Colm O'Gorman: My spicy Thai king prawn salad is ready in twenty minutes

The weather looks like it will brighten up a bit by the weekend. No sign of a heatwave for us thank heavens, but a few dry and sunny days are forecast so I am planning to get outdoors and down the beach as much as possible. 

Dinners will need to be quick and easy to cook, but that does not mean they cannot also be delicious. 

A Thai-style salad is perfect for weekends like this; fresh, crisp vegetables and salad leaves, in a beautifully balanced salty, sweet, sour, and spicy dressing that only takes fifteen to twenty minutes to prepare. Heaven.

You can change the salad ingredients to use whatever is in your fridge or is easily available locally. 

In this recipe, I use little gem lettuce, cherry tomatoes, sugar snap peas, asparagus, and spring onion, but you can swap out some of those to suit yourself. 

Cucumber, carrots, bean sprouts, baby corn and shredded cabbage would be lovely too.

If you do not like prawns, you can replace those some shredded cooked chicken breast. 

A great way to use leftover chicken, and something delicious that you can throw together without much fuss at the end of a lazy summer day.

Thai salads are generally quite spicy. Most recipes use bird’s eye chillies, which are much hotter than regular chillies. 

If, like me, you like a good punch of chilli, use 2-3 birds' eye chillies instead of the regular red chillies in the ingredients list.

Try to get the best quality prawns you can and use jumbo king prawns instead of smaller frozen prawns. 

They will be plump and juicy and delicious. All the supermarkets stock them, frozen if not fresh. 

Do not use precooked prawns as they will be tough and rather tasteless in this dish.

If you do use frozen king prawns, make sure to fully defrost them before cooking. 

You can defrost frozen king prawns overnight in your fridge, or by placing them in a bowl of cold salted water for about thirty minutes. 

Once they are fully defrosted, rinse the prawns in a colander under a cold tap to wash off the salty brine, and drain well before cooking.

This salad would make a lovely light lunch or dinner, but if you want a more substantial meal, serve some stir-fried noodles on the side, or add some cooked glass noodles to the salad. 

We ate it with some lovely peanut noodles, and you can find that recipe on my Instagram page if you fancy giving it a go.

Spicy Thai King Prawn Salad

recipe by:Colm O'Gorman

This quick and easy recipe serves four people as a main, or six as a starter.

Servings

4

Preparation Time

 15 mins

Cooking Time

 5 mins

Total Time

 20 mins

Course

 Main

Ingredients

• For the dressing:

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 15g fresh ginger

• 1-2 red chillies

• 15g fresh coriander

• 6 large basil leaves

• 1 tbsp toasted sesame oil

• 2 tsp brown sugar or honey

• 30ml fish sauce

• 1 tsp soy sauce

• 1 tbsp smooth peanut butter

• Juice of 3 limes

• Zest of 1 lime

• For the Salad:

• 400g raw king prawns

• 100g asparagus spears

• 150g sugar snap peas

• 1 tbsp sesame oil

• 1-2 heads little gem lettuce

• 200g cherry tomatoes

• 1 red pepper

• 3 spring onions

• Handful fresh coriander

• Handful fresh mint

• To serve:

• Chopped roasted peanuts

• A few small sprigs of fresh mint

• Some finely sliced red chilli

Method

1. Peel and roughly chop the garlic and ginger for the salad dressing. Wash and roughly chop the chillies, retaining the seed and pith if you want some heat. Wash the herbs and put the garlic, ginger, coriander, basil, and chilli in a food processor along with a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil and blitz to a smooth paste.

2. Transfer the paste to a bowl and add the remaining ingredients for the dressing. Whisk until well combined. Taste the dressing and add more lime, sugar, or soy sauce to taste. Once it is to your liking, set it aside until you are ready to assemble the salad.

3. Rinse the salad vegetables and herbs under a cold tap. Slice the head of lettuce into 2cm wide strips. Roughly chop the coriander and slice the mint a little more finely. Cut the tomatoes into half or thirds depending upon their size. Cut the sugar snap peas into halves, and the asparagus into approximately 3cm lengths. Deseed and chop the red pepper into similar sized pieces.

4. Heat a wok or a large non-stick frying pan over a high heat. Add a tablespoon of sesame oil, the sugar snap peas, asparagus, and the king prawns. Stir fry for three to four minutes until the prawns are pink and cooked through. This salad should be served warm, so remove the wok from the heat and set aside to cool for about five minutes.

5. Time now to assemble the salad. Put the lettuce, tomatoes, red pepper, chopped herbs and the spring onions into a large bowl. Add the prawns and the stir-fried vegetables. Next, pour over the dressing and toss the salad thoroughly.

6. Finish with a sprinkle of chopped roasted peanuts, some small sprigs of fresh mint and some thinly sliced fresh red chilli. You can either serve the salad in individual portions or in a large serving bowl and just let everyone help themselves.