g of the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the flour and cook over a medium-low flame, stirring, for four minutes. Add the milk and fish cooking liquid a little at a time, stirring well after every addition until the sauce thickens. Continue until all the milk mixture is incorporated, and bring to a low simmer until the sauce thickens again. Season to taste with salt and pepper, and stir in the lemon juice and a grating of nutmeg. Pour the sauce over the ingredients in the baking dish.

Mash the potatoes well with the cream, 50g of the butter, another generous grating of nutmeg and plenty of salt and pepper. Spread or pipe the potatoes over the ingredients in the baking dish, and sprinkle with Cheddar cheese.

Bake for 40 minutes, until the cheesy top is a golden brown.

Sticky Thai garlic-chilli prawns

Sticky Thai garlic-chilli prawnsOne of the things the area I live in really lacks is a good fishmonger. As a result, raw prawns with the shells still on are very hard to find, so whenever I spot them in the supermarket I grab about six bags and freeze them.

Why do I want to keep the shells on, you ask? It’s perfectly simple; cooked like this, the shells not only add rich flavour to the flesh of the prawns, but become delicious in their own right. They’re a little crunchy, a little chewy, and extremely tasty, so don’t bother peeling your prawn – eat it shell and all. I wish my prawns has also had heads (ask any Chinese person; the head is the best bit), but head-on raw prawns are increasingly hard to find these days.

I was planning on barbecuing these little guys, but the summer of torrential rain shows no signs of abating, and I’ve barely been able to use the barbecue at all this year. If the weather’s this bad where you are, put the prawns under the conventional grill. Lucky readers living where there’s sunshine and enough warmth to eat outdoors should drag out the barbecue for this one.

To cook enough prawns for a very substantial meal for two (or a sensibly sized meal for three) you’ll need:

500g raw, defrosted prawns with the shells on (raw frozen prawns will be blue-grey, not pink)
4 tablespoons light soya sauce
2 tablespoons sweet dark soya sauce (kejap manis)
4 tablespoons oyster sauce
2 tablespoons Thai fish sauce
2 tablespoons honey
1 bird’s eye chilli
1 head garlic
1 large handful coriander, chopped

Use a sharp knife to butterfly the prawns – make a slit between the prawn’s legs from the base of the tail to the place where the head was, slicing through the flesh, but not through the shell on the prawn’s back. Flatten the prawns out with your hand. Cutting the prawns like this will maximise the surface area, helping them to take up the flavour of the marinade.

Mince all the cloves from the head of garlic with a large, sharp knife. (This is very easy – just lay the cloves on a chopping board and, holding the knife at the tip and the hilt and using a rocking motion, ‘walk’ the blade up and down the board for about five minutes. You’ll find the garlic is chopped finely and evenly. It’s probably not best to eat this immediately before going on a date.) Chop the chilli finely and mix it and the garlic with all the liquid ingredients. Stir the marinade mixture well to blend everything, then tip the prawns in, stirring to make sure they’re well covered. Refrigerate for 40 minutes. This is quite a penetrating marinade, so don’t leave the prawns for more than an hour or they will taste too strong.

When you are ready to cook the prawns, reserve the marinade and place them on a barbecue or under a very hot grill for three or four minutes per side, until they turn pink and the skins start to caramelise a little. Meanwhile, bring the marinade to a strong boil for about thirty seconds. Drizzle a little of the wonderfully garlicky cooked marinade over the prawns to serve, and dress with plenty of fresh coriander…and remember to eat those delicious shells!

Salt and pepper prawns

Salt and pepper prawns
Salt and pepper prawns

This Chinese appetiser is one of my favourites, and it’s surprisingly easy to make at home. Szechuan peppercorns are toasted in a dry pan until they release their amazing fragrance, then combined with flours and some other seasonings to make a feathery crisp and light coating for the prawns. Garlic and aromatic spring onions (scallions for American readers) are dusted in the flour coating and fried, making a crisp and delicious garnish for the prawns.

Those American readers are probably also wondering what these prawn things I’m on about are. Sometimes these linguistic differences become downright annoying. The United Nations (not somewhere I usually visit for culinary advice, but surprisingly helpful in this instance) informs me that:

…in Great Britain the term “shrimp” is the more general of the two, and is the only term used for Crangonidae and most smaller species. “Prawn” is the more special of the two names, being used solely for Palaemondiae and larger forms, never for the very small ones.

