Singaporean Chili Shrimp

 

Last week D bought a bag of frozen freshwater shrimp, and asked "What do you think of this for Christmas Eve dinner?"

I'm excited because this reminds me of home! However the home I am referring to was actually the place where my parents was born, whereas I was actually born in Jakarta.  Growing up, I did not have the experience of running outdoor, raising the chicken, or all the island experience out there.  Me and my brother have spent most of our childhood time indoor. We either play with my cousins at my grandparents' house, at our house, or at their house. 

Running at the park like how my daughter love to do is not what I remember doing during my childhood. However, eating is. 

Our outdoor activity is hanging out at the front door of grandma's house admiring her hibiscus tree and looking outside through the grill hoping that there will be a vendor selling es lilin, a home made ice pop, rujak, a mixture of fresh cut fruits: young papaya, mango, rose apple, jicama, raw yam on a plate with black spicy pundgy sauce. We use a lot of fermented shrimp paste in our sauce, thus the smell. 

So when D brought this home, I automatically think about the food that was served on the table when I was little.  This attempts me. 

This sauce is actually best served with the crab. But with the shrimp it is not bad at all. I do adjust some of the recipe though because normally you should use the real chili instead of sriracha.

Before cooking, the freshwater shrimp should already be defrosted. I cut off the pointy part of the head, cut open the shell on the back but leave the tail, and cut some of hard shell on the head but not all the way. Washed them with water and pat dry with the paper towel. 

Ingredients:

750g Prawns (you might notice that I have added smaller prawns too) 

1 egg

Thumb size piece of ginger 

3 cloves of garlic 

1 tbsp of oil 

1 tbsp of corn starch (or potato starch) 

Sauce:

200ml of water

4 tbsp of tomato sauce

1 tbsp of child sauce (I use sriracha) 

2 tsp of sesame oil

1 tbsp of white vinegar 

Salt to taste 

Mix the ingredients for the sauce together in a bowl

Mix the corn starch with 2 teaspoons of water

Beat the egg and put it aside 

Fry the prawns for 1 minutes, scoop them out 

Sautee julienne of ginger, crushed garlic in a medium fire until fragrant 

Put back the prawns stir fry for a minute

Add the sauce into the pan and let it simmer before adding the corn starch

And lastly add the egg while stirring (to create a flower soup texture to the sauce)  

Let me know if you want to try, have tried this recipe, or if you had this somewhere in your life and if you think that I miss an essential ingredient I'd love to learn from you.