How to make Thai raw prawn salad – with sweet shrimps, fiery chillies, lime and bitter melon – and fried shrimp heads

The kick from the chilli in the salad is balanced by the lime juice, bitter melon and soft palm sugar for a classic Thai hot, sour and sweet dish

To make the salad you need to freeze the raw shrimp before peeling them. As for the fried heads, they are addictive - better than any prawn cracker you’ll eat

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Thai raw prawn salad with bitter melon combines hot, sweet, sour and bitter flavours for the classic Thai taste experience. Photo: Jonathan Wong

Susan Jung

Published: 4:15am, 11 Feb 2022

One of my favourite Thai “salads” (although it’s a bit short on vegetables) is kung chae nampla – raw shrimp (or prawns) served with a fiery dressing. The dressing should be on the far edge of your spice tolerance, because, as with every good Thai dish, the “hot” element is balanced by the sour, salty and sweet flavours.

To make each mouthful even more delicious and complex, there’s bitterness provided by bitter melon, which also serves to cool the palate.

Thai raw prawn salad (Kung chae nampla)

I learned this dish from Tass, an excellent Thai cook who also taught me her versions of pad thai, fish cakes, Thai-style oyster omelette and green papaya salad. She says it is essential to keep the shrimp cold – which makes sense, because you are eating them raw.

She also says you shouldn’t waste the shrimp heads – put them in an airtight container and freeze them, and when you have enough, make fried shrimp heads (recipe below).

And don’t waste the shells, either – freeze them, and when you have enough, make shrimp oil, which is fantastic in seafood dishes (drizzle it over the seafood after plating it) and in XO sauce.

Tass uses fresh white shrimp (preferably alive), but freezes them for at least 30 minutes, which makes them easier to peel.

She then soaks the peeled shrimp for one minute (no longer!) in chilled soda water (don’t use a flavoured type) – she says the carbonation helps to kill any bacteria.