Ahhhhh, this is a great lip-tingling, spicy-hot, tasty, summer grilling treat. Why do you get a great summer recipe as the Holiday season approaches? Cus I'm in Oz where it is late spring and yesterday I saw 110 F in the shade and 143 F in the sun.
Obviously this weather calls for spicy food to help cool you down! Ahem. It works, really. Trust me, 'k?
Wifey-Poo and I got a great deal on some local tiger prawns the other day. I decided I wanted to grill mine and make them rather spicy. I dug back through my ancient memories of when I was in Austin, Texas, USA. There was this one place I found that made the best cajun crawdads.
What I made last night turned out to be a very good approximation of the lip-tingling goodness that I remembered.
You can make this as a main course or a side dish. Just depends on how many prawns ya got.
The first thing to do is make the chilli/garlic paste. There are 3 ways to do this.
An easy way: Mix 2 tbsp prepared garlic with 1 tbsp cayenne powder, a pinch of sugar, 1 tsp sesame oil, and 1 tsp prepared ginger.
Another easy way: Same as above but with 2 tbsp of chilli paste (the real stuff) instead of the cayenne powder.
The easiest way: Go to an oriental grocery store and buy a jar of garlic/chilli paste.
Now put 10 raw, not-shelled, tiger prawns into a bowl, and spoon 2 tbsp of garlic/chilli paste (however you made it) onto the raw, NOT shelled tiger prawns. Use your fingers to make sure the paste coats all the prawns (be careful!!!!!! They are spiny). Then sprinkle 1 tbsp of ground black pepper over the prawns and toss them gently so the black pepper has stuck to the garlic/chilli paste.
Crank up your barby to medium high heat. Place the prawns on the barby and grill for about 2 minutes a side (don't overcook or they'll be tough instead of succulent).
Put the blackened prawns on a plate to cool just enough so that you can handle them. This would be a very good time to wash your hands, BTW.
To eat them, just rip the heads off (make sure you suck out all the juices from the head part of the shell), quickly shell the rest of the prawn and eat it. Continue until all the prawns are gone.
Your brow should have a nice sweat by now. An ice cold lager will take the heat off your tongue and the capillary-dilating properties of the spices will cool your body on a hot summer day.
Seriously, This. Is. Good.
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