Posted by King Cricket was one of my guests the first time I cooked and served this dish. Although he praised the dish, KC also described the glaze as “less of a glaze, more of a gelatinous gloop”.
Well I can assure you, King Cricket, my original attempt at Throdkin was gloopy, whereas the sumptuous, high viscosity sauce for the drunken prawns is glazy.
If you want an artificially shiny glaze, then add cornflour, like a cheap Chinese restaurant. But don’t listen to KC (or me) – try it yourselves.
Ingredients
- 8oz raw Nicaraguan jumbo prawns (other varieties of large prawn would do, but surely part of the purpose is to enable remorseless prattle at the cricket about your recent holiday in Nicaragua)
- One clove of garlic, crushed
- One large spring onion, finely chopped
- A little bit of fresh ginger, finely chopped
- A splodge of sesame oil
- A splash of good, honest, light soy sauce
- A dash of decent white wine (cheeky Riesling ideal, but not essential)
- A smidgeon of five spice (fresh ground if possible, otherwise any good brand of powder)
- A teaspoonful or two of the finest Manuka honey (ok, ok, in truth any honey will do)
- An ounce or two of sesame seeds
- Four large rolls or bagels, but ideally Paul Rhodes breakfast muffins
- A squeeze of fresh lime (optional)
Method
Heat the sesame oil, then add the garlic, spring onion and ginger. Once the oil is seasoned with those ingredients (don’t cook them), add the prawns and cook the prawns thoroughly.
Once the prawns are well on their way, add the five spice, soy sauce and white wine. Reduce.
Towards the end of cooking, glaze with the honey and toss in some sesame seeds for good measure.
Chill. (That’s an instruction to you, as you might be getting a bit stressy at this juncture. Don’t. It’s an easy dish; it pretty much cannot go awry. Anyway, if something has gone wrong, it’s too late now.)
Allow the dish to get cold. You can refrigerate it overnight and it should be good for a couple of days at least if you want to prepare it well in advance.
Makes reasonably generous portions for filling the four large rolls, bagels or muffins. Finish with a squeeze of fresh lime to balance the sweet with sour (optional – but that’s what I do).
Not convinced ‘cricket recipes’ will turn out to be a thing, but pretty much every match report we’ve ever received has devoted a great deal of attention to what was consumed, so maybe it will. Email us at king@kingcricket.co.uk if you’d like to contribute something. Maybe send a photo too. Everyone likes photos of food.
Is Ged Ladd any relation to Benjamin Ian William Ladd-Gibbon, currently playing for Loughborough MCCU against Leicestershire?
Young Mr BIW L-G took 3-47, which is pretty impressive, until you compare Basil Akram’s (‘Basil D’Oliveira meets Wasim Akram?) figures of 5-54 (and his current score, as I type, of 40*).
I must confess it is unlikely; noms de plume don’t tend to have relations.
Shame, because that is proper double-barrelled with three initials the lot.
Actually, word is just reaching me that there is some evidence that we might indeed be part of the Ladd-Gibbon family – click the link below to judge for yourselves:
http://ianlouisharris.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/Ged-Monkey-Face-3.jpg
I’d think I’d like like that hot straight out of the pan, Ged. Reisling? Reisling, gerwurztraminer and even liebramilch have had quite a comeback over recent years. Who would have thought that the vintner behind ze Blue Nun was a CIA agent?
Although the relevant 2013 King Cricket match report (below) doesn’t mention it, Charley The Gent was much taken with Wolf Platz Riesling at dinner on the night before the start of the Chester-Le-Street test:
https://www.kingcricket.co.uk/england-v-australia-fourth-test-match-report-from-chester-le-street/2013/11/19/
As that wine food matches brilliantly with Chinese style seafood (as does Gewurztraminer, you so rightly point out, Edwardian) and also with Charley’s other predilection, Alaskan smoked salmon, I have tended towards Riesling for Chas since.
I hope none of this is too much information for some people around here. That would be boorish of us poncy southern types and simply wouldn’t do.
I was at headingley some years ago visiting the “food court”. Alongside the hog roast and fish and chip vans was an outlet selling hot pork pies with mushy peas and mint sauce. I’d not tried this Yorkshire delicacy before but it was the best cricket meal I’d ever had. Locals swear by it apparently. I’ve not been to Nicaragua though.
Sounds great to me
For the completists amongst you, I have updated my Ogblog piece about the day the glazed drunken prawns were launched to include a link to this recipe.
http://ianlouisharris.com/2016/06/09/england-v-sri-lanka-3rd-test-day-one-lords-9-june-2016/
The Ogblog piece is primarily a series of links to King Cricket pieces. Loafer completists could while away several hours going round and round in circles reassuring themselves that they haven’t missed a single piece/link.
It beats working on a Friday, it really does.