Gastronomic tours with Swiss Cheese

Made this yesterday, and I do have pictures, but currently no way to get them off my camera, so that will have to wait for later.

Ingredients:

• 250gm (8oz) shrimp. shelled, deveined and cooked (steam or boil it)
• 1/4 cup coriander/cilantro leaves chopped up (note the difference)
• 1/2 cup chopped romaine lettuce leaves (use the hearts for a different variation)
• Juice of 1/2 lime
• 3 Tbsp Maggi hot and sweet tomato chilli sauce (or equivalent - you need something sweet and spicy, so try mixing tabasco + tomato, or use thai sweet chilli sauce)
• 2-3 tsp honey (this is only if your sauce is too spicy for your liking)
• One navel orange (we use this for garnish and for its juice)
• A few mint leaves for garnish (optional)

Method:

1. Combine sauce, honey, shrimp, lime juice and coriander in a bowl and mix until shrimp and coriander are well coated. You should be able to smell the lime.
2. Add chopped lettuce on a large plate.
3. Add shrimp mix over lettuce.
4. Sprinkle a few drops of orange juice over the salad.
5. Garnish with orange rings and mint leaves.
6. Serve chilled.

It came out really well.

Had prawns. Had idea what. Had no idea how.

Decided that I wanted to make either sweet and sour prawns or garlic prawns, but didn't know how to make either. Called up dad. He gave me a rough recipe over the phone. All quantities were "to taste", so I decided to give it a try.

Ingredients:

• Prawns (200gms)
• Tomato Ketchup (to taste)
• Pineapple Juice (to taste)
• Salt, Sugar, Chilli Powder, Ginger Garlic paste
• Vinegar (optional, again, to taste)
• Soya Sauce (1 tsp)
• Corn flour/Maida (refined wheat flour)
• Carrots, cauliflower, spring onions (quantity as you see fit)

Method:

1. Chop up carrots into longish slices (diagonally is nice). Break onions into petals.
2. Keep prawns ready (not frozen or cold, should be at room temperature)
3. Mix tomato ketchup and Pineapple juice, adding to taste in a saucepan
4. Heat on low flame
5. Add salt, sugar, chilli powder and ginger-garlic paste
6. Mix in some corn flour or maida to increase thickness. Stir continuously to avoid forming lumps. Keep stirring until it turns translucent.
7. Add in vinegar if necessary for taste and soya sauce.
8. Add in prawns
9. Add in carrots
10. Bring to a boil while stirring continuously. Boil for about 5-10 minutes depending on freshness of prawns.
11. Simmer to get rid of excess liquid if necessary.

I made a few mistakes though. I used frozen prawns and they weren't completely defrosted when I put them in, so they didn't cook completely. The sauce however turned out well.

Other options:

Pre-boil the prawns, or deep fry them in a batter made out of maida/corn flour and bound with egg (you can use just the egg white if you don't want the yolk).

Today's lunch was at a Thai restaurant in the POSCO building. POSCO is to Asia what TISCO is to India (irrelevant fact). Anyway, if you're Managalorean (and Rohan D'Sa and I have been exchanging several of these Mangi related posts), then you'll be able to identify with thai food. The currys are very similar, and yes, there is meat in them.

As usual, rice was served in a separate bowl to each person. Everything else was placed in the centre of the table. Yellow prawn gravy - and the prawns are quite large (no, not jumbo tiger prawns) - made with a generous dash of coconut milk I'm sure, was placed at the centre, along with some kind of chilly beef (with seriously huge red and green chillys cut into thin slices). There was also prawn fried rice, and some kind of meat fried in batter - I did not ask what it was.

The food was tasty. I managed to eat it all with my chopsticks. The most interesting thing was that even the Thai restaurants in Korea serve Kimchi.

As is true with most restaurants here (and in the US too), coke, fanta, etc., come with unlimited refills.

The restaurant was quite a walk away, and we sort of digested the food on the way back. I practiced reading the names of all the restaurants on the way.

The Korean word for rice is Pap. The Thai word for the same is Pad. Quite different from Chawal, and cooked slightly differently too.