#ewew cooks Salted Egg Yolk Prawns

A dish we like to order when we dine out at Chinese restaurants that has the approval of every member of my family is a dish cooked with salted egg yolk.  It can be salted egg yolk prawns, squid or even chicken though the first two are more popular among diners (and my family is no exception).

So, when I was given some fairly large, wild caught, (frozen) sea prawns, I decided to attempt to cook Salted Egg Yolk Prawns even though I've never cooked it before.  I was confident enough to take it on after I googled for the recipe and also watched a few videos on how it was done...and realised it was pretty easy to execute.

Ingredients:

20 (fairly) large prawns, peeled & deveined, slit at the back

2 salted egg yolks

3 garlic cloves (or more), finely chopped

4 sprigs of curry leaves, remove leaves from the stem

4 green bird's eye chillies, sliced

1 fresh red chilli, sliced

1 egg, white & yolk separated

2 tbsp cornflour

A knob (about an inch) of butter

Oil (for deep or shallow frying of the prawns)

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp sugar

Preparation:

First thing is to prep the prawns (if you're using fresh sea prawns).  Mine came already deshelled and deveined (and that's how my family likes to eat them)...with no shells to contend with.  Some recipes will call for the prawns to be unpeeled while some would leave just the tails intact.  But all will probably agree to make a slit at the back of the prawn coz this will allow the prawn to absorb more salted egg flavour into its little crannies.

Coat the prawns in egg white (keep the yolk aside for later) and cornflour (most of the recipes/videos I saw did it this way).  Update (2 Oct 2021): When I cooked this again, I coated the prawns in egg white only and then dipped them in cornflour (shake off any excess) before frying them.  This resulted in a much crispier texture on the outside.  I also seasoned the prawns with a pinch of salt and a dash of white pepper.  Steam the salted egg yolks for about 5- 10 minutes and then mash them up with a fork (or chop them up finely).

Method:

Deep-fry the coated prawns in hot oil (or shallow fry them like I did) and take them out as soon as they turn colour.  It's ok if the prawns are not cooked all the way through at this point.

Add a combination of butter and oil (2 - 3 tbsp) to saute your aromatics of chopped garlic (the more, the better), curry leaves (3 sprigs), red chillies and green bird's eye chillies.  The butter is for the fragrance and the oil is so that the butter won't burn (you can stick to just oil if you don't like the smell/taste of butter).

Saute the aromatics until fragrant.  Some will say as long as the curry leaves were fried in oil, their flavour and aroma will be released while others (like the elders) will tell you to tear the curry leaves to release its fragrance.  Not sure which is correct (perhaps someone can enlighten me...though I have to admit I can really smell the fragrance when I tear the curry leaves), so I tore some and left some whole coz whole leaves obviously look a lot more presentable in a dish.  At this point, your pan will be smelling really good from all the fragrant aromatics.

You can now add in your mashed salted egg yolks.  As you stir-fry the salted egg yolks bits, try to press them down with your spatula to break them up into an even finer paste.  Season to taste (I added a further 1/2 tsp sugar + 1/4 tsp salt).

You will need to saute the salted egg yolks slowly (in medium-low heat) until you see bubbles forming (that's the consistency you're looking for and it'll probably take a good 5 minutes).  At this point, you can drizzle in the egg yolk if you don't want the balance yolk to go to waste (but I forgot...oops!).

Once the salted egg yolk sauce is bubbling, you can then add in your (almost) cooked prawns.  Toss the prawns around to ensure they're well coated in the sauce (any prawns that weren't cooked through in the earlier frying process will now be thoroughly cooked).

My dish of Salted Egg Yolk Prawns is done.  Sprinkle over the top (totally optional) some crispy curry leaves (from the one sprig that I deep-fried earlier on and kept as garnish). ^o^

I have to say the dish turned out pretty successful (seeing it was my first time) as it got the seal of approval from my husband.  Perhaps it could do with a bit more salted egg yolk (maybe an additional yolk) as some would prefer more salted egg yolk taste (I've seen it done with 4 yolks for the same amount of prawns!) but I need to consider the health aspect.

The lightly crunchy prawns (even though they were of the frozen kind had a fairly good prawn taste in them unlike some) in savoury salted egg yolk sauce was a delicious pairing with the curry leaves giving it that added fragrance.  The curry leaves came courtesy of a neighbour who grows them abundantly in her garden and hers are really fragrant.

For a higher heat level, you could use red bird's eye chillies which are known to be a lot more fiery but I was afraid it'd be too spicy for me, so I used the green ones.  The red cili api would also help make the dish more colourful (I had to throw in some fresh red chillies instead) as it'll be able to stand out vibrantly against the green curry leaves and orange-coloured egg yolks.

Next, I might even try to make it with chicken (boneless, of course)...or even pork (that'll be a first, don't think I've ever had salted egg yolk pork before)....but probably won't attempt it with squid as getting squid crispy (and not chewy) is not easy to do.

Sometimes, we think a restaurant-quality dish is difficult to replicate at home but, at times, it turns out easier than we expected (even if it's not better).  The prawns done by restaurants have a much crispier effect (coz they're deep-fried in a lot of oil while mine was only shallow fried) but it's a good enough home version for me.  I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was to make actually...so, there'll be more salted egg yolk sauce dishes in the foreseeable future for sure since my family is a fan of anything salted egg yolk.

Practice makes perfect...and perfect means tweaking, I always say....and this was the result of my Salted Egg Yolk Prawns 2.0 when I cooked it again.  This time I used fresh (and larger) white sea prawns from the wet market (RM20 for about 8, being expensive makes for controlled eating)...and dipped them in egg white and then cornflour (before frying).  As you can see, the cornflour hung onto the prawns better (as opposed to a wet batter) to yield a much crispier texture (and I did this without using the balance egg yolk in the sauce either).

I also switched to using red bird's eye chillies.  I cut them in half (lengthwise) and deseeded them...this way I can have the heat level I want (as well as the presentation) without the need to pick them out one by one (when they're chopped finely) if we don't want to eat them.  This recipe is a keeper.....and this is the tastier version  I would stick with (coz fresh is always better than frozen)! ^_~