← Nouns Cooking · Vietnamese

Ingredients

• 500 g small raw prawns, shell on or peeled, legs and feelers snipped off
• 2½ tbsp Fish sauce
• 1½ tbsp Sugar
• ½ tsp black pepper, divided
• 4 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
• 1 Shallot, finely chopped
• 2 tbsp Vegetable oil
• 2 Spring onion, whites and greens sliced separately
• 1 Red chilli, sliced (optional)

Method

1. Rinse the prawns and pat them very dry. Toss with the fish sauce, sugar and half the pepper and leave for 10 min.
2. Heat the oil in a wide frying pan over medium heat. Fry the shallot, garlic and spring onion whites for 1 minute until fragrant but not brown.
3. Add the prawns and all their marinade and turn the heat to high. Stir-fry for 2 min until they turn pink.
4. Lower the heat to medium and keep stirring for 6–8 min as the liquid bubbles away and turns into a dark, sticky glaze that clings to the prawns. If it catches, add a splash of water.
5. Toss in the spring onion greens, the rest of the pepper and the chilli. Serve hot with rice, a simple soup and some fresh cucumber.

Tips

• Tiny shell-on prawns are traditional: the shells go crisp and chewy in the glaze and you eat them whole.
• A drop of dark soy sauce deepens the colour, but it contains wheat.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

Vicky Pham Wok and Kin