laocook

Prawns with Apples was a combination that materialized during a small birthday lunch for Jopi (pronounced “Hopi”), one of our Service staff.

King gives Jopi a Birthday kiss…

After lunch at a local restaurant, we returned to Jopi´s place for some afternoon drinks. As the “quick drinks” carried on in to the night we became hungry and Jopi´s boyfriend Greg decided to grill some King Prawns.

“Langostinos a la Plancha” are a typical way to grill King Prawns, all you need is salt and a hot plate/grill/plancha.

King seeing that the others were discarding the heads decided to use the “head jus” to make a sauce, and the the only thing at hand at the time was a bowl of apples.

So in a small pot we pressed out the liquid from the heads and mixed them with diced apples. The combination was lovely, the sweet and sourness of the apples went well with the strong sea flavour. Immediately we knew that we would have to share this flavour and decided to create it next day in the restaurant.

A smooth Carrot Puree (sweet), blanched King Prawns (delicate), diced Granny Smith Apples (sour) and a shot of the “head jus” (sea-full).

It is strange how ideas come to you when you least expect them to! :)

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I like to decorate our dessert plates “a la minute” or “at the moment”. Using melted chocolate and fruit coulis are an easy way to dress up a dish.

The liquid Chocolate acts as a border for the colourful fruits coulis.

Green = Kiwi

Yellow = Mango

Red = Forest Fruits

The designs are very simple and also edible! :)

Khamhoung after watching me “plate” a birthday cake decided that he wanted to have a try, but he didn’t have an idea of what to draw, so I told him to draw whatever “came to mind”.

A few minutes later he came back with this.

Through muffled laughs we asked him what it was.

“Vang Vieng!”, Khamhoung replied and further added “Don’t you recognise the mountains and the trees?”…

Come to think about it, he has a point… ;)