Tamarind honey prawns
Iranians love all things sour: lemons, limes, pomegranate molasses, young plums and tamarind. I especially love tamarind because you can use it so well in savoury cooking and balance it with sweetness to create something really delicious. In this recipe, I simply mix tamarind paste with honey to make a marinade that has lots of flavour without much effort. These prawns are also great to skewer and are easy to cook on the barbecue.
Author: Sabrina Ghayour
Cuisine: Iranian
Ingredients
- 800g raw tiger prawns (the biggest you can find), peeled with tails left on
- vegetable oil for frying
- 2 heaped tsp toasted sesame seeds
- 10g fresh coriander, leaves roughly chopped
- 3 spring onions, thinly sliced from root to tip
- For the marinade:
- 100g tamarind paste
- 75g clear honey
- 2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
- 2tbsp light brown sugar
- 3-4tbsp chilli oil (or olive oil, if preferred)
- sea salt flakes
Method
- For the marinade, blend the ingredients in a mixing bowl until the sugar dissolves. Add the prawns and work marinade into them using your hands. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and marinate at room temperature for 30 mins.
- Heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and drizzle in a little vegetable oil. Drain excess marinade from the prawns and fry them quickly on both sides until they cooked through and slightly charred. Cooking times will vary depending on the size of the prawns. The marinade is sticky and sweet, which means it will blacken in the pan slightly, so don’t panic if the prawns look charred - they will still taste delicious. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds, coriander and
- chopped spring onions.
