Barbecued tiger prawns tossed in a crispy garlic, chilli and lemongrass topping, served with a Lao chilli dipping sauce.
Ingredients List
For the BBQ prawns:
For the jeow som:
For the crispy garlic and chilli topping:
Method
- Butterfly your prawns – lay the prawn on it’s side, and using a sharp knife, pierce the shell underneath the head and run it down to the tail. You want to cut deep enough to be able to open up prawn and it can lay flat. You can then devein the prawn as well. (If you do not want the prawn head left on, you can remove it). Repeat with all prawns and set aside.
- Prepare the topping – peel and finely mince garlic, finely slice chillies, peel and finely dice shallots, and finely slice chillies, spring onion and lemongrass. Keep these in separate piles, as you will cook them at different times.
- Prepare the cornflour dredge for the prawns – mix cornflour, salt, pepper and ground coriander on a large plate.
- Take a prawn and dip into the cornflour mix on both sides and shake off any excess cornflour. Set aside and repeat with all prawns.
- Heat BBQ grill, grease with oil and lay prawns open side down on the grill (this will prevent the prawn from curling in it’s shell). Cook for 2-3 mins on this side and flip and cook for a further 2-3 mins. Do not overcook – you’ll know it’s cooked when the meat goes from translucent to white, and the shell and head turns to a pinkish colour. Set cooked prawns aside.
- Grab a large saucepan or wok and heat it on the stove on a medium high heat.
- Add vegetable oil to the pan and add in your garlic, shallots and lemongrass. Cook for 3-4mins, stirring regularly to avoid them burning.
- Add chillies and spring onion to the pan and cook for a further minute.
- Add the cooked prawns to the pan and stir to evenly coat prawns in the topping. Set aside.
- Prepare your jeow som ingredients – peel garlic cloves, cut stems off the bunch of coriander and cut these stems down into 1 centimetre length pieces and set aside about 3 tbsp of this, and halve the limes.
- Add the garlic cloves into the mortar and pound with a pestle until crushed into a paste. Add the 3 tbsp of coriander stems to the mortar, and pound with a pestle until crushed into a paste. Add chillies and 2 tbsp of sugar and pound until chillies are crushed into a paste. Use a spoon to scrape down the sides for even pounding if needed. Add the juice from 2 lime halves, and the fish sauce and stir to combine. Taste – it should be a good balance of sweet, salty, sour and spicy. If it needs more lime juice or sugar, add in the additional tbsp of sugar or additional lime juice.
- Serve prawns on a large serving platter, with jeow som in small bowls for dipping prawns into. With the remaining coriander leaves, add some to the jeow som and stir through before serving.
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