Creamy Butter Prawns

My first encounter with creamy butter was at Seafood Paradise located at Singapore Flyer a few years ago. The signature dish there is their "Creamy Butter Crab" and it is really really good!! If you never tried it before, you should really give it a try but.... the pricing is on the high side. It can cost you up to $100 for 2 person with dishes like a crab, a vege and another main (chicken, prawns or beef).

After browsing thru a few recipes regarding creamy butter, I decided to give it a try because I find that it is rather similar to the Cereal Prawns that I've cook earlier on.

Ingredients: (serves 2)

12 prawns

2 cloves of garlic (chopped) 

Butter

2 stalks of curry leaves

1 tbsp of sugar

1 chilli padi (cut)

1 cup of evaporated milk (preferbably full cream)

1 tsp of tapoica flour (for thickening of the sauce)

Oil for frying

Seasoning:

Salt

Black pepper

2 tsp Oyster sauce

3/4 tbsp Plain Flour

Directions:

Remove shell and devien prawns

Season it with a pinch of salt and black pepper

Add 2 tsp of oyster sauce

Sprinkle 1 tbsp of plain flour

Mix well and set aside for 10 mins

Heat wok under high heat and pour in oil

Once oil is hot, pour in prawns and fry for a minute until the prawns turn pinkish

Scoop up the prawns and drain off excess oil

Heat up wok under medium fire and put in butter
Put in garlic and stir fry till golden brown
Put in the curry leaves and chilli padi and continue to stir
Add in the prawns and stir fry for a minute
Pour in evaporated milk and let it simmer for a minute

Add in one tbsp of sugar and continue to let it simmer

Mix the tapoica flour with some water and pour it in (according to how thick you want your prawns to be)

Heat off and ready to serve!!

This is no doubt one of the best dish that I've cooked so far!! 2 thumbs up!! There is nothing much that I would change for my recipe but if I am going to cook it again, I will make sure I cook 20 of them!!

Cereal Prawns 麦片虾

Cereal prawns is one of a favorite dish among prawn lovers, this dish is available at most Cze Char stall in Singapore or Malaysia and a plate of it and cost up to $25SGD (maybe around 10 prawns only)!! Yeap, it is not a cheap dish and for me, I only ordered it when there is a big group of us eating or for a specific celebration or when there is someone is the group who loves eating prawns!!

Personally, I think that the dish is overpriced and that is why I decided to give this dish a run for its money! It is the second time I am cooking this dish and the first was a failure and that is why I didn't post it. I shall share with u my learning's and the end of this post.

You will be amaze that the ingredients for this dish is really simple but it is the cooking that requires some skills.

The main ingredients

Ingredients: (Serves 2~3)
12 medium prawns
A handful of curry leaves (around 2 stalks)
3 packets of 3in1 cereal
2 gloves of garlic
1 knob of Butter (40~50gram)
Oil for frying the prawns

Seasoning of prawns:
Salt and black pepper
Tapioca flour

Directions:
Devien the prawns and leaving the shell in-tact
Cut away the front portion of the head of the prawns
Clean the prawns with water
Marinate the prawns and a pinch of salt and black pepper
Coat a light layer of tapioca flour on the prawns
Set aside for 5 to 10 mins

Heat up wok and pour in oil
Deep fry the prawns for roughly 1 min or when you see that the prawns turn pink and crisp
Scoop up the prawns and drain the oil from it

Drain the oil from the fried prawns

Remove the excess oil from the frying of the prawns
Heat up the wok and put in the butter and the garlic
Fry the garlic till light brown and add in the curry leaves
Add in prawns and continue to fry for around 2 to 3 mins until you are able to smell the fragrance of the curry leaves
Turn off heat and pour in the cereal mix and continue to fry until all the prawns are coated with cereals
Dish out and serve!

Tasty!

Overall, my cereal prawns is pretty good but it find that it was rather sweet and that is probably due to the sugar inside the 3in1 cereal packets. So my advice is try to use maybe only 2 packets of the 3in1 and top up more plain cereal or just filter away the creamer and sugar of the 3rd packet of 3in1. And lastly, I will not use tapioca flour to coat my prawns cause it gave the prawns a sticky feeling. I will use corn flour or normal flour on my next try.

I hope you will give this a try cause it is pretty easy and you will feel satisfy knowing that you are able to cook 麦片虾 at home!! And the best thing is, the cost for this dish is less than $10SGD!!

*Note: If you want to add some crisp on your cereal, try pan frying your cereal mix (without oil) before adding it to the prawns.

Chinese Steam Drunken Crab

Today I decided to try my hand on cooking crabs! And I come across a few recipes regarding steam crabs from the internet. After browsing a few, I decided to modify some of the recipe and create one of my own recipe. =)

I bought a crab from a live seafood shop located at Farm Mart (the shop is closed every Thursday). The crab weighted around 0.8kg and it cost me $24. The price of the crab ranges from $20/kg to $35/kg. I find that the prices are comparable to those we find at seafood restaurant but being a guy who loves to cook, I find it more satisfying buying my own crab and cooking it. I chose this poor fellow in my picture and the worker at the seafood helped me out in cutting it to pieces and cleaning it with brush as well! Good service ya...

Ingredients: (Serve 2)
800g to 1kg Crab (preferably live crab)
2 egg whites
4~5 slices of ginger3 thick spring onion stalks
1/4 cup Chinese wine (Hua Diao wine 花雕酒 or Shao-Hsing wine 绍兴酒)

Seasoning:
Shredded Ginger
Chopped Garlic
Chopped Green Onions
4 tbsp Soy Sauce
2 tbsp Chinese wine
1/4 cube of chicken stock
250ml / small bowl of water

Directions:
Rinse crab with water and arrange it on a plate with a bit of depth
Place the gingers and spring onions on top of the crab
Pour the Chinese wine over the crab
Start boiling water using a big wok
Once the water starts to boil, place the plate of crab into the wok and steam for 8 mins

Mix all the seasoning in a small bowl or you can choose to boil the water and add in the chicken stock cube and soy sauce
Once the cube of chicken stock has dissolve, place the remaining ingredients like shredded ginger, chopped green onions and garlic into a small bowl

Pour the seasoning and the egg whites over the crab and steam it again for another 4 mins

Once you check that the crab has turn red and make sure it is completely cook, dish out and it is ready to serve!


For those who like a bit of spiciness in this dish, you can also add in "chilli-padi" in your seasoning. But try not to over do it, as you might spoil the taste of the fresh crab meat.

The crab meat was tender and juicy and I can really taste the freshness of the scrumptious crab meat as the seasoning of this dish was not too heavy.

I hope you guys will enjoy the dish as much as I did!