Assam Prawns

In December last year, local drama - The Little Nyonya sparked interest about the lives and culture of the Straits Chinese. It made many Singaporeans sit up and understand further, the history, Peranakan ethics, values, cuisine and also helped educate many third and forth generations of Peranakan folks about their culture. It even sparked a renewed interest for many Peranakan food and retail products in Singapore.

When I was growing up, a very common dish that my mother cooks is the Assam Prawn. In Penang, mom would get up early to wait for the freshest fisherman's catch like fish and prawns near the beach. Till today, I can see that there are still the occasional fresh catch that one can wait if you go out very early in the mornings. Even the Assam Prawns are cooked with the best catch even though you don't really need to.

Assam (Tamarind)
Assam grows on trees dangling down in a long and hard outer covering (shell) brown in colour. When it is ripe, it is a little mushy (with pits) and is normally dried in the sun before kept for use in cooking. I used to pluck them off the trees with my friends and we'd even eat the ripe ones freshly plucked and spit out the pits.

For the benefit of those who doesn't know what Assam is, here is a picture of the sourish 'ingredient' that you can buy commercially. It has been shelled and packed for used in cooking. It cost anything from Sg 80 cents to S$1 for a 300gms packet. The ingredient is a brown pulp thick with seeds in them. This is used as marination for that natural sourish taste in many Asian cuisine.


Assam prawns is a simple dish and needs very few things in the ingredients. Assam Prawns can be cooked with the smaller sized prawns too. The juices of Assam (tamarind) breaks down the prawns in a short time so do not marinated prawns too long if you decide to cook this for your meal.

Ingredients
300gm Prawns, leave shell on
(or you shell the middle part except leaving the head and tails intact)

4 generous tablespoons of Assam paste
4 tbsps of water

2 tbsp Sugar
1/2 tbsp Salt
Oil for frying
Dash of Dark Soya (optional)


Method
20 minutes before frying, marinate the prawns with Assam paste that has been mixed with water. Add Sugar, Salt and the Dark Soya. Mix it well and set aside.

After 20 minutes, take the prawns out and sieve the rest of the Assam juice if available but it should be not more than 2-3 tbsps of thick gravy left. Discard the Assam pulp/pits.

In a hot oil, fry the prawns till they are cooked. Assam Prawns are fried till dry but normally I don't like to cook my prawns till they are too cooked. When they are cooked nicely, I would remove them first. Then I will fry the Assam gravy till it is very thick. When it is thick, I then toss the prawns back to coat it with whatever gravy left on the wok.

Serve it hot with rice. Mom used to cook this whenever she cooks Nasi Lemak!