Prawn and Broccoli Recipe
Inspired from the BKK dish (the picture below isnt how the dish cooked from the recipe will turn out to be).
You need:
1. Broccoli
2. Prawns
3. Carrots
4. Fish Sauce/Oyster Sauce/Salt
5. Garlic
6. Oil (1 table spoon)
Quantity:
Agak Agak.
It is Agak Agak, but okay, its the idea of matching, if you a head of Broccoli, thats perhaps about my fist sized – 10cm in diameter, you know that going into 10 or 12 prawns is abit too much. 6-8 is sufficient. So 1-head of broccoli matches 6-8 prawns
Carrots, dont use baby-cut carrots, it is “recycled”. Say a carrot that is about 16-17cm in length and 4-5cm in width, which is huge, a 7cm by 4cm is good enough.
Fish sauce, if you have it, Oyster sauce (which is very convenient to get) is fine too. 3-4 table-spoon is sufficient. But of course proportional to items 1 – 3. For the more health conscious, or dinning with diabetic peeps, 1.5 leveled-teaspoon of salt is enough (almost more than enough) to give it taste. Point to note the salt will “react” with the prawn to bring out the taste. It’s pretty awesome if prawn is fresh.
Garlic, Be generous, the elders say it kills bacteria of the greens, others say it brings another angle to the taste of the dish overall. I just know that Garlic is good for the body. 2-3 cloves is enough. 4, 5 will be pushing it.
Shortcut:
1. Boil water, put Broccoli in a metal container, pour boil water into the metal container, close up metal container and let Broccoli cook itself. come back in 5-7mins time to check on Broccoli, Broccoli should look cooked by then. Pour away boil water, Douse with tap water to help retain colour (and some say vitamins). Pour away tap water. Leave it. No need to bother about drying, just leave it.
As is, Broccoli takes time to cook. So having “boil” it, all it has to do when it gets into the pan later is to absorb the essence of the dish. *sLuRP!
2. After de-shelling the prawn, give it’s rim a slid, it helps the prawn to “bloom” a little when cooked. Looks better although not exactly shortcut.
Those that are bothered, may remove the “intestinal vein”, some prawns have 2, the bottom and the top. It would then bloom even prettier. 🙂
But yar… fingers will smell of prawn. *yucks* but well, do it once, do it good.
3. Carrot, cut thin thin slice, diagonal strips are always good. It takes time to cook as well.
4. Not a fan of dicing garlic? Cut of top and bottom of garlic. Place a big knife horizontally over it. Apply pressure on top on the knife so the garlic is flatten. There, its easier now. My mom would just dump the whole flatten garlic in and it gets dissipated as we stir while cooking. 😀
5. If you prefer your dish to be a little wet (although entirely unnecessary) dilute the sauce. 3-4 table spoon of sauce to 1-2 table spoon of water. In a bowl, mix well before pouring in.
Steps:
Prep
1. Slice Carrots. avoid getting it wet. Douse it with water and dry!! only before putting into pan.
2. Slice Broccoli. you may consider using small knifes to slid the heads out from the side, and further divide the stems into smaller pieces.
3. De-shell prawn. Wash.
4. Dice garlic.
Here comes the fun!
5. Turn stove on to Medium heat if you are un-confident. High heat is fine too (assuming Broccoli is pre-boiled)
6. Drop 1/2 a tablespoon of water into pan to see that pan is hot enough. The water evaporates when it is hot enough (not very necessary as it is more for deep frying stuff).
7. Pour in oil.
8. Put in Garlic, stir till it looks golden brown, 10-20secs is good enough too.
9. Put in Carrot, stir till it looks somewhat cooked. (Raw carrots is edible too, dont worry)
10. Put in Prawns, stir for a short while, till its pinkish, as though the whole prawn gains heat.
11. Put in Broccoli
12. Stir
13. Put in sauce
14. Stir
15. Cover pan 10-20 secs is good enough.
16. Dish and Serve.
There you are. Agak Agak. By the feel, looks and intuition 😉
