It’s funny how there are some dishes that you didn’t enjoy when you were a kid. But then you discover more flavour and appreciate it more as an adult. That dish would be this Medanese Style Prawns with Fermented Soybean. Also known as Udang Tauco Medan in Bahasa Indonesia.
I have posted 2 blog posts about Medanese style food. One was pork and another one was a crab. While I still remember my family’s recipe, I will post more of my family’s original recipe!
It’s a very simple dish with Medanese staple ingredients. We can get this easily in Jakarta and also in Melbourne. One of the key ingredients is fermented soybean. I would recommend using the brand Angsa; made in Indonesia for this dish. But if you can’t find it in an Asian grocery, you could substitute with Chinese brands instead. Just never use Korean fermented soybean because it has a different consistency.
In the photo above, I was using silken tofu instead of the original recipe of firm tofu. But prior to making this dish, I couldn’t find any firm tofu in my grocery store.
Firm tofu is highly recommended because it won’t fall apart after the deep-frying process and it will be easier to stir fry. On the other hand, silken tofu will break easily for the stir fry process.
When I asked my mum, why do we need to use firm tofu instead? She said because firm tofu will soak the flavour better!
Medanese Prawns with Fermented Soybean
Equipment
- Wok or Saucepan
Ingredients
- 500 grams Prawns cleaned and peeled
- 2 tbsp Fermented Soy Bean
- 1 box Firm Tofu diced (option – silken tofu)
- 15 pcs Curly Red Chili sliced diagonally
- 15 pcs Curly Green Chili sliced diagonally
- 1 pc Tomato chopped
- 5 pcs Garlic chopped
- 6 pcs Shallots
- 3 tbsp Cooking Oil vegetable
- 1 cup Frying oil for deep frying
- 2 tsp Sugar adjust to taste
- 1 tsp Black Bean Sweet Soy Sauce adjust for colour
- 200 ml Water
- 2 tsp Mushroom Stock
Instructions
- Deep fry the diced tofu until golden brown then set aside
- Prepare the wok, pour cooking oil, then stir fry garlic and shallots until fragrant
- Add both curly red chili and green chili, mix well
- Once everything is half cooked, add tomato, mix well
- Then add prawns and mushroom stock, stir well
- Add fermented soybean straightaway so the prawns will get soaked by the flavour
- Adjust with enough water, add sugar and sweet soy sauce to balance the saltiness from the fermented soybean
- Lastly, add firm tofu. Stir well and cooked for another 10 minutes to have more depth of flavour
My mum wasn’t happy when she found out I was using silken tofu. So, here are the latest photos of the remake using firm tofu! Never mess with your mum’s recipe! Sorry, mum!
Medanese Style Prawns with Fermented Soybean using Firm Tofu!
Fermented soybean is generally salty too. So, we have to balance the flavour by adding sugar accordingly and additional sweet soy sauce for the colour.
Don’t get scared with the amount of curly red and green chili that we used on this recipe. Those curly chilis are not spicy as bird’s eye chili. That’s it! A very simple dish with so many flavours!
