Asian Spiced Barbecue Prawns

This is by far my favorite recipes for shrimp! If you are having a barbecue then this is a great recipe. When i cooked this it was snowing outside so as long as you have a skillet or flat frying pan you can pretty much get the same effect. Ive impressed many folks with this recipe, this food where you need to get your hands dirty, suck out the brains from the shrimp heads and peel off the skin and legs. No squeemish people allowed! Plus it is so easy to make and only takes about 15 minutes to make. As for the beer... Just drink your favorite! I had some Rochefort 10 to drink while I was making the dish.
Ingredients:
500grams of medium sized raw prawns/shrimps with head and skin on
3Tsp sesame oil
3Tsp vegetable oil
3Tbsp rice wine/Sake ( You can either use Sake or Shaoxing rice wine, you can get this from your local chinese shop)
2Tbsp of soya sauce (I only use the Japanese Kikkoman soya sauce)
2Tbsp of honey
6 cloves of garlic chopped finely (you can use 3 cloves if you like, But I love garlic! so the more the better!)
1 Thumb sized ginger, skin peeled off and diced into tiny squares
4tsp Chinese five spice powder
3 Tbsp Chilli flakes (if you dont like spicy food then leave out the chilli flakes)
Sesame seeds


Step 1: Add all of the ingredients to the prawns and mix well with a large spoon making sure that all the spices and liquids are covering the prawns nicely and evenly.












Step 2: Heat up a skillet/frying pan on the highest heat setting.
There's no need to add oil to the pan since the prawn is already covered with sesame and veg oil.
once the pan is hot add the prawns to the pan. You only turn the prawns over when they sides have started to turn pink like in the picture below to the right. This should only take about a minute and no longer than 2 minutes.












Step 3: Turn the prawns over for a further 2 minutes then remove from the pan. Repeat the cooking steps until all the prawns are cooked. Notice in the picture below that you have that slight scorching black barbecued look, you get this from the marinade and also from not putting any oil into the pan before adding the shrimp.















Step 4: Eat it up and comment on what you thought of my recipe! Also here are some pictures of me cooking the same recipe of shrimp on a barbecue in Indonesia:

Meatballs with a Brown Ale Sauce

I looooooooov Meatballs!!!
Especially when they are homemade! I guarantee that you are gonna loooooooooov these meatballs with mash and a rich, velvety brown ale sauce! This dish is the epitomy of 'hearty food'
and perfect for winter!

Ingredients:
- 500grams of minced meat
- 250ml of demi glace (a concentrated stock made with beef and veal bones, you can usually get this from any large supermarket)
- 1Kilogram of floury potatoes (the amount depends on how many people are eating, I cooked for 4 people and had loads of starters as well and this was more than enough)
- 6Tbsp of cream to make smooth mash potatoes
- 1 bottle of Kasteel Brune or (any Belgian dark ale, Leffe Brune will also work nicely)
- 130grams of grated Parmegianno regianno
- 1Handful of unsalted and blended Grissini, these are small breadsticks and I used them because I didnt have any cracker crumbs on hand (use unsalted crackers, like Jacobs crackers and blend it, it will be cheaper!) Just take a good hand full of the grissini/crackers and shove it in a blender and blend till smooth. It doesn't matter if you have small or big hands just a good handfull will do!
- 2 tspoons of smoked paprika powder, onion powder and garlic powder
- A pinch of salt and pepper
- 1tbsp brown sugar
- 1 bunch of flat leaf parsely
- 1tsp of corn starch/Maizena

Step 1: Mixing the minced meat with the ingredients while boiling the potatoes.
First peel the floury potatoes (floury potatoes to me make better mash, better than the waxy potatoes) and start boiling a large pot of water. If you're potatoes come in different sizes then cut them into equal sizes, this makes for equal cooking of the tats. Add them to the boiling water and leave for about 15 minutes.

While the tats are cooking, start mixing the ingredients for the meat. In a large bowl add the minced meat, paprika, onion and garlic powder, Grated Parmegianno regianno, blended grissini, salt and pepper. Use your hands and really get 'down and dirty' mixing all the ingredients until it is evenly distributed with the minced meat. If and only if the meat mixture is too dry and crumbly then add 1 whole egg to the mixture, because we need the mixture to still be slightly moist so that we can shape them into round golf balls.










MASH POTATOES:
use a fork to pierce the tats after 15 mins, if it easily slides into the tats with very little resistance then switch off the heat and drain the water. Use a masher to mash the tats and then add the cream while mashing until you get a smooth mash consistency

Step 2 Rolling!
Use your hands to roll them into golfballs












Step 3: Fry the little suckers on a medium heat, till a nice dark brown color is reached all over the meatballs. So that means you will need to turn them over a few times to get to get that brown color all over. Once that is done, remove from the pan and use the same pan for the next step which is making the sauce!












Step 4:Making the Velvety Brown Ale Sauce:
On small heat add the demi glace, 220ml of the brown ale and the brown sugar constantly mixing until the sugar granules are dissolved. The sugar It is really important that you taste it, you will want all the alcohol to have burnt off and you don't want the sauce to taste too bitter. The sugar is supposed to balance the sauce from the bitterness in the beer. If you think that it is still too bitter then add a pinch more sugar, mix and then taste again until you find the right balance of flavor. If you like more bitterness then add 1 tbsp of the beer at a time and taste, keep doing this until you have reached the flavor that you like.

Once you have got the right balance in flavor then mix the 1 tsp of corn starch with 1 tsp of water and mix until it becomes a white liquid. Add this to the sauce and mix thoroughly until you get a smooth velevety, slightly thick consistentcy like the picture below.

Finally, add some chopped parsely to the mixture, mix one more time and your sauce is done!











Step 5: Putting it all together on the plate
Come on! Tell me that that doesn't look good! The brown ale is supposed to give it a nice slighty bitter sweet flavor to the sauce and to me it just has this warm hearty taste when combined with the meatballs and mash. This is ultimate comfort food especially since it is snowing here in Holland! Enjoy folks!

Upcoming recipes

Hey guys!
thanks for following me...
I got some request for some new recipes and these are the following recipes that I will blog about:

1. Homemade meatballs with brown ale sauce
2. My teriyaki chicken recipe
3. Asian marinated prawns
4. Some Dutch recipes like olieballen and appeltaart (Dutch apple pie)

Ill let you all know when I update my blog!

Take care everyone!