Get Your Grill On

Sitting as we do at the bottom of the world, Australia is in a unique position due to our close proximity to South East Asia and our Western outlook on life. It is strange to realize that we are not as close to our near Northern neighbours as we are to say England or the United States, who are thousands of miles away. Much of this can be attributed to the antagonism caused by a short sighted but long lived white Australia policy that was born from our gold rush era in the eighteen hundreds and lasted until 1973, that specifically promoted white European settlement at the expense of Asians.

Well, what’s that got to do with barbeque I hear you say? Quite a lot really, for the Asian way of wok cooking is really their version of barbeque. For a start, ever noticed the amount of heat required to cook properly in a wok? It’s like a small volcano and requires water cooling to prevent a complete meltdown. Then there is the concept of wok hei or breath of the wok. This is a mysterious flavour that permeates wok cooked food, as a result of the high heat being used. Not that you can easily obtain wok hei at home, because burners for home use simply don’t allow the necessary heat.

What we have at our disposal are barbeques and as all good barbequers know, food cooked on a barbeque has an unmistakable flavour, similar in spirit to wok hei, but much easier to get. What follows is a recipe for prawns with unmistakable Asian flavours. It can be cooked in a wok, but only do so if you can get reeeeealy high heat. Fortunately it is easy to do on a barbeque hot plate and is a great way to deal with the cheap farmed prawns that come peeled and cleaned; save your jumbo prawns for something else like oiling and seasoning, then cooking over very hot coals, completely un-peeled to protect the meat and also give the prawns a beautiful aroma of cooked shellfish. I swear if someone put that wonderful scent in a perfume bottle I’m buying some to dab on!

SPICY BARBECUE PRAWNS

• 1 kg shelled and deveined raw (green) prawn tails
• 4 spring (green) onions finely chopped
• 4 cloves garlic crushed
• 2.5 cm piece ginger grated
• 2-3 small hot chillies finely chopped
• Half bunch coriander (cilantro) washed and chopped
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 tablespoon soy sauce
• 100 mls olive oil
• Juice of 2 limes or 1 lemon
• Salt and pepper

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, cover and refrigerate for two hours, no longer or lime/ lemon juice will cook prawns. Heat barbecue plate until smoking hot, oil plate and tip entire contents of bowl onto the plate. Working quickly spread prawns apart and cook for two minutes. Turn prawns over and cook for another two minutes. Remove to a plate and garnish with fresh coriander leaves and quarters of lime or lemon.