Easy Dragon Prawns – Indo Chinese

These easy sweet and spicy dragon prawns are so delicious and packed with both Indian and Chinese flavours. It is a classic Indo-Chinese recipe and another one to book mark. 

Why this recipe is so great!

These indo-chinese style dragon prawns have an incredible flavour profile and are seriously addictive. In this recipe, I take inspiration from both Indian and Chinese recipes.

Instead of deep frying or even shallow frying the prawns, we create a cornstarch batter using cornstarch (obviously!), chilli powder, salt and some water.

If you want to follow a deep fried recipe though, be sure to check out my indo-chinese chilli paneer recipe. My indo-chinese inspired chilli tofu is also a great recipe, if you are looking for air fryer methods.

The batter coats the prawns nicely and we pan fry, which still creates a super crispy outer layer.

What type of prawns to use in this recipe?

I would recommend buying fresh king prawns from the fish monger, because these will be much more meaty in nature and add a lot of density to your dish.

You can use the supermarket bought prawns for this recipe, and it will be delicious, but fresh prawns are always better in my opinion (and also better value for money!).

I bought around 20 or so fresh king prawns for £5. For the rest that I didn’t use, I just washed it, placed it in a food bag and stored it in the freezer. Fresh prawns will last up to 6 – 8 months when stored in the freezer.

What makes this an Indo-Chinese recipe? 

For a full breakdown of the background of indo-chinese food, please head over to my chilli paneer recipe. You can also find the rest of my indo-chinese recipes in my recipes section on my site.

In short, Indo-chinese food originates from Kolkata and was cultivated by the Hakka Chinese population who immigrated over. Indo-Chinese dishes are now ingrained in Indian food culture and is now actually widely appreciated abroad (including in London).

Cities like London and New York have a healthy Indo-Chinese food scene, whether it be dedicated restaurants to the sub-cuisine or menus that heavily feature Indo-Chinese items. If you’re looking for other articles where I explore interesting history behind dishes, head over to my eggs kejriwal recipe!

Its interesting as although this dish is from Kolkata, we don’t call it Bengali food, although technically, it is! If you want to take a look at some more ‘classical’ bengali dishes, head over to my chicken curry, lamb chops curry, aubergine fry or egg kati roll recipes!

So, in terms of what components classify this dish as an indo-chinese one, we need to look at its sauce. We use traditional sauces like soy sauce but the cornstarch batter is infused with Indian red chilli powder.

One non-chinese and non-indian ingredient I used was gochujang (which is Korean). This is entirely optional though but it was definitely a nice addition. Instead of using classic sweeteners as well, I used honey, as this is a great healthy alternative.

So if you’re looking for an Indian and Chinese style recipe for prawns that can serve as a starter or even a main, you’re in the right place.

Ingredients for dragon prawns?

• One full tbsp cornflour – you want to ensure that the cornflour spoon is filled to the top! In this recipe, we are kind of depending on the cornflour to give us the crisp to the prawns as we are not deep frying. If we were deep frying the batter ingredients would look a tinsy bit different!
• One tsp salt – i use grinded rock salt, but regular salt is fine also. If you are using sea salt, be careful and maybe use half of a tsp instead.
• One tsp chilli powder – i am using indian chilli powder, but do use whatever you have to hand.
• Half cup of water (to create batter for prawns) – this may need to be adjusted based on how many prawns you’re using. You want to add enough such that the batter sticks to the prawn, but not too little that the batter is too thick!
• One of green, yellow or red pepper (I used just red) – in my opinion red peppers probably go the best with these!
• One spring onion – only the green half. you can toss the white half in, with the garlic.
• Three cloves of garlic
• Around 10 – 12 king prawns (or more, if you would prefer) – for preparation I washed and de-veined the night before. This will save you tons of time if you’re making it for a quick lunch, dinner or a dinner party. I also leave the ends on of the prawn shell, but this is just a personal preference!

Ingredients for dragon prawns sauce?

• One tbsp soy sauce – normal soy sauce is fine here. You can also use light soy sauce, but just increase the quantity that you use.
• One tsp gochujang paste – this is optional, but highly recommended!
• One tbsp ketchup.
• One tbsp Sweet chilli sauce – any brand will do!
• One tbsp honey.
• Cornflour slurry (tsp of cornflour and a splash of water) – this will thicken the sauce for us.

Step-by-step guide

Variations

• Gravy style chilli prawns: You can totally amend this recipe and make this a gravy style chilli prawns instead. For that, head over to my chilli paneer recipe.