Easy oriental part 9 – Prawns with honey, chili and green beans even though you don’t deserve it.

You don’t deserve this one. It’s not that you are a person of dubious virtue. It’s not that you have done any specific thing to offend me and it’s nothing to do with your personal hygiene. This little recipe is just too good to share. It fits the ‘easy oriental’ description like a prawn fits its shell. It looks pretty awesome and it tastes spectacularly good.

Despite you not being deserving, I will relent and give you the low down on this little treat. Here’s the ingredients list for Prawns with Honey, Chili and Green Beans:

Not a long list for this Asian inspired delight. This is enough for two or three people.

Ingredients

• 20 to 24 mid-sized prawns. Fresh are best. This time I used frozen.
• 12 or so spring onions
• 1 red and 1 green chili
• 1 tablespoon of rice wine
• 1 tablespoon of soy sauce
• 2 teaspoons of honey
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 3 cm or so of ginger
• Zest and juice of half a lime
• Black pepper to season
• 200 grammes of green beans

There is no gain without pain. The pain in this dish, like with so many Oriental dishes is in the preparation. There is a reasonable amount of chopping involved. Treat it as a game and you will get through it very quickly.

First the spring onions. Chop in ascending order of flavour. This reduces the chances of getting chili eye.

Next the garlic gets the treatment.

It looks like a lot of garlic. It is a lot of garlic. I like a lot of garlic.

Ginger is the next up for shaving.

Slice it nice and thin then cut into match sticks then chop into tiny pieces.

At some stage in the process, top, tail and half the green beans.

These run no risk of burning or spicing you but they do need to be cut.

Next, zest the lime, having washed any wax from the skin under warm water.

The zesting should be done before cutting the lime. Obvious, once I say it.

Last but not least, chop those chilis. I like them thinly sliced and not cut up much after that.

That looks like a lot of chili. It is a lot of chili. I like a lot of chili.

Put the honey and soy in a bowl. Add the prawns and season with the black pepper.

Give them a good stir around to coat the prawns in sticky, saltiness.

Heat your wok until it would be madness to put your face in. Then add some peanut oil or vegetable oil. When this starts to smoke, add the ginger and garlic.

Stir it around until the aromas arise. Don’t burn it.

Side note on burning the aromatics: If you burn the garlic and ginger, it will become very bitter and can ruin an otherwise delicious dish. Don’t do the bold thing or you will have to chop more garlic and ginger and start over.

Add the prawns, reserving the liquid. Stir fry them for a couple of minutes. The sticky prawns should attract some of the garlic and ginger as they turn a nice pink colour. Throw in the spring onions.

A pretty good throwing shot, if I say so myself.

Stir these in for about thirty seconds. Then add the beans, chili and lime zest. Add half the soy and honey marinade and the rice wine.

Add about half the soy / honey mixture. Discard the rest. You don’t want to poison anybody, do you?

Stir this to incorporate and to get the sticky mixture on everything. Squeeze over the lime juice just before serving.

A gratuitous shot of stuff in a wok. It looks good enough to eat.

Serve it over some plain white rice. I like to have a nice cold beer with many chili dishes. In fact I like to have many beers with chili dishes.

Beer or no beer, I do encourage you. Try this one.

This is a quick, easy and delicious dish. Even though I believe you don’t deserve it, go on, give it a try.

Side note on photography: I ate at least twice the amount you see photographed. The big bowl of prawns and rice would not have made such a nice photo. But, one could not survive on so few prawns. Could one?