Rica rica prawns
This spicy prawn dish is one for the chilli lovers! An aromatic, fiery paste flavours the prawns, which are stir-fried with tomatoes to make a sauce. Serve with yellow coconut rice and a pineapple relish.
This recipe is taken from The Nutmeg Trail by Eleanor Ford (£26, Murdoch Books).
Eleanor says: 'One of the chilli hotspots of the world is Northern Sulawesi. Here fragrant lime leaves, lemon basil and extreme use of chilli typify the food, for heat that hits you with shouts, not whispers. Spice pastes are often used in one-to-one ratio with the quantity of meat or seafood. Rica rica is the signature cooking style, the ‘c’ pronounced ‘ch’ as in ‘chilli’, which is also what the word means. Stoke the fire to your taste, by all means scaling up the bird’s eyes. These are for heat; the seeded larger chillies are there for flavour.'
Ingredients
Metric
Imperial
- 2 tbsp of neutral oil
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 100g of spring onions, chopped
- 4 lime leaves, stem removed
- 1/2 tsp sugar
- 360g of raw peeled prawn, tails intact
- lime juice to taste
Spice paste
- 5 large red chillies, deseeded
- 4 bird's eye chillies, (optional)
- 4 small shallots
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 in of ginger, peeled
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 lime, juice only
Method
Roughly chop the aromatics for the spice paste and blitz all the ingredients together in a blender to a rough paste
- 5 large red chillies, deseeded
- 4 bird's eye chillies, (optional)
- 4 small shallots
- 4 garlic cloves
- 2 in of ginger, peeled
- 1/2 tsp fine sea salt
- 1 lime, juice only
Heat the oil in a frying pan or wok and scrape in the spice paste. Fry on a medium heat, stirring often, until it is sweetly fragrant and the harsh, raw edge has gone. Stir in the tomato, spring onion, lime leaves and sugar and cook so the tomato starts to break down to a sauce
- 2 tbsp of neutral oil
- 3 tomatoes, chopped
- 100g of spring onions, chopped
- 4 lime leaves, stem removed
- 1/2 tsp sugar
Add the prawns and simmer for about 5 minutes, until they lose their glassiness and are just cooked through and pink. Spritz in some lime juice and taste to see if any of the flavours need balancing – add more lime to brighten, or sugar and salt as needed. Serve at once
- 360g of raw peeled prawn, tails intact
- lime juice to taste
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