Sweet and sour prawns

 We bought some lovely raw king prawns from the fishmonger so I thought I'd make some sweet and sour prawns.  I used the Andrew Wong recipe for the sauce at Sweet and Sour Prawns Recipe - Great British Chefs but shelled the prawns, used tinned pineapple and made a reduced broth to add to the sauce.  It turned out really well so here's the recipe.

Ingredients

12 Raw king prawns, shells on
1 teaspoon corn flour
1 tablespoon light soy sauce
1 tablespoon dark soy sauce
2 tablespoons tomato ketchup
1 tablespoon jaggery
4 tablespoons rice vinegar
2 banana shallots, peeled and chopped finely
4 rings tinned pineapple cut into 8 pieces per ring
a small bunch coriander roughly chopped

Method

First, preheat the oven to it's hottest setting, then peel the prawns and de-vein them keeping the heads and shells.  Rinse everything thoroughly, then put the shells and heads in a medium pan, crush them down as much as possible, just cover with water and boil rapidly, lid on, for 10-15 minutes.  

Prepare the prawns by seasoning, then sprinkle over the cornflour and mix well to coat the prawns.  At this stage the cornflour will become like a thin paste, that's fine.  Line a baking sheet with foil and spray with sunflower fry light, then place the prawns on this making sure they are well separated.

Next, take the shells off the heat and strain them, add the broth back to the pan and reduce over a high heat to about 20ml, then set aside to cool.

Make the sauce mix by mixing the soy sauces, ketchup, jaggery and rice vinegar and taste to get the right level of salt, sweet and sour.  Add the cooled shell broth to this.

Put the prawns in the oven towards the top and cook for 10 minutes, turning them over half way through.

To make the sauce, spay some fry light in a wok and over the shallot, heat the wok over a high heat and add the shallot, stir fry for about a minute, then add the sauce mixture from above and stir.  Now add the prawns, pineapple pieces and chopped coriander.  Serve with vegetable fried rice.