Cooking Recipe: Tangy Chili & Garlic Tiger Prawns Noodle

What's for dinner? Another spontaneous meal that I put together. I found some prawns, and french beans. And then an A-HA moment came along. I recalled reading Pierre's post on duck and scallop with yellow egg noodle and I thought .. "okay tonight's dinner will be significantly Chinese".

I decided that we are not having rice, so instead I will fry some prawns with chili, lime juice, lots of garlic, some shallots and pair it with a simple fried yellow egg noodle. There's a secret in the dish.. pssts.. come closer.. there's bacon. ;) LOLs..

The lime juice ties up the whole dish nicely. It has the perfect balance of heat, sourness and saltiness from bacon and natural sweetness from french beans, prawns and yellow egg noodle. Enjoy!!

Recipe
yields 4-6 pax
Note: To marinade prawns, I always use my mom's basic recipe and it goes well with just any meat and poultry. Add some light soy sauce, couple dashes of sesame oil, white pepper, shaoxing wine and couple teaspoon of cornstarch. If possible, marinade a couple hours ahead or even better, marinade overnight.

For the tangy chili prawns

200g tiger prawns, deveined
5 cloves garlic, diced or finely chopped
3 shallots, sliced finely
1 medium red chili, seeded and finely chopped
1 tbsp Dry sherry or Shaoxing rice wine
1 lime, juiced
75g french beans, chopped into 2 cm lengths
dried chili flakes
6-8 streaky bacon, sliced into cubes
2 tbsp vegetable/canola/peanut oil
salt and pepper to taste

For fried yellow egg noodle:

1 1/2 packet yellow egg noodle
1 tbsp canola/vegetable/ peanut oil
2 cloves garlic, diced of finely chopped
1tbsp oyster or hoisin sauce
3 tsp sesame oil
3 tsp light soy sauce
some white pepper
1 tsp caster sugar/ brown sugar
1 1/2 tbsp water

To prepare tangy chili prawns:

1. Fry streaky bacon without any oil until they are golden brown. Remove excess oil from wok or pan and leave about 2-3 tsp of bacon oil behind. Set bacon aside.

2. At this point, wok or pan will still be hot. Add the oil then fry garlic, onions and chili for few seconds until they are fragrant.

3. Then add the prawns, sherry or rice wine and the lime juice and stir fry until the prawns start to turn pink.

4. Add  the French beans and  bacon and mix together. When prawns have turned pink, season with a little salt, white pepper and a pinch of chili flakes. Set aside.

To prepare fried yellow egg noodles:

1. Combine all the ingredients and mix well  leaving out garlic and yellow egg noodles.

2. Heat a clean pan or wok, add oil and fry garlic for a couple seconds making sure they don't burn.

3. Immediately toss in yellow egg noodles and pour noodle mixture and stir fry for 1-2 minutes until noodles are evenly coated. Add a little water (2-3 tsp) if noodle is too try.

4. Lastly, add in the fried tangy prawn and mix it up with the noodle. Serve immediately.

xx