I made this a few days back as I had some prawns stocked up in the fridge since the end of February and wanted to make room for new produce such as meats and fish. Having bought some squid that was on sale from the market, I decided to get some okra as well to make a yummy spicy seafood dish. It has been a while since we had some spicy dish – well, not curried per se but more of a tom yum or sour sauce spice.

I used a pre-made sauce (sorry, not pictures here) as it just make things a whole lot easier, especially these days when Eva is getting stickier due to her two front teeth popping out. Yes, you heard me – crazy barcode scanner assignments aside, I’m busy because my little one has two little pearlies coming out! She has been a gem so far by fussing for a night, then sleeping through the next day and only being sticky during the day. Even then, she’s sticky only in the afternoon. Going out in the mornings help calm her and get her to nap plus she enjoys it as well.

Anyway, back to the dish. With a pre-made sauce, this dish takes less than 30 minutes to cook. Prep time is around 10 minutes – shelling the prawns, cleaning the squid and slicing the okra. You can opt to replace the prawns and squid with fish and other forms of seafood but I like it best with these two items. What is a must is the quality of the seafood. They have to be fresh to impart that yummy salty sea flavour into a spicy sour sauce. Prawns have to be firm – flesh and especially the shell – whereas the squid surface (skin) has to be pinkish-red plus the flesh firm to the touch as well. There is no need to add salt or pepper as the sauce is already salty and spicy enough for the palate.

Excellent on a cold day, served with rice and some side servings of lightly blanched vegetables!