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Tamarind Fried Prawn (Asam Prawn/Asam Heh) Recipe
Ingredients:
8 oz shell-on prawns
1 1/2 tablespoons tamarind pulp
4 tablespoons water
1 teaspoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
3 tablespoons cooking oil
Method:
- Mix the tamarind pulp with 4 tablespoons water. Extract the juice from the tamarind by pressing the pulp.
- Remove the heads of the prawn. Devein the prawn by slitting the back. Rinse prawn with water and pat dry with paper towers.
- Add the tamarind juice and pulp, salt, and sugar into the prawn and mix well with your hand. Marinate for 15 minutes. Remove the tamarind pulp before cooking.
- Heat up a wok and add cooking oil. As soon as it’s heated, drop the prawnsinto the wok and pan fry until cooked and slightly burnt. Dish out and serve immediately.
Cook’s Note:
Some recipes call for dark soy sauce but I always do without the dark soy sauce as it will make the prawns too dark in color, and hence less appealing in presentation. You can also leave the heads on, for photography purposes, I had them heads off. You can also pan-fried the prawns with the tamarind pulp if you wish.
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This is yummy with steamed rice, fresh sambal, and sliced cucumber. :-)
Yes, asam prawn is just great.
Ouuuu, this looks mighty tasty.
Cyn – I know, so colorful too.
This website is amaing.
Thanks so much!
This is one of my favourite dishes, my mother normally cooks with the prawns on whole I think part of the enjoyment is peeling the prawns by hand and dipping in the sauce, pretty rustic way to eat but the best way.
Hi Ling, yes, correct, the best part of assam prawn is the assam. ;)
Wow, the cooking way of this Tamarind Fried Prawn is great, I’ll try it later and I hope it tastes delicious. Just one suggestion: If you add some cooking pictures it will be easier to follow!
Cooking pictures are very tedious and hard to do, especially if you don’t have others to shoot for you. ;)
hi there,
First of all, great website !! Thank you.
I tried this dish yesterday…one of my twins’ favourite food when we were in Penang last two years. We had it at the restaurant, and the dish is black in colour.
Question is, why is my “asam her” orange/pinkish in colour? I even added dark soy sauce, but the colour never change.
Could it be because of the tamarind pulp I used? Down here in Singapore I don’t have much choice.
Any suggestion to make it black? My son wants it black. He keeps telling me 妈咪，我要那种黑黑的虾。。。不是这样的啦。。。
Hi Bee Sian, add more dark soy sauce and yes, the darker assam will them dark. You have to pan fry until they are burned too.
Do not use too much oil when you fry them. By the time they start turning black (getting burnt) after all the liquid and juices have dried up, add a tablespoon of oil and fry. This will make the prawn shells crispy and edible.
This method works especially well for the very small prawns (unpeeled with head and shells) and fried with asam. No need to peel. The shells are all crispy and is wonderful with nasi lemak, sambal + cucumber or hard boiled eggs (optional).
Hi there
I made the tamarind fried prawns two nights ago. So delicious!! I marinated them as per your recipe but left them for a few hours (marinated around lunch time and cooked for dinner around 8pm). Thank you.
Really yummy looking recipe, thanks for sharing. Looks so good I just had to tweet it :)