CFT

My wife prefers the red/yellow/orange ones because they are sweeter than the green variety.

Well, the minced prawn/paste is pretty viscous in it's own right - it doesn't flow or flake or fall apart. Once cooked it kind of forms a homogenous whole. The only problem you might have is if the chunk of prawn filling detaches itself from the pepper, but even then it is not a real problem; just find and match the prawn chunk to the bit of pepper it fell off from.

Sorry, no pictures but I'd like to share a recipe for prawn stuffed peppers. I'll add pictures in the future. Ingredients: 3 large bell peppers (red, yellow & orange are best) Approx. 20 raw medium-large tiger prawns Cornflour Sauce: Oyster sauce 1 teaspoon red chillies (fresh or minced) Cornflour Mince the prawns until you get a paste. I just chop up with a cleaver and do the minimum. I've not played around with getting a very fine paste, and that kind of thing. I don't even pick it up and throw it back into the bowl to get it a bit more elasticity. I season the prawn with ground black pepper, but I guess it should be white pepper. As you can tell already I'm not a purist. I don't use salt because the sauce is salty anyway. Put this back in the fridge whilst you prepare the peppers. Quarter the peppers length-ways, removing the stalk and cap. Make your cuts to take advantage of the shape of the pepper - you want 4 "cups" so that stuffing is easier. I dust the inside of the pepper with cornflour to aid adhesion of the minced prawns. Since the pepper is wet from washing etc. the cornflour turns a bit "gluey". Retrieve the minced prawns from the fridge. Use a teaspoon to spoon the prawns into each pepper quarter. Depending on the size of the prawns sometimes you have to "steal" some prawn paste from other quarters to finish the last one. So defrost a few extra to make life easy. I then halve each quarter across the short-length so you end up with nice bite size pieces. I think it is also easier to cook since the natural curve of the pepper would otherwise stop the prawn mixture making contact with the wok surface. Now to cooking. Heat some oil up in a wok until surface starts shimmering. Put peppers in prawn side down. Lower the heat so that the prawns don't burn. When the prawns turn pink and start browning, turn them over so that the peppers get a touch of heat. Give it a minute or two. You might need to cook in 2 batches depending on the size of your wok. At this point add a teaspoon of minced red chillies (or more depending on taste). Dash in a good dollop of Oyster sauce. Stir around to give the peppers a good coating of Oyster sauce & chillie. Thicken with cornflour slurry. Plate up and enjoy. You can use White fish instead of prawn, something I will play with in the future. For the sauce you could add some garlic with the chillies, and probably some cooking wine. I've not experimented with my basic recipe. EDIT: Can a moderator correct my stupid spelling mistake in the title. EDIT2: Thank you.

Hi Carlovski,Another UK gulleteer here. Can you tell me which supermarkets you have been able to obtain sichuan peppercorns from? I think I have seen them once but can't remember where; I think it was also the Bart's Spices brand. I tried to make mapo tofu with a supermarket brand of sichuan sauce. It was OK, but not really good enough. Next time I will try from scratch.