A Brief History of Macanese Food + Chilli Prawns

Have you ever had Macanese chili prawns? 🦐 What about Macanese cuisine in general? Do you know where Macau is?

Perhaps, you have heard of Portuguese egg tart, deliciously flaky custard tarts with its signature slightly burnt top. To be clear, they are not exactly the same as Portuguese's beloved pastel de nata. They are, in my opinion, better than that! They are like cousins of pastel de nata with heavy British accents. They were created with great influence from the British custard tarts which were brought over to Hong Kong by the (duh!) British. You can watch a YouTube clip here more about it here if you want. You can also do further reading on this topic here. 

Anyways, I digress (sorry, but you REALLY need to get yourself some Portuguese egg tart if you haven't had them). Portuguese egg tart is just one of many culinary examples out there from Macau, a city in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. 

It is easy to forget (when you are living in America or Europe?) that China is a truly massive country with a ton of diversity inside. Macau, before it was officially returned to China in 1999, was governed by Portugal (for approximately... five hundred years). Finding European style architecture and cemeteries with rather Portuguese sounding names is not too strange in this city--rather, it is expected given its history.

While I certainly do not want to overlook or glorify the region's history being colonized by Portugal, learning about cultural domino effects created when the spice trade between Europe and Asia came to a halt when Constantinople fell in 1453 and the Ottoman Empire blocked overland trade routes--thus by forcing Europeans to turn to the sea in search of spice--feels almost surreal. According to the cookbook The Adventures of Fat Rice: Recipes from the Chicago Restaurant Inspired by Macau (Lo & Conlon, 2016), in the years followed, cooks in Malaysia started using spices from India such as blooming tumeric and Malaysia's beloved fermented shrimp paste and coconut made the voyage to China. The origin of vindaloo, a popular curry you can easily find at your local Indian restaurant, can be traced back to this time period when Portugal's carne de vinha d'alhos (vinegar-braised meat) became infused with Indian spices for the first time.

Before the 16th century and its economic boom resulting from international trade, Macau was a city by the sea that was not too highly populated. Initially, European merchants and visitors set up their trading posts in Hong Kong, but due to frequent military clashes with the Ming soldiers, foreign merchants and sailors left Hong Kong and resettled in Macau (although, the trade ban still remained until Luso-Chinese trade relations were formally reestablished in 1554). In 1557, Portugal acquired a permanent lease for Macau and agreed to pay 500 taels of silver annually for renting the land.

Soon a number of Portuguese merchants and nationals grew rapidly in number in Macau. With a growing number of Portuguese in town, the demand for food similar to the food from Portugal and Europe grew. And Macanese cuisine, a cuisine known for its fusion-like nature, was born. It is commonly said unique spice blends created from mixing different ingredients (often from different countries) were results of wives of Portuguese merchants/sailors desperately trying to recreate Portuguese/European flavors for their families...perhaps missing their home country.  

For example, this chili prawn recipe includes olives, butter, and dry white wine...as well as... Chinese fermented bean sauce (dou ban jiang) and chili garlic sauce from Huy Feng Company.

You can easily find Chinese fermented bean sauce (dou ban jiang) & chili garlic sauce from an Asian grocery store. You could also find it on Amazon or other online grocery stores.

*Huy Feng Company's Chilli Garlic sauce is awesome! You will not regret getting this! It is like a spicer +less sweet cousin of famous Sriracha sauce.

Link to Chinese fermented bean sauce 

Link to Huy Feng chili garlic sauce 

*NO, I AM NOT SPONSORED! I am not famous enough!!!

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Macanese Chilli Prawn Recipe 

adapted from the cookbook The Adventures of Fat Rice: Recipes from the Chicago Restaurant Inspired by Macau (Lo & Conlon, 2016)

Ingredients:

 

- Handful of green onions (roughly chopped & about 1/4 cup) **don't chop them too finely!

- 3 tbsp of freshly chopped cilantro 

- Small handful of Portuguese olives (but any high-quality olives will do! Just avoid super salty ones! I personally like black olives in this...although it is not traditional!)

- 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil (high quality recommended)

- 3 tbsp unsalted butter (high quality will be better!)

- 2 tbsp of Chinese fermented bean sauce (dou ban jiang) from a jar

- 1/4 cup of Huy Feng Company's Chilli Garlic sauce

- 8 cloves of garlic (chopped roughly)

- 10 prawns (shrimps are o.k. too! just get the jumbo sized ones! /the flavor will be better if you leave the head & shell on..but eating might become more savage + difficult for ya..so already cleaned, shelled, and head-off is o.k. too!)

- 1/4 cup of dry white wine

- 1 lemon (half squeezed + half served on the side in case you want more on it)

- Fresh black pepper to taste

**Toasted country style bread + more butter to serve with the chilli prawns** (optional)

0. Prep work: make the sauce by mixing 2 tbsp of Chinese fermented bean sauce and 1/4 cup of chilli garlic sauce together. Put it aside. 

1. First pour in 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil in a large pan with a lid and turn on the heat on the stove for medium heat. When the oil starts bubbling a bit & you can smell the olive scent of the oil, add 1/8 cup of chopped green onions to the oil. Don't let the green onions burn--but let the oil be infused with green onions. 

2. Once you can smell the green onion scent in the air (for about 1-2 minutes), increase the heat to high. Once the pan starts to smoke a bit, place all your 10 prawns evenly inside the pan. Add some freshly ground black pepper.

3. Cook your prawns for about 2 minutes. You will know when they are starting to cook since they will change in color (will become pink in color) & the body will shrink and curl. Flip them so the other side can start cooking too.

3. Add the roughly chopped garlic cloves to your pan. Don't let the garlic burn! Stir the prawn & garlic mixture for about another 1 minute before adding the dry white wine to the pan.

4. Once you add the wine to the pan, it will sizzle--and that's good! Immediately cover the pan now with a lid. Steam the prawns for a while until they are fully cooked for approximately 4-5 minutes

5. Remove the lid from your pan and now add the sauce mixture created in step 0. Mix in the sauce to the wine+oil mixture inside the pan. Cook at medium heat for 2 minutes so that you can reduce the mixture and also burn off some alcohol flavor from the wine. 

6. Add all 3 tbsp of butter to the pan. Cook at medium heat for another 1 minute or so until the butter is melted. Add the olives to the pan. Mix everything well so prawns are well flavored. Taste the sauce + add freshly squeezed lemon juice to your liking.

7. Top your dish with chopped cilantro & green onions. Serve it with a half of lemon, so other people can add more lemon if they would like!

8. Enjoy! Serve with toasted country bread & more butter! Feel free to dip your bread in the sauce.

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Everything here is written by me, the rebellious chicken.