Blanched prawns

Ingredientsserves 4

Method

1. Rinse the prawns, snip off the whiskers and rostrum if you like, and leave the shells on; the shell is what keeps them sweet.
2. Bring one and a half litres of water to a rolling boil with the ginger, spring onion, wine and salt.
3. Slide the prawns in, stir once, and cook uncovered until they curl, turn red and the water comes back to the boil: about two minutes for a 30 g prawn, three for a large one. They are cooked when the flesh is opaque all the way through.
4. Drain at once. Some cooks give them thirty seconds in iced water so they stay snappy; most simply plate them.
5. For the dip, put the soy in a small dish with the chilli and spring onion shreds and pour a teaspoon of hot oil over.
6. Serve, and peel at the table with the soy to dip.

Take care

• Contains crustacean, a mandatory-declaration allergen in Australia. Cook the prawns until opaque all through. Thawed prawns must not be refrozen. The soy contains soy and wheat.

The story

Blanched prawns are the Cantonese seafood dish, and the English Wikipedia entry on them exists because they are the dish outsiders meet first: Cantonese cooking values the natural flavour of an ingredient over sauce, and live prawns boiled in seasoned water are the purest expression of that. In Hong Kong it is the dish ordered at the seafood restaurant to judge the tank, and at home it is what happens when someone comes back from the market with good prawns.

Same technique

Blanched choy sumLettuce in oyster sauceAmaranth in stock with century and salted egg

Lo Fo Tong is cultural food-heritage reference, not medical advice. If you are pregnant, unwell or on medication, talk to your doctor or registered practitioner before changing what is in the pot.