Sumptuous, festive and generous. But simple and quick to make. It screams special because prawns are not everyday fare, and should impress your guests without breaking the bank. Buy a kilo of medium to large black tiger prawns. Trim their whiskers(?), leave the shells on, but cut into the shell where the digestive tract is and remove any poopy looking matter. Rinse prawns clean. Place in a non-reactive bowl (stainless or ceramic or glass) and cover with cool water and add 1 tablespoon of sea salt (not iodized) and mix a bit before placing this is the fridge for an hour or so. The brine will make your prawns more juicy. Take the prawns out of the fridge and drain and dry well with paper towels.

Place a wok or kawali over a strong burner and add 3-4 cups of vegetable oil. Turn the burner on high until the oil is very hot. In batches, so as not to crowd your fat and bring the temperature of the oil down too much, sprinkle prawns with some sifted cornstarch and deep fry for a minute or so until bright orange and the meat is just cooked but still juicy. Remove and drain on dry paper towels. Continue until all the prawns are fried. Then, add a new dry pan to the heat and wait for it to get hot. Add some good salt (I used kosher, you can also use sea salt, DO NOT use iodized salt) and freshly ground black pepper and all the fried prawns and toss just long enough for the salt and pepper to adhere to the prawns. Try adding a generous pinch of five-spice powder to the mix if you have it (a trick I learned from readers APM and Bettyq, I think) and serve immediately. If you are feeling lazy, you could just add the salt and pepper and cornstarch all at once, but there is something unique about the two pan approach – the prawns are crispy and chewy in the same bite, it’s hard to explain. But delicious and easy. This should serve 6 with other dishes at the dinner table. Enjoy! :)

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We had prepped too much brined and peeled shrimp for this pomelo and shrimp salad, so we put about 1.5 cups of shrimp into the fridge for lunch the next day. Into a bowl I added the shrimp, larger pieces cut into two, and added some grilled bell pepper strips. If you wanted to “bulk” this up, you could add some cubed cucumber or chopped celery, but I wanted to make this shrimp rich…

Next mix up a simple dressing of good mayonnaise, some extra virgin olive oil, lemon, mustard and chopped dill and/or other herbs and mix this with the prawns and peppers.

We had to make do with whatever bread we had in the house, so one of us had a whole wheat shrimp salad sandwich…

…and the other a mini-baguette with prawn salad. Took less than 10 minutes total to prepare this lunch. Perfect summer food. The only heat will come from your toaster. :)

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This is express comfort food. Easy, economical and relatively healthy. We cook some version of this soup in our household at least twice a year. A more detailed recipe was posted a couple of years ago, here, but even this version is slightly different. From the freezer into the soup pot went PHP60-70 worth of ham bones. Cover with water, add a chopped onion and some peppercorns and boil for some 30-40 minutes. You can go back to your computer and write a quick post for your food blog while this is gurgling away. Then strain the soup to remove bones and solids and put it back in the soup pot and place it over high heat…

Add some peeled and cubed kundol or winter melon and let that boil for a few minutes, throw in some baby shrimp, peeled or unpeeled, whatever you have handy. Add some sliced strips of ham, in this case the cheaper “ham bits” from oursuki Majestic ham vendor, and let this boil another few minutes. Season with salt and pepper to taste. In this version, I added some chopped greens or bok choy and it was ready to serve. A bowl of this soup chockfull of “laman” or “stuff” and some steamed rice, and it’s simple lunchtime bliss. The flavorful ham broth is an excellent base, and it tastes like you worked on it for hours. The shrimp adds sweetness and softness to the bite. The ham provides the salty sweet hit of flavor, and the winter melon, a mushy flavorless sponge that sucks up the broth. The greens add color and nutrition, not to mention roughage to help push this through your plumbing. :)

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