Sweet, pink and happy(1)
Chinese cooks love food with meaning. Meals for the Lunar New Year are always brimming with taste and auspicious well wishes. Pauline D. Loh looks at one crucial ingredient for the festive cook.
It's time to start planning the most important family feast of the year, the reunion dinner on the eve of the Spring Festival. The countdown has begun. Apart from the usual dumplings, the must-have chicken and the steamed whole fish, another ingredient that always makes a welcomed dish is prawn. Its lovely pink flesh already suits the theme, for we Chinese love to have bright colors on our table when it comes to celebrative cuisines, just as we are fond of bestowing every dish on the reunion table with auspicious meaning.
Thus, the roast or steamed chicken will be Dazhan Hongtu, or "Prosperity Spreads its Wings". And the fish will augur plenty in the coming year, Niannian Youyu, or "Having A Surplus Every Year". For the prawns, it will be "Laughing all the Way", Xiha Daxiao.
Why do the prawns laugh? It's simply because the Cantonese pronunciation for prawns sounds exactly like "ha, ha, ha!". Good cheer and laughter aside, prawns are popular because they are the most common seafood and so versatile to prepare.
When I first arrived in Beijing in the early 1980s, the only prawns available were the large king prawns frozen, salted and boxed in gift sets sold at the Friendship stores. To a child of the sea brought up within sniffing distance of fishing boats hauling in an abundant catch every morning, those prawns were well, unacceptable.
Things are much changed. Even in the neighborhood supermarkets, you can now buy flash-frozen prawns that are no different from fresh ones. They are sweet and big and suffer no loss of taste from being chilled.
You just have to remember that they are perishable seafood, and once you thaw them in the kitchen, they must be cooked at once. They should never be re-frozen or both texture and taste will never be the same.
There are many famous prawn recipes to pick from, and I have chosen a quartet of favorites to share with you today. They range from strong-flavored to light and showcase this seafood in all its versatility.
The first recipe is my husband's favorite, and he does it very well. It is a simple stir-fry using spring onions and ginger as the major aromatics. We used to have this almost every New Year when our group of Chinese expatriates in Singapore would gather to watch the Spring Festival gala concert on New Year's Eve.
My favorite is the unusual custard with large prawns sitting in the middle. The juices from the prawns flavor the custard and the soft silky texture of the egg complements the sweet crunch of the prawns. Besides, the dish always earns me a chorus of "oos" and "ahs", and what cook doesn't enjoy compliments?
The salad is an invention to fill the gap when we have Western guests at the table. It's a fail-safe pleaser that provides comfort zone for those unused to the exotic offerings on a Chinese table.
Finally, my last recipe is homage to my birthplace, Singapore. We love our seafood, and chili crab is almost a national dish. For convenience, though, I sometimes prefer to serve prawns instead of crabs. It's easier to shell a prawn than crack a crab, and the taste is just as sweet.
Again, if you have any difficulty with any of the recipes, please feel free to e-mail me at paulined@chinadily.com.cn, wherever you are.
Recipe |Prawn &avocado salad
Ingredients (serves 4):
500 g medium prawns
500 g mixed salad greens
2 avocados, sliced
1/2 red capsicum, diced
1/2 yellow capsicum, diced
8 cherry tomatoes, sliced
4 large tbsp yoghurt
1 tbsp honey
2 tbsp caviar (or any fish roe)
Juice of 1 lemon
Method:
1. Bring a large pot of water to the boil and add prawns. As soon as the prawns turn pink, remove, cool and shell them at once.
3. Cut each prawn into two lengthwise, and remove any dark veins. Chill in the fridge until needed.
4. Divide the mixed salad greens into four portions. Add the sliced avocados and cherry tomatoes, and, finally, the chilled prawns.
5. Place the yoghurt, honey and lemon juice into a screw-cap jar and shake well to mix.
6. Spoon the dressing over the prawns and salad and garnish with the fish roe/caviar and the diced red and yellow capsicum. This salad tastes even better after chilling in the fridge.
Food notes:
When you need to cook prawns for a salad, the secret is to have it just cooked and still crisp to the bite. An overcooked prawn becomes tough and tasteless.
Use plenty of water, lightly salted, and bring it to a boil. Add the prawns only when the water is rapidly boiling. Plunge the prawns in and wait until the water comes back to a boil. By then, the prawns will have turned pink. Immediately pour the whole pot into a sieve, and refresh in cold water. This stops any further cooking and your prawns will retain their crispness and sweetness.
