Prawn and Sweet Potato Fritters ('Ukoy')

We had a sad sweet potato hanging around in the cupboard that I wanted to use up. This recipe turned out to be a stunningly inefficient way to do that, but made totally delicious and great finger food. You could eat them as a starters, but we just made 25 or so and chowed down while watching a movie :)

Ingredient:

• 250ml boiling water
• 250g raw small prawns
• 150g plain flour
• 80g ground rice
• 30g cornflour
• 2 eggs
• black pepper
• 125g peeled and grated sweet potato
• 115g bean sprouts
• 4 spring onions, finely sliced
• 1 small garlic clove
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp mild vinegar

Cook the prawns in the boiling water (in a saucepan, presumably) for 3-4 minutes, until pink and just cooked. Drain, reserving the prawn stock and leaving both prawns and stock to cool for ten minutes or so. Pluck the heads off, and if the shells are tough (i.e. if you couldn't find really small prawns), shell them completely.

Put the flours and ground rice into a bowl and whisk in the eggs and the cooled prawn liquid; season well with black pepper and salt. Add the grated sweet potato, bean sprouts and spring onions, and fold gently to combine. Drop 1 to 1 1/2 tbsp of batter into a frying pan of hot oil, and top with 2-3 prawns, pushing into the batter and then flattening with a spatula. Fry gently so the sweet potato has time to cook through, about 2-3 minutes each side. Stack on a plate with kitchen paper.

Crush the garlic and combine with the salt and vinegar to form a dipping sauce. The fritters also work well with sweet chilli sauce.

Laksa Lemak

This is a slightly vegetable-fortified version of a very seafood-heavy Singaporean soup from my humungous Asian cooking compendium. The whole house now smells of prawns but it was worth it :)

Ingredients:

• 10 raw prawns (or more if you're hungry)
• a large handful of rice vermicelli
• 1 tsp dried shrimp paste (don't inhale, lol)
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut into big pieces
• 1 tsp galangal powder
• 6 candlenuts
• 1 stem lemongrass
• 1 tsp ground turmeric
• 1 tsp ground coriander
• a 200g chunk of pumpkin, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 200ml of coconut milk (or thereabouts)
• a large handful of frozen peas
• one lime
• fried tofu, cooked crab or fish cakes (add if you're very hungry)
• a quarter of a cucumber
• a small bag of beansprouts

Peel and devein the prawns; reserve the flesh in the fridge and put the heads and shells in a stockpot. Cover with at least 300ml of boiling water and boil for 30 minutes, to produce a rich prawn stock. Drain and discard the heads and shells. Soak the rice vermicelli in hot water for 10 minutes, then drain.

In a food processor, blend the shrimp paste, onion, galangal powder, candlenuts and lemongrass, then fry for 7-8 minutes, turning frequently, until the mixture has darkened and reduced a little. Add the prawn stock and simmer for twenty minutes, then add the pumpkin and cook for a further five -- or until the pumpkin is almost done. Stir in the coconut milk, frozen peas, cooked vermicelli and add the raw prawns. Bring up to a simmer and cook for a few minutes; turn off the heat as soon as the prawns are cooked. Juice in half of the lime, and cut the other half into wedges.

Slice the cucumber thinly and add to the bean sprouts in a separate bowl; add the lime wedges to decorate. Serve the soup in deep bowls, topped with the extra protein if you're very hungry. Take handfuls of salad and top the soup, add a splash of lime juice and soy sauce and eat the salad with the soup. Yum!

Rice Paper Rolls

I was amazed to find that I hadn't yet blogged this recipe, as it's become such a family favourite over the last few years. It's a meal best prepared by two or three people, as there are many stages that can be performed in parallel. After a couple of times making it, you'll find it takes less than an hour, and it's also a lot of fun!

Rice paper can be purchased in Asian grocery stores - usually one pack is enough for eight people, and costs only a few pounds / dollars. The rolls end up being about as long as half the diameter of the rice paper, so if you want small ones, buy small rice paper; large, buy large!

