African Volcano Tiger Prawns

By Sarah Alexandra George Saturday, August 17, 2013 0 Food focaccia, malby market, prawns, recipe, trout Permalink 0

August 2013

First time at the climbing wall together followed by a trip to Maltby street market.

It’s a tiny market near Bermondsey station under the railway arches. There are only a few stalls, most fresh vegetables, cakes or burgers. One of the stalls, African Volcano uses it’s own Mozambiquean style peri peri sauce to marinade burgers, steaks, pulled pork and… tiger prawns!

We waited far too long for the prawns, spent about an hour in the queue. We were so hungry too – so kept defecting to other stalls for snacks. I bought a jar of very tasty black kalamata olives and we both got tempted by the falafel. You got 4 pieces for £1.50 with some tahini and spicy sauce, the falafels were really tasty, golden brown and very crunchy!

Marinate the prawns in their shells with the peri peri sauce for 12 hours. Drain and add salt and pepper then fry in a pan till pin. It’s actually much better to do these on a BBQ if you have one as somehow it brings out the flavour so much more. Once they are nearly cooked, move to the pan (if they were on the BBQ) and simmer for 5 minutes with more peri peri sauce, lemon juice and clarified butter.

While we were eating it started raining down on us and the wind picked up too so we were suddenly freezing. We quickly bought a lemon tart and a giant choc chip cookie (one of those soft chewy ones) from a stall then braved the miserable weather home to dip the cookie into a steaming mug of hot chocolate 🙂
We had a lazy, lazy afternoon then started on dinner.

The remaining rainbow trout was calling to us from the fridge.

Vietnamese-Style Rainbow Trout with Shredded Ginger

Remove the skin, head, tail, and bones of the fish, leaving it in medium sized flakes. Peel and finely slice a large piece of ginger, chop a stick of lemongrass and a couple of chillies and slice 6-10 kaffir lime leaves into very thin strips and fry in a pan. Add a dash of soy sauce and a lot of fish sauce. In retrospect a bit of palm sugar wouldnt have gone amiss, something to remember for next time!

As all that is frying, boil the fish skin and bones in water for 10 mins then sieve them out and use to water to boil the homemade noodles in, it gives them a subtle but deep fish flavour. Once the noodles are cooked, transfer them to the pan and stir them in, adding a bit more fish sauce and finally, right before serving, add the fish flakes. You don’t want to add them any earlier or they will disintegrate! I’m not entirely sure that trout is the best fish for a South East Asian dish but it was delicious nonetheless- the perfect leftover meal!

I woke up the next morning to most delicious smell – a rosemary and kalamata olive focaccia cooking in the oven. Used a pizza base recipe with a little more yeast and left the dough to rise a little longer.

It was served to me with the home made hummous with pomegranate and balsamic vinegar to dip in. Pink lady apple juice on the side. I felt incredibly spoiled – we sure know how to eat well!