Day 52 ... Tamarind Prawns

TAMARIND PRAWNS (ASSAM PRAWNS)

Carol and I attended the Sunset Mass this evening at 5pm. 

We stayed back for the Novena. Left church at 6:30pm. During Mass, Carol had whispered, let's cook dinner tonight. I had told her that Bryan and Justine were not around, so we could eat out after church. To be honest, I kinda lost my momentum to cook at home since the Penang trip, and also, the night before (Friday), I had broken the chain of cooking dinner at home since Day 1 of blogging about dinner. So when she suggested cooking at home, I somehow did not "drift further away" but instead felt like being pulled back to shore. 

The cook-dinner-at-home shore. :D

Told her okay, we'll do something easy, since it's just the both of us. How about assam prawns? I have some tamarind paste (assam jawa) in the fridge. We only need to get some prawns. She said, yeah okay. So came back to Taman Desa, dropped by Sri Kota, to get some prawns. They looked pretty fresh, to my inexperienced eyes. Picked up 20 tiger prawns, will tapau some for our mother too.

Am glad we decided to prepare assam prawns. 

It's really easy although the dish did not quite turned out the way we expected it too. Our mother used to prepare the nyonya kind one, where the prawn is coated with the assam, and fried, with no gravy. I wanted to do that, but the prawns started sticking to the saucepan, and I had no choice but to throw in water. Which resulted in an assam-gravy kind of prawn dish, which surprisingly went very well with the rice, along with the vegetables that Carol cooked. We both ate with our fingers, while watching DVD Two And A Half Men. Food somehow tastes better when we eat with our hands.

1. Tamarind Prawns

Clean the prawns and de-vein them. Leave shell on.

Saute a generous amount of garlic and onions.

Add some tamarind paste straight from the packet. 

Add the prawns. Sprinkle brown sugar over.

Stir-fry. Add water.

Was ready in less than 10 minutes.

2. Stir-fried Cabbage with Tempeh

Carol cooked this dish. 

Saute garlic and onions.

Add the cabbage and carrots.

Add shoyu. Add water.

Transfer to serving bowl.

Stir-fry tempeh in the same pan.

Add dark soya sauce. A bit of water.

Toss to coat.

Transfer to the vegetable bowl 

and toss to mix.

3. Garnish & Serve

We sprinkled some chopped spring onions  over the assam prawns

and pulled a sprig of coriander leaves to decorate the vegetables.

And now we add the cabbage and the carrots ...

Kish was in the kitchen when we first started, and I almost stepped on her. Then, she went to lay by the fridge. I had to kacau her to get the cabbage out. So finally she went outside to the dining area and relaxed there while Carol and I were in the kitchen. She had already taken her dinner. Carol boiled some fish for her just before they came over. Yeah, Kish loves fish. Sometimes, she thinks she's a cat. :D She's a pretty girl but highly sensitive. She has feelings like a real gurl, believe it or not. A neighbour had commented that she looks like she has eye liner on.

Stir-fried cabbage with tempeh

Carol's plate. We had our dinner with white rice today.

This is my plate. Looks like we were competing to see who can pile up more.

Absolutely tantalising and finger lickin' delicious.

Remarked to Carol, "Look at the two of us, eat until like this - donno celebrating what ..."

Then a good reason sprang to mind, 

"Ahh, we're celeberating Daniel's 7th month with God." :D

She was like, "Yeah, yeah, we're celebrating that."

We had mangoes for dessert.

LUNCH

 

Justine with her pan mee and honey lemon iced drink 

at a newly opened makan shop in our area.

Our verdict after lunch : 

The sambal sauces cannot beat JoJo's @ Kuchai Entrepreneur's Park.