Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Creamy Butter Prawns/Nai Yau Har


My mom cooked a lot of traditional dishes for our Chinese New Year reunion dinner and one of them is this prawn dish. She once saw a chef on TV demonstrating a prawn dish using evaporated milk and she cook it for us. We like it a lot but I tweak recipe a bit by adding additional ingredients to it. Many Chinese families like to cook prawns/shrimps, as a prawn in Cantonese is ‘Ha’ which in English means ‘laughter’ and that associate with the idea of happiness and joy all year round. Being Chinese, all the dishes serve during the festive season need to have auspicious name or meaning to it. This is my version of mom’s dish. Finger licking good!!

 

Ingredients:

12 large prawns
2 tbsp corn starch
Salt and pepper

Ingredients for the sauce:

2 tbsp butter
1 shallot – thinly slice
2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
3 Thai chilies
1 sprig curry leaves
¾ cup evaporated milk
1 tsp chicken bouillon powder
½ tsp sugar
Salt to taste


1. Clean the prawns cut away the legs and leave the shell intake. Pat dry and season with salt and pepper.
2. Heat up some oil for shallow frying, lightly dust the prawns with cornstarch and fry it over high heat until just cooked. Remove the prawns and drain the oil on paper towel.
3. Remove all the oil from the wok, add in the butter, and curry leaves, shallot, garlic and chilies. Sauté until fragrant. Add in the evaporate milk, chicken bouillon, a bit of salt and sugar. Simmer until the sauce thickens and creamy.
4. Add in the prawns, toss it well. Serve warm.

I am submitting this post to Chinese New Year Delights 2013 hosted by Sonia aka Nasi Lemak Lover .

14 comments:

Beachlover said...

my favorite dish!! sedapnya!! now you make me want to cook some spicy shrimp too!!

Janine said...

this was my favourite dish until i discovered salted egg yolk prawns! but yours look super good, so maybe i'll reconsider to see if it will become my favourite dish again ;p

Shereen said...

Okay, I'm going to cook this for the boys on Friday.. cepat di masak sedap di makan. Thank you for sharing.

ann low said...

I love prawns very much and I'll definitely try these yummy prawns one day!

Esther@thefussfreechef said...

Sounds perfect to me :) my family usually pan fry the prawns with ginger and soy sauce, but maybe this year i will do something different.

Anonymous said...


One of my favorite dish. My mum use to cooked this dish too. I really miss mum's cooking. I wish I am your neighbor he!he!he. Thanks for sharing.

Yen

Yoong said...

This is real yummy, Gert. Not only finger licking good, lip smacking good, too! ...and don't be jealous, but very soon, I'll be feasting in KL, heh heh! :)

suituapui said...

Slurpsssss!!!! Can open your own Chinese restaurant there. Better than any in town anytime!!!!

Medeja- CranberryJam said...

Prawns look really nice! This sauce sounds very yummy.

Esther Lau said...

Wow! Love these butter "ha"! Definitely this year your house will full of laughter :)

PH said...

Even though I am not a prawn fan, I will eat this!

Charmaine said...

Thanks Gert. Now I know how to cook the prawns for CNY. I was going to cook har lok style but I think this is tastier.

Sonia ~ Nasi Lemak Lover said...

yes, this is simply good!

Jay said...

The prawns look so yummy!Gonna give it a try.