Prawns in the pink

These juicy crustaceans are always popular, and they are quick to cook, and easy to eat. Pauline D Loh offers you a buffet of prawn recipes

At any international buffet, the line at the seafood table is always the longest, and more often than not, you see plates piled high with pink prawns as they leave the line. And more often than not, too, these are nothing but boiled prawns in their shells. That's the beauty of these delicious crustaceans.

They need very little cooking to make them palatable and their natural almost sugar-like sweetness makes them an easy ingredient to pair with a host of seasoning.

Prawns are equally at home at both banquet or buffet and that is why they are so popular at parties.

Their mythical aphrodisiac properties also make them the ultimate seduction food, right up there with oysters and caviar, especially since they are a lot more affordable.

Many classic dishes - both Chinese and western - use the prawn as the main ingredient and we will look at some culinary classics today.

Starting down south, the quick prawn stir-fry with ginger and scallions is a Cantonese standard offered on any festive dining table. High heat and the right aromatics combine in a deceptively simple recipe. The prawns are seared to caramelize the shells, which are kept intact to ensure that the juicy flesh retains all its succulence.

Spring onions, huge handfuls of them, are tossed into the hot wok together with thinly sliced ginger. The pungency of the searing herbs signal for the addition of the prawns. A few more tosses and it's ready.

Further north, on the shores of the West Lake another classic prawn dish takes advantage of Hangzhou's most famous tea, the longjing or Dragon Well. Here, subtlety is the key, and the main selling point is the texture of the prawn.

Repeated rinsing on ice cold water tightens the texture to a teeth-bouncing crunch. The prawns are then stir-fried with fresh tea leaves for a dish that is faintly flavored with the fragrance of tea. It is an elegant dish befitting the famous courtesans of Hangzhou past. The Qing emperor Qian Long, who used to play truant from court and escaped to Hangzhou often, reportedly loved this dish.

Fast forward to more modern times and the next recipe I offer is a toaster oven-friendly creation I invented for our office pantry. In the days when we were launching our paper, many of us stayed late well into the night.

Our office was far away from the fast food outlets and these were the days before phone-in orders and biker deliveries. We had to cook our own or stay hungry and make use of any available resources.

Well, there was a packet of frozen prawns, a tub of half-used mayonnaise, a few rather dried up garlic cloves and a toaster oven. But the result was so good it became the most requested supper of my hard-working sub-editors.

Finally, there is the classic prawn salad that can go pretty upmarket if you so wish. Otherwise, it can also stay plebeian and still be delicious.

These delicious pink prawns are a pantry staple, and hopefully, our lot of recipes today will convert you to permanent loyalty if you are not already a fan.