In North America the name “prawn” is practically obsolete and is almost entirely replaced by the word “shrimp” (used for even the largest species, which may be called “jumbo shrimp”). If the word “prawn” is used at all in America it is attached to small species.

So there you have it. Every time I say ‘prawn’, please substitute ‘large shrimp about the size of your thumb, once the head has been removed’, and get frying. For salt and pepper shrimp for two, you’ll need:

500g raw, shelled prawns
2 tablespoons Szechuan peppercorns
1 tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
3 tablespoons rice flour (rice flour will give your coating an amazing crispness)
3 tablespoons cornflour
2 tablespoons fleur de sel, Maldon salt or any salt with a flaky, crystalline form
4 spring onions (scallions)
6 cloves garlic
Flavourless oil to shallow fry

Begin by toasting the Szechuan peppercorns over a medium flame in a dry frying pan until they start to release their fragrance (about 4 minutes). Combine the toasted whole peppercorns in a large bowl with the black pepper, rice flour, cornflour and salt. This sounds like a great deal of salt, but this dish requires a lot, and you may actually find that you want to sprinkle a little more over at the end, so be generous.

Chop the garlic very roughly, and slice the spring onions into little discs.

De-vein (actually de-intestine) the prawns if you want – if I am confident with the source of my shellfish, I don’t usually bother. Dredge them in the seasoned flour. Heat up a 2cm depth of oil in a thick-bottomed pan, and fry the prawns in small batches when the heat is searingly hot, turning until the coating is golden and crisp. Transfer to a kitchen paper-covered plate in a warm oven to drain and keep warm as the other prawns are cooking.

When all the prawns are ready, dredge the garlic and spring onions in the seasoned flour, using a slotted spoon to remove them from the flour bowl. Saute them in the oil you cooked the prawns in until their coating is also turning golden. Remove from the oil with the rinsed and dried slotted spoon and place on kitchen paper to remove any excess oil.

Arrange the prawns on plates, sprinkle over the onion and garlic mixture, and serve immediately.

Smoked salmon kedgeree

Kedgeree is one of those curious dishes to come out of colonial India, with European ingredients (in this case smoked fish, usually haddock) alongside Indian spices and rice. There’s an Indian dish called Khichri which is a close cousin of our kedgeree, made from rice, lentils, onions and spices.

Here in the UK it’s a (now rather uncommon) breakfast dish. When I was a kid, our neighbours used to invite the whole street round for a New Year’s breakfast, in which kedgeree played a starring role. Kedgeree is a good idea if you’ve a lot of people staying in the house; you can prepare it the day before and microwave it for a very rich and delicious brunch.

This kedgeree is a bit more delicate than the traditional smoked haddock version. It uses barely cooked smoked salmon and fresh, sweet and juicy king prawns, and instead of strong onion, I’ve used spring onions. The salt used in curing the salmon is sufficient for the whole dish; you will not need to add any extra.

It’s important that the rice is chilled before you cook; if it is warm or hot, the grains are prone to break up and become mushy in cooking.

To serve four, you’ll need:

100g basmati rice, cooked and chilled
10 spring onions, chopped
1 inch of ginger, grated coarsely
1½ tablespoons Madras curry paste (I used Patak’s)
10 raw, peeled king prawns
1 pack smoked salmon, torn into shreds
1 egg per person
½ pint chicken stock
¼ pint double cream
1 handful coriander, chopped
1 knob butter

Carefully slide the eggs into boiling water and boil for six minutes; the yolk should still be soft, and the white just set. Peel, halve and set aside.

Stir fry the ginger and spring onions in a wok until soft, then add the curry paste and prawns and stir fry until the prawns have turned pink. Add the rice to the wok and stir fry. After five minutes, add the stock and salmon, and continue stir frying until the salmon has turned opaque.

Remove the wok from the heat and add the cream and coriander. Stir well, and serve with a segment of the soft, creamy egg.

This dish is inextricably associated with New Year in my head, so I served it this evening with a glass of toasty, nutty champagne. Delicious.