King prawn and cucumber salad recipe

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This light salad captures the essence of Thai food with a balance of flavours. You can prepare the dressing and garnish up to six hours ahead. The cucumber can be prepared up to three hours ahead. Have all the components prepared in the fridge, then mix before serving.

Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 10 minutes
Serves 8

100ml (4fl oz) vegetable oil
4 shallots, thinly sliced
32 large raw shelled king prawns
3 cucumbers, peeled
1 bunch coriander, roughly chopped
1 bunch mint, leaves roughly chopped
100g (4oz) shelled peanuts, toasted and roughly chopped

For the dressing
4tbsp Thai fish sauce
4tbsp fresh lime juice
2tsp caster sugar
2 small chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
½tsp shrimp paste

1 To make the dressing, simply mix all the ingredients together.
2 Heat the oil in a large frying pan and, when hot, add the shallots and cook until crispy, then drain on kitchen paper. Reheat the oil, then fry the prawns for a couple of minutes on each side until cooked. Put the prawns in a bowl and spoon over 1tbsp of the dressing. Using a potato peeler, peel long ribbons from the cucumber until you reach the seeds.
3 To assemble, place a handful of cucumber ribbons on each plate and place the prawns on top. Sprinkle over the fried shallots, herbs and peanuts and spoon over the dressing.

Per serving: 231cals, 16g fat, 3g saturated fat, 7g carbohydrate

This recipe appeared in Woman & Home in May 2005