Weekend Recipe: Tamarind Honey Prawns

Here, Sabrina shares the story behind her Tamarind Honey Prawns:

Iranians love all things sour: lemons, limes, pomegranate molasses, young plums and tamarind. I especially love tamarind because you can use it so well in savoury cooking and balance it with sweetness to create something really delicious. In this recipe, I simply mix tamarind paste with honey to make a marinade that has lots of flavour without much effort. These prawns are also great to skewer and are easy to cook on the barbecue.

Serves 4–6

800g raw tiger prawns (the biggest you can find), ideally peeled but with tails left on
vegetable oil, for frying
2 heaped teaspoons toasted sesame seeds
10g fresh coriander, leaves roughly chopped
3 spring onions, thinly sliced from root to tip

For the marinade
100g tamarind paste
75g clear honey
2 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
3–4 tablespoons chilli oil (or olive oil, if preferred)
sea salt flakes

To prepare the marinade, thoroughly blend the ingredients in a mixing bowl until the sugar dissolves. Add the prawns and work the marinade into them using your hands. Cover the bowl with clingfilm and allow to marinate at room temperature for 30 minutes.

Heat a large frying pan over a medium-high heat and drizzle in a little vegetable oil. Drain any excess marinade from the prawns, then fry them quickly on both sides until they are cooked through and slightly charred. Cooking times will vary depending on the size of the prawns – if using standard supermarket prawns, you won’t need to cook them for more than 1 minute or so each side. But if you are using larger, meatier prawns, you may need to reduce the heat slightly and allow them to cook for a little longer. The marinade is sticky and sweet, which means it will blacken in the pan slightly, so don’t panic if the prawns look charred – they will still taste delicious. Serve sprinkled with toasted sesame seeds, coriander and chopped spring onions.

Recipe taken from Sirocco by Sabrina Ghayour, available here