Tom kho (Vietnamese simmered prawn)

As the case with many other seafood, “ tôm”( prawn) is nutritional food and very good for our health.  “Tôm kho” also has a various kinds  of process and each kind has its own special flavour,  but one of the most delicious dishes is “ Tôm kho tộ”. Similar to  “ Cá kho”, to make “ tôm kho” we also have two stages: preparation and cooking.

In preparation stage, we prepare spices including “ nước mắm”, sugar, gourmet powder, pepper, red chilli, onion, garlic , ginger and sometimes a little lemon juice. We also need cooking oil.

We choose big Japanese shrimps to make this dish, shrimps should be fresh . We wash shrimp carefully and then remove its shell, use knife to cut a shallow line along its body to clear all dirty things , put its head into its body until the head reaches its tail to create circle shape and get “ gạch tôm” out of its body. We mash spring onion and chilli together using a mortar and pestle. After that, we heat oil and stir fry mashed spring onion and chilli mixture until fragrant. Then, we add Japanese shrimps to fry until their colours turn light yellow. We pick shrimps up and boil “ nước mắm” mixed with a spoonful sugar, pepper and a little of gourmet powder. Then we add shrimps to this liquid and boil several minutes for shrimps to absorb spices. After finishing this step, we mix “ gạch tôm” with some drops of lemon juice, a little  pepper, sugar , “ nước mắm” and oil, then we simmer this liquid until it becomes solid. Next , shrimps are dipped into the solid liquid. So, the dish is finished. It is very tasty to eat with steamed rice.

Besides “ Tôm kho tộ”, there are many types of “ tôm kho” like “ tôm kho lá chanh” “ tôm kho nấm” , with these dishes we only need some extra ingredients but the method of cooking are based on the same rule like “ tôm kho tộ” and all of them are so scrumptious.