Cereal Prawns (Cheater’s Method) 麦片虾

Cheap, fast and tasty cereal prawns

I used a packet of instant cereal prawn mix to make this famous Singapore dish, hence I call it the cheater’s method. This goes into my research on how to make this dish. One day, when I succeed in creating the dish from scratch, I’ll post the recipe here hehe (I’m now on my third version of tweaking the recipe). I suddenly thought of making cereal prawns because I still have a whole bag of leftover curry leaves after cooking vegetable curry. I think curry leaves are something that you cannot leave out when making this dish because the aroma of the curry leaves is so signature of this dish. The combination of prawns, oats, chilli and curry leaves, fried to crispy perfection, is really blissful to me. And it’s pretty effortless and very cheap to cook this at home, especially with the cheater’s way. To me, the prawns (including the shells) and curry leaves must be crispy – important criteria of a yummy cereal prawn dish, hence I deep fry them beforehand.

Ingredients
Serves 2
- 40g of store-bought cereal prawn mix (I use half a packet)
- 2 sprigs curry leaves
- 8 large prawns (about 250g)
- yolks of 2 raw salted eggs, chopped roughly (see ingredient substitution note below)
- 2 to 3 chilli padi (bird’s eye chilli), sliced thinly
- 30g butter
- vegetable oil for deep frying

Directions
1. Using a pair of kitchen scissors or small knife, make a slit across the top of the prawn and pull out the veins, leaving the entire shell for the prawn still intact (see photo below).
2. In a wok, add enough oil to cover the prawns. When the oil is hot enough (starting to bubble gently at the sides), add in the prawns and curry leaves. Cover and deep fry till the prawns are just cooked. Drain most of the oil leaving just a bit left in the wok and also set aside the prawns and curry leaves. Discard the curry leaves stalks.
3. Melt butter in the wok, then add chopped salted egg yolks, cereal prawn mix, sliced chilli padi and previously deep fried curry leaves. Stir fry till fragrant.
4. Add the prawns and stir till they are evenly coated in the cereal paste.

Ingredient Substitution
1. You can substitute salted egg yolks with egg york of one normal egg. In step 3, after melting the butter in the wok, break the yolk quickly with your spatula and mix it in well with the butter. When the egg yolk starts to solidify, add the cereal prawn mix, sliced chilli padi and previously deep fried curry leaves. Stir fry till fragrant.

Making of photos

Preparing the prawns (step 1)

Deep frying the prawns and curry leaves

Curry leaves and prawns after deep frying

Frying the egg yolk, cereal, chilli and butter in the wok

My pack of instant cereal prawn mix

Ingredients Used butter • curry leaf • egg • oat • prawn