Spicy Ricey Herby Prawny Thingy

When clearing out my freezer recently I came across a sorry looking plastic bag containing about 6 medium sized peeled raw prawns. They were hardly medium sized enough to constitute a single portion on their own so I decided to make them into a starter for two people.

A further root around in the fridge and storecupboard came up with a bunch of fresh herbs, a tomato, some basmati rice and some chilli infused olive oil (part of a hamper from Carluccios that I received as a Christmas present a few years back(!) as I recall).

I cooked the rice in my customary way (twice the volume of water to rice, a little salt, bring to the boil then reduce to the lowest heat for 15 minutes with the lid on). Whilst the rice was cooking I chopped each of the defrosted raw prawns into about 5 pieces then quickly stir fried them in a combination of the chilli oil and sunflower oil. To this I added a very generous amount of finely chopped mint and coriander and the cooked rice and continued to fry for a couple of minutes. Tasting it showed that the chilli oil had lost little, if any, of its kick and so I made a tomato and basil salad to sit it on. The cool tomatoes worked really well with the spicy rice and prawns.

I think I need to go searching in the furthest reaches of my freezer more often, although it does occur to me that this dish bears more than a passing resemblance to an inverted version of the post stomach bug cod loin dish in an earlier post. Note to self: cook some meat!