Sichuan Pepper Prawns

This takes very little time to make but tastes amazing with the right ingredients. Get the rice cooker on while you prep everything.

2 red chillies

1tsp Sichuan peppercorns

2tsp finely chopped ginger

4 cloves garlic

6 spring onions

6tbsp groundnut oil

500g very large raw prawns, shell on

Get the boy to de-seed and finely chop the chillies, and finely chop the garlic while you toast the Sichuan peppercorns in a hot dry frying pan for a minute or so. Tip into a mortar and bash with a pestle until ground up.

Trim the spring onions and slice fairly finely.

Now for the fun. Get a wok on the burner and get the oil very hot. Throw in the prawns and cook for just a minute or so. Fish them out and drain.

Get the chillies, garlic, ginger and spring onion into the wok now and cook for a couple of minutes. Keep it all moving around. Then add the prawns back in and cook for a final couple of minutes.

Serve on rice and eat immediately. There’s no polite way to eat the prawns as they will need peeling, so get stuck in with your fingers. Get an extra bowl for the shells. We have Chinese spoons for the rice but otherwise it’s finger licking time. Yours and his.