Garlic steamed butterflied prawns with ginger gai lan
Butterflied prawns piled with golden and raw garlic and steamed for a few minutes — sweet and punchy — with gai lan in a warming ginger dressing.
- 25 min
- Serves 2
- Steam
- Easy
Why it suits you: Yang-deficient people feel the cold, with chilly lower backs and knees and low energy, and Grain Rain's damp makes it worse. Prawns are sweet and warm and support kidney yang, garlic is pungent and warm, and ginger juice and wine take the edge off the gai lan's coolness — warming without being greasy.
Method
Prep 15 min · Cook 10 min- 1Trim the prawns' feelers and legs, split them down the back without cutting through, remove the dark vein and lay them on a plate.
- 2Fry half the garlic gently in the oil until golden, then mix with the raw garlic and the salt to make 'gold and silver' garlic, and spoon it over the prawns.
- 3Steam over boiling water on high heat for 4–5 minutes until the prawns turn pink, then drizzle with the soy sauce and scatter with spring onion.
- 4Blanch the gai lan and plate it. Bring the ginger juice, Shaoxing wine, sugar and 2 tbsp water to the boil and pour over the gai lan.
Cautions
- Prawns can trigger reactions, so eat fewer if you have eczema or sensitive skin.
Chef's tips
- 'Gold and silver' garlic is half fried, half raw, for both aroma and bite. Overcooked prawns turn rubbery — stop as soon as they go pink.
The TCM view
Prawns are sweet and warm; they tonify kidney yang and build qi. Garlic is pungent and warm, warming the middle and dispelling cold. Ginger juice is pungent and warm, warming the stomach and balancing the gai lan, which is sweet, pungent and cool and drains water and phlegm. Warming without drying — good for damp, chilly days.
