Baked Coconut Prawns

Coconut shrimp are absolutely delicious. They are also expensive. Thus, it was time to give cooking them at home a shot. I looked at a lot of recipes and then generally decided to just go for it. For this reason, I don't have any precise measurements. Except I remember that we bought almost exactly 2 lbs of fresh, wild mexican black prawns from Olympia Seafood Company. Good choice.

Ingredients:

Prawns

Egg Whites

Cornstarch

Salt and Pepper

Ground unsweetened coconut

Flaked Coconut, sweetened (I would recommend toasting them before using... I did not)

Sweet Chili Sauce (for dipping)

The basics:

Deshell, Devein, and butterfly the prawns, but leave the tail on.

Dip in egg white.

Coat in a mixture of 75% cornstarch and 25% ground unsweetened coconut with added salt and pepper if you please.

Dip in egg white again. 

Dip in flaked coconut. 

Bake @ 350 degrees. Time will very depending on the size of the prawns.

Get some sweet chili sauce to dip them in, and enjoy.

Honey Walnut Prawns

The fine folks at Yelp have done their homework, run their numbers, and somehow decided that the most romantic city in the country is... Tacoma, WA. Perhaps not the first place you would guess, or even the 50th, but they have the data so what they say goes.

Now, in Tacoma there is a fantastic little spot named the Indochine Lounge that could be seen as quite romantic. Water feature in the middle of the restaurant, clean design, great staff, and fantastic(ly overpriced) food. The dish that makes them shine is Honey Walnut Prawns, and that is what I've tried to recreate here.

The recipe was adapted from here.

1/2 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup walnut halves
Enough vegetable oil for frying
1 lb of prawns peeled and deviened
3 egg whites
1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp plus an extra dab of honey
1 tbsp sweetened condensed milk
1 tbsp plus an extra squeeze of fresh lemon juice
1 can pineapple chunks (obviously fresh would be better)

Mix the sugar and the water and cook until boiling. Add walnuts and cook for 2 minutes. Remove from heat and separate walnuts from remaining sugar (if the sugar completely candies (as it did for me), don't worry, it's still delicious.)

In a large bowl, combine mayo, honey, sweetened condensed milk, and lemon juice.

Dip the prawns in the egg whites and then the cornstarch. Double batter if desired. Fry the shrimp up. Place on a paper towel to remove excess grease.

Toss pineapple and shrimp in the honey mixture. Serve over mixed greens or rice and garnish with candied walnuts.