Prawn/Prawn free crackers from scratch AND quicker method - For the noms!

0:00 Intro
0:38 Traditional method
3:21 Hi-tech GF veggie method
4:50 Frying
Prawn crackers are a crispy delight... until dietary restrictions hit. Can cooking from scratch save the day and give us prawnless crackers? Absolutely.
So here are two versions. The first one is more-or-less traditional, which I slightly messed up; normally the dough for this should hold together and the gluten is what makes this possible. I suppose that given the amount of flour I should have used less water.
Here's a translation of a legit recipe (adjusted to 1/10 of the original at www.aphril.com/2012/09/resep-k...
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250g tapioca flour
250g wheat flour
100g peeled cleaned, headless, skinless prawns
20g salt
1 litre water
5g garlic
5g MSG
In a pestle and mortar smash the prawns with the garlic and salt.
Add MSG and water until all is dissolved and combined.
Thoroughly mix in the flours.
Shape into sausages and steam until cooked through.
Leave to cool (about half a day)
Once fully cooled slice thinly.
Sun-dry for 2-3 days until completely dry.
The crackers are now ready to fry.
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I came up with the second method a few years ago to allow for a completely liquid batter (and I think it's new and unique). Initially I steamed this (5 minutes per cracker) and then found out the microwave worked just fine instead of steaming, and did the job in 20-30 seconds instead of 5 minutes (and the plates stayed cooler as well).
Using the microwave instead of steaming a rod of dough turns out to have other benefits:
- Because the batter can be liquid, it doesn't need to contain gluten or prawn to hold it together. This allows for veggie, gluten-free crackers.
- You can increase the diameter of the plate to make much bigger crackers than would be realistic in the dough cylinder method.
- Since the crackers start out as slices, there's no need to wait until the dough cylinder has firmed up enough to be sliced, so the amount of time it takes from start-to-finish time is much reduced.
My latter version is accidentally vegan and gluten free, and just as satisfying as the prawn-based version (The flavour profile is loosely based on Finna veg crackers). There's something that the Maillard reaction does to cauliflower and sesame that gives them a satisfying taste, and the seaweed gives it that punch of umami and the flavour of the sea.
I would suggest playing around with the flavour mix. In Indonesia, garlic crackers are a thing; so are swirly fish crackers.
In the version I made in this video, the chilli disappears mostly in the background - I wonder if any of the super-hots (Dorset Naga, Carolina Reaper, Bhut Jolokia) would allow one to make Prank Crackers.
Readers of my old blog may recognise that I've written an article on prawn crackers before. It goes into more detail and can be found here:
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