Browned butter and sweet soy sauce. It is a combination made in heaven, one that you may not have thought of but I hope you try it at least once because it is magical! Sweet soy sauce – otherwise known as Kecap Manis – is an Indonesian sweet soy sauce which is available at major supermarkets (Woolworths and Coles in Australia) OR you can easily make with just soy sauce and sugar. It has a thick syrup type consistency and I think of it as the Asian equivalent of caramelised balsamic vinegar. You know how you drizzle just a touch of balsamic vinegar syrup on caprese (tomato, buffalo mozzarella and basil) and it miraculously takes it from blah to out-of-this-world-phenomenal? That’s what kecap manis does in this. 🙂 THIS being prawns / shrimp with browned butter and drizzled with kecap manis. 😉
I was flopping back and forth indecisively about what to call this. Because it doesn’t specifically taste Asian per se. It would be right at home on the menu of fancy Western restaurants as it would be at modern Asian restaurants. Also, I personally cannot think of any well known Asian dishes made with browned butter! Then I thought, stuff it. I can call this what I want! This is my invention, so I get naming rights. Asian it is!! 🙂 So….how to describe how this tastes? Here goes my attempt. The browned butter gives this a nutty luxurious flavour, then the kecap manis adds the sweet but with a depth of flavour that can’t be compared to just a sprinkle of sugar. The combination is SO GOOD you will want to have some bread on hand to mop up the leftover sauce on the plate that’s mingled with the juices from the prawns…(Baby Hands Alert!!)
And….exciting news! Woolworths, a fresh food supermarket very well known to Australians, has asked me to share a special Christmas recipe!! Specifically, they didn’t want the usual roast, they wanted something that was reminiscent of my childhood Christmases. Of course, I jumped at that!!! Migrating to Australia in the early 1980’s meant the food of my youth was somewhat different to that of my friends. And my family Christmas feasts were a far cry from the traditional menus that many are familiar with. Special meals for our family were Japanese / Asian seafood barbecue feasts. And this Friday, I’m going to be sharing my mother’s signature Miso Marinated Barbecued Side of Salmon which is a sensational EASY centrepiece for an Australian summer Christmas. A million times easier than roast turkey! The crazy thing? The traditional Japanese marinade for this is just FOUR ingredients. Seriously. Sitting around a Christmas feast like this would make anyone smile, don’t you think? 🙂
These Asian Barbecue Prawns are part of this feast I’m sharing. Be patient, the recipe for the rest of the scrumptious feast you see above is coming on Friday! For now, be content with these incredible prawns. So easy. SO crazy good. – Nagi xx
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