Szechuan Black Pepper Prawns

Description:
Hahaa! I managed to start a recipe tab. I didn't realise it's so simple!

Now, it may seem inconceivable that I, the soooo-not-a-cook-SAHM, am starting a recipe section. But, well, SAHMs, even temporary ones, must justify their staying at home with occasional visits to the kitchen. And while I am nowhere near moderately-good, I can (with the help of good cookbooks and my mother and the grace of God) come up with something edible for the family. When I'm successful in the kitchen, I'd like to share the recipes with whoever who's interested. Beginning cooks might find this useful because I only share recipes that work here.

If you are a beginner, you might want to take note that in cookbook (and in here), when they say 1 tablespoon, they mean 15ml. Definitely not the spoon you use to eat your rice. And a cup is 250ml. So, if I say a cup of oil is needed to prepare that sambal tumis, I'm not kidding. You need an outrageous amount of oil to make your sambal tumis palatable.

This is one heck of a simple recipe. The most difficult part of this recipe is preparing the prawns. Sheng Siong is now my favourite place to get prawns. They have prawns which are very much alive moving merrily in tanks. And when I bring them home, they are still wriggling in the plastic bag. :p

(If you have little kids at home who don't eat spicy food, you might want to marinate a few of the prawns with salt and black pepper, poke a satay stick through each prawn so that it remains straight, then pop them in the toaster oven for a couple of minutes til they are cooked.)

Ingredients:
500g prawns

1 tbsp olive oil
1/2 tbsp butter

A:
1 large onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, sliced finely
10g dried chillies, soaked in warm water until they are ready to be used

B:
1 red capsicum, cubed
1 green capsicum, cubed

C:
1 tbsp black pepper sauce
1 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tsp dark soya sauce
1 tbsp marmalade jam*

(I don't have marmalade jam and I don't fancy buying a bottle of it just for this purpose. So I use the only jam I have - strawberry jam. It still works. But if I had wanted the tanginess of the marmalade jam, I suppose I could have squeezed some lime juice into the sauce.)

Directions:
1. Prepare prawns by removing the shells and deveining them but leave the heads and tails intact.
2. Heat olive oil. Add butter.
3. Add Group A for 2 minutes.
4. Add Group B for 3 minutes on high heat.
5. Add C and prawns for about 10 minutes or until prawns are cooked, taking care not to overcook the prawns because overcooked prawns are sooooo not nice.

Ta-dah! Ready to eat!