Thrilling Thai prawns with coconut and peanut butter

Give me prawns and I will jump for joy. Plain, spiced or in a sauce, it doesn't matter. I love, love, love them. This time I made them the Thai way. The original dish featured big prawns, the jumbo sized variety with shell and tail on. To keep the price down, I used frozen smaller ones, already peeled and cooked. That worked fine. If I had used the bigger ones, the dish may have been even better, but trust me, it was still beautiful.

My amendments to the recipe didn't stop there. There was a call for coconut milk. It didn't say what kind, but in my experience they always mean the thick tinned milk. There are several reasons why I don't use that. The full fat tinned coconut milk is very full on, both in regards to flavour and fat contents. I used to use the light version, which was more suitable for me, but I have moved on from that as well. Nowadays I use the drinking variety with barely any fat and slightly less flavour, but still enough for my liking. It is however very liquidy and not ideal if you want a thick and creamy sauce, unless you mix it with Greek yogurt. I have found that Greek yogurt works better than natural yogurt in warm sauces and I normally have some at home, just in case I need it. This time I used half the amount of coconut milk and half full fat Greek yogurt.

In regards to seasoning, I used what I had at home, items that were as close as I could get them to the original recipe. The meal I made was enough for two people, one decent portion each.

300 g prawns

olive oil

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

salt

chilli flakes to taste

2 different coloured peppers, finely sliced

1 small onion, chopped

1/2 cup coconut milk

1/2 Greek yogurt

2 tbsp fish sauce

2 tbsp peanut butter

2 tbsp lemon or lime juice

1 tbsp brown sugar

2 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp dried basil

1 tbsp leaf coriander

a chunk of leek, finely sliced

1. Leave the prawns to marinate with olive oil, chilli, salt and garlic for 10 minutes.

2. Prepare the vegetables.

I decided to serve with boiled broccoli florets instead of rice and noodles.

3. In a bowl, mix coconut milk, yogurt, citrus juice, ginger, fish sauce, sugar and peanut butter.

4. Stir until the peanut butter has mixed into the sauce and there are no lumps.

5. Put your rice, noodles or broccoli to boil.

6. Fry the prawns for a few minutes and put aside.

7. In a little oil, soften the onion and peppers.

8. Add the leek and pour in the sauce.

9. Mix well and leave to simmer until the sauce has thickened and reduced by half. It won't take too long, perhaps 10 minutes.

10. Use the 'brief island' test to check it the sauce is thick enough. Drag the spoon across the surface of the pan and if a blank spot is left unflooded for a brief moment, the sauce is ready.

11. Add the prawns to the sauce.

12. Stir and let the prawns warm up for a couple of minutes.

13. Serve and enjoy.

I looked at this as a plate of very large grained broccoli rice with Thai prawns. It was an awesome dinner and due to using low fat coconut milk, it was practically a diet meal. No, I don't do the high fat, low carb kind of eating. High fat food makes me feel unwell. I much prefer low fat and more vegetables. I could have had rice with this, but I know that I would have eaten too much. The broccoli worked perfectly and it was super tasty.