You can use whatever dipping sauce you like; I often use satay, but hoisin, plum or even just a little light soy sauce would all work perfectly. The filling ingredients can also be varied easily, and you don't need to make all of them the same. We often serve these rolls with hameul pajeon in a kind of Pan-Asian feast, but they work equally well with steamed rice or a light Asian-style salad, or just alone (and preferably, a bit smaller than shown here) as starters.

Instead of giving a guide to making an exact number of rolls (impossible!), I give examples of fillings, which you can use in equal volumes and just scale how much you cook depending on how many people you have. Don't feel like you need to include all of the ingredients, just pick the flavours you feel like using. The ones in the picture use carrot, cucumber, rice noodles, tonkatsu, mint and coriander.

Filling ingredients:

• fresh herbs: mint, coriander, basil
• cool crisp shredded vegetables: carrot, cucumber, lettuce
• protein: tonkatsu, cold shredded beef, crispy duck, cold lemon chicken, deep-fried marinaded tofu, fresh tofu, tamagoyaki (sweet Japanese omelette), cooked shitake mushrooms, cooked prawns
• carbs: cold rice, cold coconut rice, cold sweet rice, thick azuki bean paste, cooked rice noodles, fried rice noodles

You will also need:

• a stack of dry rice paper rounds
• hot water (boil a kettle and leave for at least 30 seconds)
• a frying pan, deep enough to take some hot water and wide enough to easily place in and remove the rice paper
• soft tongs, a wide slotted spatula, or asbestos fingers
• two large, clean, flat plates

Start by preparing all of your ingredients - wash and pick leaves from herbs, shred the vegetables, cook your protein and ready your carbs. It's helpful to arrange these in small bowls or plates around the work surface where you will be making the rolls. Prepare any dipping sauces ahead; chill if needed.

Pour hot water into your frying pan and place a single rice paper round in it. Leave for 30 seconds or so, until malleable, then remove using the tongs, spatula, or just your fingers. If it tears easily as you remove it, you have left it in too long, so discard and leave the next one in for less time. If it is not easily flexible and malleable, put it back in. If the water goes cold, discard it and refresh with new hot water. If you run out of water, top it up! It's really nice to have one person readying rice paper and one or two others filling the rolls.

Place the ready rice paper round on one of the plates and add your fillings. I found this beautiful guide to rolling them perfectly, so check it out if you're not sure how much to add or how to roll. When it's all rolled up, place on the other plate. If you need to wait before serving them, make sure to sprinkle them with water and cover with cling film, or cover with a very damp teatowel, so that they don't dry out. They will last several hours unserved, but if you refrigerate them over night, the rice paper has a tendency to stick to itself, so they may tear as you pull them apart. If you really needed to keep them and not let them tear, you could put cling film between each one, but it's a bit of a waste of plastic :) Just eat them and enjoy!

Pad Thai

Tuesdays I have an evening telecon, so the lovely husband takes over the reins in the kitchen. I find the best results are achieved by giving him a detailed recipe, and placing all of the ingredients out where he can find them. And giving him about twice as long as I would need ;) Tonight he absolutely excelled with this recipe, again from taste.com.au. Although we halved the proteins, this was still a generous quantity of food, and I took some to lunch the next day. So cut down on the noodles if you're not super-hungry.

Ingredients:

• 250g packet flat rice noodles
• 2 lemons, juiced
• 2 tablespoons fish sauce
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons peanut oil
• 1 chicken breast, thinly sliced
• 250g prawns, peeled, deveined
• 3 spring onions, thinly sliced diagonally
• 1/2 inch of small red chilli (or more, to taste), deseeded, finely chopped
• 2 eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 cup bean sprouts
• 1/4 cup roasted peanuts, finely chopped, optional
• small bunch coriander leaves, roughly chopped
• lime wedges, to serve

Place noodles into a heat-proof bowl and cover with hot water. Stand until nearly tender - you still want a little bite to them, so that they stand up under stir-frying. Drain and rinse under cold water.Combine lemon juice, fish sauce and sugar in a jug. Heat a wok over high heat, with a little oil. Add the chicken.and stir-fry for 2 minutes until golden. Add the prawns, onions and chilli, and stir-fry for a further 2 to 3 minutes or until the prawns turn pink. Add the part-cooked noodles and stir-fry for another 2 minutes.

