Prawns and Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

I just love seafood.

I grew up enjoying countless seafood dishes made by my mother, who is a superb cook. We had a weekend ritual -- every Sunday, we'd wake up early, go to the traditional market near my house, and buy a few days' worth of groceries. Grocery shopping with mum was always great fun, because she shopped generously, would always buy the most exotic fruits for dessert, and let you get anything you want. "It is, after all, the weekend," she'd say approvingly with a wink.

It was a marvelous traditional market with rows and rows of fresh produce, colorful traditional cakes and snack vendors with their fried goodies piled high, which were my absolute favorite. Those were the innocent days when I didn't worry about food coloring or fat content. With its narrow alleyways, muddy streets, stinky corners and sweaty shoppers, the market was not for everyone, but to my 10-year-old eyes, it was a magnificent and vibrant place full of all sorts of delicious things to cook. I think my love for cooking began there.

My job was to carry the shopping bags. We would start at the greengrocer's, where my mum would buy kilos of water spinach and cabbage and tomatoes and aubergines and stinky beans. Then we would move on to our butcher's, where huge chunks of meat hang on hooks from the ceiling, hovering slightly over our heads. The smell of the fresh meat would be so overpowering, and I'd always be stuck in between fat mothers who were competing to get the best part of the cow. I'd leave my mum, who'd be bargaining with the butcher, to order our chicken from the chicken lady. She had one of those huge ginzu knives that would make a convincing thud as it whammed at the chicken, cutting it into 8 pieces. And then we would get to the seafood vendor.

Ahh. That was the best part. Fish and fish and even more fish and prawns and squid and octopus and lobsters and tuna fillets and tiny shrimps and mussels and clams, all fresh off the boat and gleaming at me. My mother, who was wise enough to start educating me about food and cooking early in my life, would tell me to pick the freshest fish for her. At first I was disgusted at the idea of touching fish and checking the color of their gills and poking at the flesh to test the bounciness, but thankfully she made me do it anyway. Amazingly, when fish is really fresh, it doesn't smell fishy, it just smells fresh and briny like the sea! It became a personal joy to get my hand wet picking the best victims for our dinner. When I came to the Netherlands, I was surprised to find out how many people (also older ones) who don't know how to pick fresh fish. Their fish comes gutted and filleted in a styrofoam packaging in a supermarket. I think that can't compare to shopping for fish at a fish vendor.

Whatever sea bounty that we would bring home, my mum would always turn it into something delicious and special. Fried fish simply spiced with salt and turmeric, little fishes fried until crisp and tossed in a fiery chili sauce, prawns tossed in butter and honey, thick cod fillets cooked in a yellow curry with orange and green chili peppers, grilled squid drizzled with a sweet soy sauce...It helped me to embrace all sorts of food, and to instinctively look for variety in the ingredients that I use, now that I cook for myself.

This simple prawn and broccoli dish reminds me of home -- it's simply cooked, fresh and good for you. A lot of people are afraid of eating too much prawn because of its cholesterol content, but it's actually recently proven to be untrue. Prawns are an excellent source of protein and are lower in calories than meat, and actually help you to increase the level of healthy fat in your body, the kind that is good for you. Just google it!

Prawn and Broccoli in Oyster Sauce

For 2 people

1 tbsp Shaohsing rice wine/Chinese cooking wine/sherry

1 tbsp salty soy sauce

3-4 tbsp oyster sauce

1 tbsp sweet soy sauce (Indonesian kecap manis)

1 heaping tsp cornflour

a pinch ground white pepper

a dash of sesame seed oil

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/2 cup water

2 handfuls of medium prawns

2 handfuls of broccoli florets

oil for cooking

Mix the rice wine, salty soy sauce, oyster sauce, sweet soy sauce, white pepper and sesame seed oil in a cup. Dilute the cornflour in a few tablespoons of water and add to the sauce mix, mix well. Add the rest of the water and mix well. 

Heat some oil in a wok on a high heat until very hot and smoking. Toss in the garlic and stir fry for a few seconds. Add the prawns and toss around in the wok until the skin becomes pinkish. 

Add the broccoli, toss around for 20 seconds or so, then add a splash of water to create some steam. Cover and cook for a minute or two, just to get the broccoli crisp-tender (cooked through but still retaining a bite). 

Uncover, add the sauce and mix well. Lower the heat a bit if it starts splattering. Cook until the sauce thickens. Add more water if you like the dish to be more saucy. 

Have a taste and add more seasoning according to your liking.

Dish out and serve.