Topic: BIR Style King Prawns How to get them curly

[gazasaki]

Hi all curry lovers, I need some help.

I have been searching the web trying to find out how the best way to pre-cook king prawns and how ot get them to curl and twist up just like the local take aways near us.. All the king prawn dishes I have ever had from a BIR the prawns have lost the standard form and apear to be twisted and curled up within its self no longer its uncooked shape, I suspect it due to them being de-veined with a deep score and then deep fryed.
Anyone with any ideas?

[Peripatetic Phil]

I have been searching the web trying to find out how the best way to pre-cook king prawns and how ot get them to curl and twist up just like the local take aways near us.. All the king prawn dishes I have ever had from a BIR the prawns have lost the standard form and apear to be twisted and curled up within its self no longer its uncooked shape, I suspect it due to them being de-veined with a deep score and then deep fried.

I think your conjecture is spot-on.  I use prawns in Chinese cuisine rather than Indian, but what the prawn does when being cooked is likely to be very similar for both.  Basically, if you leave the prawn whole, "vein"-in (the "vein" is really the gut), the outside forms a fairly tough layer through which you have to bite, and the resulting texture is not really to my taste.  If, on the other hand, you remove the gut and then cut down into the flesh, the whole animals will more-or-less invert itself during frying, and the inside that is revealed in that process does /not/ form a tough layer, and the resulting texture is infinitely preferable.

My RMB 0,02.
** Phil.

[parabolic]

yes, the best way is I cut from the outside of the prawn and almost right through, say 3/4 through the body of the prawn then slice this slit down the length until half way to the tail,  leave the end tail/shell on aswell.

In some indian resturants I have seen them cut all the way through but only 1/4 way down the body,  it's funny like that and reminds me of scorpians!!!,,but tasty ones!!