This is salted egg yolk prawns, a Malaysian dish. You steam salted duck egg yolks, mash them and then fry them in butter with chillis, garlic, ginger, curry leaves and shallots until the yolks are foamy, and then coat crispy deep fried prawns in this sauce. Eaten with steamed Chinese broccoli and white rice.
If you don't immediately recognise the end product as prawns, it's because of my Staunch Prawn Preparation Opinions, which are as follows:
1. Always remove tail. Tail-on prawns just annoy me. Presentation is nicer, yes, but this is dinner and I ain't playing.
2. Except in very rare cases, I prefer shell off. I do like when prawn shells go crispy, but with a soft, wet sauce, it's hard to keep them crispy enough, so shell off is better.
3. I prefer head on. (Australian prawns are always sold head on).
4. I would rather de-face the prawn, ie. cut off the sharp prongs, whiskers, eyes, and front legs with scissors. Less stabby and fewer eye-balls.
5. Always devein and butterfly.
So in sum, my preference is face off, head on, shell off, butterflied, tail off. Phew! See? Staunch.
