Firecracker Prawns
Thailand's firecracker prawns: prawns wrapped in spring-roll pastry around a sliver of chilli and spring onion.
Overview
Prawns (shrimp) curl naturally into half-circles. To get your firecracker prawns looking right you need to do some cosmetic work but it’s an easy job: the underside of the prawns needs to be scored in three places so that you can straighten them up. I have seen this popular starter prepared with many different marinades but as the name implies, it’s the chilli that is important. In this recipe I suggest using both chilli paste and roasted chilli flakes. How much of each you add, however, is completely down to you and how spicy you like your food. I recommend serving these with sweet chilli sauce.
Ingredients
Protein
- 20 raw prawns (large, shrimp), peeled and deveined but tails left on
Marinade
- 1 garlic clove, finely minced
- 1 tsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp honey
- 1 tbsp homemade chilli jam (nam prik pao)
- 1 tsp roasted chilli flakes (optional)
- ½ tsp lemon juice
Other
- 10 egg roll wrappers
- 1 tsp cornflour (cornstarch)
- Rapeseed (canola) oil, for deep-frying or shallow-frying
Method
Stage 1 - Prepare Prawns
- Using a sharp knife, make three shallow slits in the underside of each prawn (shrimp): one at one end, then in the middle and one more at the other end.
- Then bend the prawn upwards to straighten.
- Pat the prawns dry with a paper towel.
- Whisk the marinade ingredients in a bowl and taste to adjust the seasoning - add the roasted chilli flakes if you want additional heat.
- Mix the prawns into the marinade and marinate for 30 minutes in the fridge.
Stage 2 - Prepare Wrappers
- Meanwhile, cut the egg roll wrappers in half diagonally, so that you get two triangles out of each square wrapper.
- Cover and set aside until ready to assemble.
- Whisk the cornflour (cornstarch) with 1 tablespoon of cold water with a fork to make a thick paste.
Stage 3 - Assemble
- When you’re ready to put this delicious starter together, place one of the triangle egg rolls in front of you with the long end on the left.
- Place one of the marinated prawns about a quarter of the way up so that the tail end is sticking over the long end of the wrapper but the head end is on the wrapper.
- Fold the bottom corner of the triangle over the prawn and roll it up until you reach the right corner of the triangle and fold it over so that the prawn is securely in the pastry with just the tail end visible.
- Brush with a little cornflour mixture to secure and then continue wrapping upwards until you have a neatly wrapped prawn.
- Brush again with the cornflour mixture to secure.
- Repeat with the remaining prawns.
Stage 4 - Cook
- To cook, either deep-fry or shallow-fry in about 2cm (1in) of oil over a medium-high heat until the wrappers are a golden brown and the prawns are cooked through.
- This should take about 3 minutes.
- Serve hot.
Notes
- Adjust chilli to taste.
Serving
Serve hot with sweet chilli sauce.
Storage
- Best served immediately; can be kept warm for 10-15 mins.
Recipes mentioned here
Nam Prik Pao
Nam prik pao is the definition of Thai culinary philosophy: a simple dish of tremendous depth. The combination of dried shrimp, fermented shrimp paste, pungent garlic, fiery chillies, and tiny sweet-acid aubergines creates a complex, intensely flavorful paste that transcends its humble ingredients. Fresh coriander adds herbal brightness. This sauce is served as a table condiment alongside steamed rice, used as a dip for fresh vegetables, spooned onto grilled meats, and stirred into soups. The mortar-and-pestle preparation is essential, it builds flavor through the pounding action that can't be replicated by machine.
Nam Prik Pao
Dried red chillies are deseeded (most of them), garlic is sliced, shallots are sliced thin. All three fry separately in oil over medium heat until each is deep golden and crispy, sequence matters because they cook at different rates. Dried shrimp toasts briefly in the same oil. Everything pulses in a food processor (or pounds in a mortar, the traditional method) to a coarse paste. Returned to the pan with the residual oil; palm sugar, fish sauce, tamarind paste and a splash of water cook for 10 minutes more, stirring, until the colour deepens to mahogany and the paste is thick and glossy. Once cooled and stored in oil, it lasts weeks.
More like this
Thai Prawn Toast
These aren’t like those you find at most takeaways: thinly layered with a bit of prawn (shrimp). No way! These are slightly larger than bite-size prawn mountains. They are amazing served with the sweet chilli sauce.
Tempura Garlic Prawns
Here is another Thai starter you might think belongs in a Japanese cookbook. However, once you try these crisp prawns (shrimp) dipped into Thai seafood dipping sauce or sweet chilli sauce, you’ll find them to be 100% Thai. As in the photograph, you can fry veggies in the same way to make a tempura feast!
Garlic Prawn Pad See Ew
"Pad see ew" translates literally as "stir-fried with soy sauce", and that soy is the heart of the dish: dark, sweet and clinging to wide rice noodles charred at the edges in a hot wok. Broccolini stands in for traditional Chinese broccoli (kai lan), the prawns are given a brief garlic-soy marinade, and an egg is folded through right at the end. A sharp homemade chilli vinegar at the table is the traditional Thai counterweight to all that sweet soy.
Pork Meatballs
These meatballs are packed with delicious flavours. I like to serve them with a couple of dips like sweet chilli sauce and chilli jam. Before cooking them, I recommend frying up a bit of the prepared meat and adjusting the flavour to taste.