This elegant broth is a bit of a special occasion’s dish. There’s a good hour and a half’s cooking and preparation, but a lot of it can be done in advance. It offers frugality at its culinary best – the prawn shells go into make the broth, which cooks while you prepare the dumplings (with the prawn meat) – and it all comes together at the end. Be sure to give the broth one good stir before you leave it to boil, this is the only chance you will get, it is imperative that you leave the egg whites to bind all the ingredients in a ‘raft’ while the stock simmers.
Serves 2
250g green king prawns
1 small onion
1 small carrot
2 sticks celery or small bulb of fennel
¼ cup olive oil
1 clove garlic
2 egg whites
1 ripe tomato
3 stalks parsley
1 bay leaf
3 peppercorns
Finely grated zest of 1/2 an orange
½ teaspoon castor sugar
Salt
Extra virgin olive oil
Dumplings –
1 spring onion
50g cauliflower (just a couple of florets)
1 small clove garlic
1 egg white
70 – 100 ml cream
½ teaspoon salt
1. Peel prawns, saving meat for dumplings and keeping shells and heads for broth. To make the broth, peel and roughly dice onion and carrot. Strip and discard leaves from celery or fennel, then roughly chop. Heat the olive oil over a moderate flame in a large heavy-based saucepan, then sauté onion until lightly caramelised, stirring regularly. Whiz fennel/celery, carrot, prawn shells and peeled garlic with egg whites in a food processor for a couple of minutes to form a coarse paste. Roughly chop tomatoes and add to onion with paste. Pour in 1 litre of water, then add herbs, peppercorns, orange zest and sugar. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Do not stir, otherwise you will disturb the egg-white ‘raft’. Remove raft and gently ladle broth through a fine meshed strainer lined with muslin (I used a clean tea-towel), then season to taste with salt.
2. To make the dumplings, trim and finely slice spring onion and break cauliflower into tiny bite-sized florets (about 1cm tall). Heat a little prawn broth (I used water, as I was cooking the broth at the same time) and blanch cauliflower for a minute or so until just tender, then remove to drain and cool. If you used the broth, strain and return it to main portion. Whiz garlic, egg white and three quarters of the reserved prawn meat in a food processor for several minutes to form a paste, then tip into a bowl and fold in cream (just enough to bind the mix together without making it too wet), salt and spring onion. Roughly chop remaining prawn meat and add to dumpling mixture with drained cauliflower. Cover with plastic film and refrigerate until you are about to eat.
3. Just before serving bring broth to a boil over a high flame. When hot, ladle a cup of broth into a smaller pan over a low flame. Using 2 teaspoons, scoop ‘mouthfuls’ of dumpling mixture into the smaller pan. Simmer dumplings gently for 3 minutes until firm and cooked, then divide them between warmed bowls using a slotted spoon. Ensure the main broth is boiling before ladling it over the dumplings, then drizzle with a little extra virgin olive oil and serve (I garnished the dish with a little freshly chopped chilli and shallots at the end).
Sean Moran’s cooking is perfectly suited to the home. For Moran food is about nurturing, whether it’s through feeding his fruit trees, chooks and worm farm, or presenting a paella, roast chook or ocean trout to a group of friends. His ‘salty jewel’ of a restaurant, Sean’s Panaroma, with its humble beach shack décor, home-style cuisine and laid back atmosphere, is among Sydney’s best. Let it Simmer brings fresh seasonal produce and revived retro classics into your own kitchen.