Although my recipes in this blog are mostly vegetarian, I equally enjoy eating and cooking meat and seafood. Unfortunately my husband cannot eat most shellfish, which in fact is my favorite protein. So whenever I am not dining with him or he’s out of town I go hard on eating and cooking shellfish. Not that he banned me from eating them when he’s around, (he only pouts a little if I order them at restaurants sometimes) but sharing our food together is so important to us that I don’t want to cook or eat anything that he cannot enjoy. He was away for over 2 weeks recently, and I was able to come up with a couple of shellfish dishes that I really like during this time. This prawn soba is one of them, and it is simple, healthy, and delicious.
Fermented Korean soybean paste (doenjang) is our ultimate well-being food. I would even say that soybean paste stew (doenjang-jjigae) is Koreans’ soul food (If you want to know more about doenjang, click here). Probably the most well-known version of this stew is vegetarian, but we also love it with clams, mussels or prawns. I think meaty prawns hold the strong flavor of soybean paste really well. Like most of my Asian or Korean food I shared here, this dish definitely has a bold “in your face” kind of flavor. I hope you enjoy it, just don’t kiss anyone right after eating this ;-).
- Prep time: 10-20mins
- Cooking time: less than 15mins
- Serves: 1 hungry person
Ingredients
- 150g. tiger prawn meat, peeled & intestinal tracts removed
- 1 small head of garlic, yes, whole head
- 2 medium size red chilis
- 100g. dried soba
- 1 1/4 tbsp. fermented Korean soybean paste
- 1 tbsp. mirin
- 1 tsp. chili powder
- 1/2 tsp. ground pepper
- 1 tsp. freshly squeezed lemon juice
- 1/3 cup. water
- 1 1/2 tsp. grape seed oil
- handful of chopped spring onion & toasted sesame seeds to garnish
- 1 chunk of lemon slice to serve
1. Peel prawns and remove intestinal tracts, or ask your fishmonger to do it for you.
2. Peel and thinly slice garlic cloves. Click here to learn how to peel a whole head of garlic quickly. Chop red chilis into 1cm and set them all aside.
3. Cook dried soba in a boiling water for 5 minutes.
4. Meanwhile, mix soybean paste, mirin, chili powder, pepper, lemon juice and water. Make sure the soybean paste is all dissolved.
5. Chop spring onion and toast sesame seeds in a dry pan. Set them aside.
6. When the noodles are done, drain and briefly rinse them under running water.
7. In a non-stick pan, add the sauce mixture with oil over medium heat.
8. When it starts bubbling, add prawns, and chopped chilis.
9. After a minute add sliced garlics, and cook for another 3-4 minutes depending on the size of prawns.
10. Mix noodles into a pan, stir for 30 seconds before placing into a bowl.
11. Garnish with chopped spring onion and toasted sesame seeds.
12. Serve with a chunky slice of lemon. The final squeeze of lemon really brings out all the flavors.
Sounds Yumolicious! 🍃😋
Thank you 😉