Friday, 7 September 2012

Day 120: Battered prawn stir-fry with brown pilaf rice


It seemed absolutely ages since I made a fish dish on a Friday because that tradition has been well and truly off kilter as last while; therefore, I rummaged through the cookbook to find a recipe to get the tradition back on track and settled on Battered prawn stir-fry with Brown pilaf rice. Well, Dear Husband does really like prawns and the fact that they were going to be battered meant that the recipe stood a good chance.

I started off by adding rapeseed oil into a pan which I always buy from Donegal Rapeseed Oil Company via Supervalu. Oh, remember ages ago I said I was going to buy a wok? Well, I never got round to it so here I was (yet again!) starting to make a recipe where a wok would be handy but, of course, as I hadn’t got round to getting one, I ended up using a large wide saucepan instead. So, while the oil was heating, I got on with the rest of the recipe.

Into a large bowl, I tipped in cornflour, sesame seeds, a beaten egg and two tablespoons of water. I then stirred in the prawns and mixed it all together. Because the saucepan of oil I used was wide enough, I was able to deep fry all the prawns together which cooked for 3 minutes. I then took them out using a slotted spoon and put them on a plate covered in kitchen paper. The next step meant that I used my frying pan then to fry crushed garlic, grated ginger, chopped spring onions and chilli. That all fried for a minute before adding mangetout and then I added in the fried prawns for another two minutes. Finally, I added in soy sauce and sesame oil and served up with the rice.

The verdict…

Dear Husband was really impressed with this recipe and gave it 9 marks out of 10 so that makes up for the low score he gave the salad yesterday. Mind you, those 9 marks were for the stir-fry part excluding the brown rice which he definitely isn't a fan of! When you look at the photo above and the photo on page 105 of Rachel’s cookbook, you can see a significant difference and it’s not difficult to point out which one I cooked. Maybe I should have presented mine in the same style but I stuck exactly to the instructions in the recipe. To be honest, I felt like I slightly ‘over-fried’ the garlic, ginger and chilli mix so next time (even though Dear Husband said I didn’t), I would definitely have to reduce the heat slightly or else finally get round to buying a wok which might have reduced the ever-so-slightly ‘overdone’ garlic, ginger and chilli.

In terms of complexity, this recipe was easy enough – the main thing is to watch the heat of the pan. It was a relatively quick recipe to make even though it definitely took me longer than half an hour in total from start to finish but I can cope with that. Also, the recipe said to serve the stir-fry with either rice or noodles but you could serve without and not use yet another saucepan. Dear Husband said he’d love to eat the stir-fry again although I noticed (from looking at his plate) that he ate all the prawns but not all of the mangetout and less of the brown rice but I would expect as much. Overall, this was a really good recipe and I thought it was perfect for a Friday evening and a great start to the weekend. On another note, be prepared for tomorrow’s post as I’ve something special lined up. Until then, I’m off to watch the rest of the Late Late so I wish you all a very good weekend…

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