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Our Chinese New Year recipe continues with today’s special ingredient, prawn or shrimp.  I came upon this prawn recipe from a Chinese cookbook in the bookstore a couple weeks ago (forgot the name), I thought it is easy yet meaningful that best suits this  festive event. The name of the dish is called 如意蝦 , ru yi xia in Chinese, which literally means ones’ wish or  dream will be fulfilled, a symbol of good luck. You can name it Good Luck Prawn or Wine-Seasoned Prawn (or Shrimp) with pandan leaves.  I have substitute the recipe with 8 large tails of shrimps, that make up the lucky number 8 because it has the similar pronunciation for richness,   fa (發) in Chinese. I hope this dish will bring good luck and many wonders  to everyone.

This dish is really simple to be prepared, the main thing is to prepare the special wine with rice wine (上等白米酒) and rose wine (玫瑰露酒) or any wine preferred for taste and seasoning. These fresh shrimps are so good when they have adsorbed the aroma of the wine. Plus, they are wrapped in pandan (screwpine) leaves which give them an extra pandan fragrant.  When the shrimps are cooked, you can see the vibrant color of reddish orange of the shrimps with a touch of shiny gloss surface, wrapped up in green color pandan leaves. I absolutely love the presentation that would definitely make the dinner more interesting.

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One of the desserts I love is the Black Glutinous Rice Dessert or Pulut Hitam in Malay which means “black rice”.  This is a dessert that you can find it anywhere in Asia. In Malaysia, this dessert is prepared specially using the pandan leaves (screwpine leaves) that give you an aromatic smell, and also palm sugar that makes it an unique sweetness.  Essentially, the black rice is cooked until it becomes thick and creamy in consistency, somewhat similar to the texture of rice porridge.  That’s why the Chinese actually calls it black glutinous porridge (黑糯米粥). Besides, it is also topped with coconut cream which is a perfect combination to make it even delicious.

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