DIY Recipe: Steamed Prawns with fried garlic and soya sauce.

Saw the freshest lovely live prawns in the wet market tonite and couldnt resist them at all! So bought some back for steam prawns. A quick and super easy meal to prepare tonight! Looking at all the live produce, I really think this is the BEST thing about living in HK. I just had Morton bugs the other night too coz they were available in market, in fact I am eyeing on that fresh lobster....

Anycase, back to my dinner ingredients for tonight! I dont like fried food, but really like most of my dishes steamed if I can. I dont like stir fried prawns either, esp not when they are this fresh! Just the colors alone are mouth watering. My hubby and I were laughing at the prawns with its motor fast wriggling legs (backstrokes paddling on its back) in the water. Then I was laughing at my partner for taunting the prawns that they will soon be eaten. What a grown up big kid! That aside, here's my simple steps for 15-20 mins cooking.

Ingredients
1. Rinsed Prawns (about 10-11 medium size)
2. Finely Chopped garlic (not minced, so dont use those garlic crusher). - 4 cloves. For Frying
3. Finely sliced ginger strips, quantity up to your personal preference. This is for frying
3. Roughly sliced Ginger pieces, about 6 pieces. For Steaming with prawns
4. Chopped rinsed scallions or Spring onion - 1 stalk.
5. Clear Chinese Rice wine. I suppose u can use shaoxing wine but I didnt.
6. 1/2 of a big chilli, deseeded and minced. NOT chilli padi
7. 1 stalk of spring onion, halved vertically. Only need the bottom of the stalk, meaning, the half with the bulb minus the roots. Dont really need the green bits. For steaming

Sauce Ingredient
1. 1- 1.5 Tsp of Fish sauce
2. 1/2 Tsp of Sugar
3. 1-2 Tablespoon of soya sauce


Cooking Steps
1. Just 10mins before cooking, mix 5 tablespoon of chinese rice wine into the rinsed prawns to season. If your prawns are still alive like mine, they wont like it and will jump, so cover with a lid or plate.
2. Line prawns into a steaming metal plate. Try not to pile them to ensure evenly cooked.
3. Throw in the sliced ginger and halved spring onion into the prawn lot to steam with.
*4. Cover the plate with foil and poke holes randomly all over to allow steam to get in. The foil is only required if u have live prawns to prevent the suicidal prawns jumping into the boiling water. So this is optional.
5. Steam prawns for about 8-10mins depending on your prawn thickness, mine was cooked for 10-11mins for the prawns were 1.5-2 fingers width big and I had covered the plate with foil.
you should know its cook when it turned bright red throughout from head to tail.
6. Put the chopped spring onion onto the prawns

Sauce Steps
1. In a sauce pot, heat 2 tablespoon extra light olive oil.
2. Fry chopped garlic and finely sliced ginger strips. When browned, remove from oil.
3. Next, fry the minced unseeded chilli for a min or less and remove from oil.
4. When prawns are ready, pour the excess liquid from the steamed dish and mixed with sauce ingredients above. This helps to dissolve the sugar.
5. Heat up the previous frying oil, and when warm, pour the sauce mixture into the warm oil and quickly remove from heat and pour the bubbled up sauce into the steamed prawn. Pour all over the prawns.
6. Add the fried garlic, ginger mixed with the chilli over the prawns.

Voila. Done.