Macanese Chili Prawns (recipe)
Macanese Chilli Prawn Recipe (serves 2 people, 35 minutes)
adapted from the cookbook The Adventures of Fat Rice: Recipes from the Chicago Restaurant Inspired by Macau (Lo & Conlon, 2016)
Ingredients:
Handful of green onions (roughly chopped & about 1/4 cup) **don't chop them too finely!
3 tbsp of freshly chopped cilantro
A small handful of Portuguese olives (but any high-quality olives will do! Just avoid super salty ones! I personally like black olives in this...although it is not traditional!)
1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil (high quality recommended)
3 tbsp unsalted butter (high quality will be better!)
2 tbsp of Chinese fermented bean sauce (dou ban jiang) from a jar
1/4 cup of Huy Feng Company's Chilli Garlic sauce
8 cloves of garlic (chopped roughly)
10 prawns (shrimps are o.k. too! just get the jumbo-sized ones! /the flavor will be better if you leave the head & shell on..but eating might become more savage + difficult. So already cleaned, shelled, and head-off is o.k. too!)
1/4 cup of dry white wine
1 lemon (half squeezed + half served on the side in case you want more on it)
Fresh black pepper (to taste)
**Toasted country-style bread + more butter to serve with the chili prawns** (optional)
0. Prep work: make the sauce by mixing 2 tbsp of Chinese fermented bean sauce and 1/4 cup of chili garlic sauce together. Put it aside.
1. First pour in 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil in a large pan with a lid and turn on the heat on the stove for medium heat. When the oil starts bubbling a bit & you can smell the olive scent of the oil, add 1/8 cup of chopped green onions to the oil. Don't let the green onions burn--but let the oil be infused with green onions.
2. Once you can smell the green onion scent in the air (for about 1-2 minutes), increase the heat to high. Once the pan starts to smoke a bit, place all your 10 prawns evenly inside the pan. Add some freshly ground black pepper.
3. Cook your prawns for about 2 minutes. You will know when they are starting to cook since they will change in color (will become pink in color) & the body will shrink and curl. Flip them so the other side can start cooking too.
3. Add the roughly chopped garlic cloves to your pan. Don't let the garlic burn! Stir the prawn & garlic mixture for about another 1 minute before adding the dry white wine to the pan.
4. Once you add the wine to the pan, it will sizzle--and that's good! Immediately cover the pan now with a lid. Steam the prawns for a while until they are fully cooked for approximately 4-5 minutes
5. Remove the lid from your pan and now add the sauce mixture created in step 0. Mix in the sauce to the wine+oil mixture inside the pan. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes so that you can reduce the mixture and also burn off some alcohol flavor from the wine.
6. Add all 3 tbsp of butter to the pan. Cook at medium heat for another 1 minute or so until the butter is melted. Add the olives to the pan. Mix everything well so prawns are well flavored. Taste the sauce + add freshly squeezed lemon juice to your liking.
7. Top your dish with chopped cilantro & green onions. Serve it with a half of lemon, so other people can add more lemon if they would like!
8. Enjoy! Serve with toasted country bread & more butter! Feel free to dip your bread in the sauce.