Add the lemon juice mixture to wok and toss to combine. Pour the beaten eggs over the noodles and stir into the noodles as they cook. Turn off the heat, add the bean sprouts and half the coriander, and toss well to combine everything together. Serve on plates topped with the remaining coriander leaves, peanuts, and lime wedges.

Gumbo

Ah, gumbo. The taste of Louisiana, so I'm told. This is a rich stew, perfect for cold evenings and a glass (or two) of full-bodied red wine. I like to use chicken, sweet chipolatas from the local butcher, and a very few fresh, raw tiger prawns from the fishmonger. But you could vary this depending on what you have to hand: pork fillet, turkey, even steak would be perfectly acceptable instead of chicken, and some fine smoked fish or scallops would be delicious instead of prawns.

I usually serve this with plain brown rice, but crusty bread or roasted sweet potatoes would also work. This is a good meal to cook for friends as it is fine reheated- just don't add the tiger prawns until you're about to serve. I tend to make it on a Sunday for just the two of us, then keep another two portions for later in the week.

Ingredients:

• 4 (or more if your budget stretches) raw, shell-on, tiger prawns
• 2 large or 4 small chicken thighs
• 6 long, high-quality chipolatas
• 1 red onion
• 1 white onion
• 1-2 green peppers
• 4 fat cloves of garlic
• 1 sweet red chilli (or 2-3 if you like it HOT)
• 3 stems celery
• 4 tbsp plain flour
• half a small glass of red wine
• 2 tins good-quality chopped tomatoes
• 250g okra
• 2 tsp cumin seeds, lightly pounded in a mortar and pestle
• 2 tbsp paprika
• 2 bay leaves

Shell the tiger prawns, and make a quick stock out of their heads and shells, the onion heads and tails, one of the stems of celery and 100ml of water. You can leave this bubbling while cooking the rest of the ingredients.

Add a tbsp of vegetable oil to the bottom of a deep cast-iron pot (Le Creuset is perfect here!), set it over a low heat and finely chop the red and white onions. Gently fry these for ten minutes until translucent. Meanwhile, chop the green pepper and celery into small pieces, and very finely chop the red chilli. Add these and crush the garlic into the onions. Stir and cook for three minutes, until the chilli and garlic have softened. Remove the vegetables from the pan.

Cut the chipolatas into thirds. If there is no oil left in the pan, add a mere drop, and then add in the chicken thighs and the chipolata pieces. Sear them on each side for a few minutes, until the skins are sealed and golden. Add the flour to the oil that will have accumulated from the sausage fat - if there is not at least 1 tbsp in the pan, add a little more. Cook the flour until it has changed to the colour of peanut butter: this is the roux, and it will thicken the stew and add a smoky flavour. Meanwhile, slice the okra diagonally, to make pretty parallelogram pieces.

Splash in the red wine to deglaze (one for you, one for the pan), then return the vegetables and add the two tins of tomatoes, okra, cumin, paprika and bay leaves. Strain your prawn shell stock into the pan. Combine gently, then cook covered for 25 minutes, stirring occasionally so that the mixture does not stick to the bottom. Taste and season, then add the raw tiger prawns to the surface, pushing them just under the liquid. Cover and cook for four more minutes: the prawns should curl up and go pink. Serve with brown rice, or sweet potatoes, or just a dollop of creme fraiche. Top with fresh chives or coriander if desired. Must be eaten with the rest of the red wine, or an ice-cold (lager) beer.