Mantis shrimp or mantis prawn is exotic edible sea creatures that rarely seen on my daily menu. Mantis shrimp had several name around the world, it’s called Udang Ronggeng (It moves similiar to Ronggeng dancer) , Udang Sentadu or Udang Lipan (It looks like a centipede) in Indonesia. In Japan, mantis shrimp called shako (蝦蛄),in Italia, it’s called Canocchie, in Vietnamese it’s known as tôm tít or tôm tích, (攋尿蝦, Mandarin pinyin: lài niào xiā, modern Cantonese: laaih niu hā)”pissing shrimp” and in Philippines, the mantis shrimp is known as tatampal, hipong-dapa or alupihang-da ga.
Foraging over Jakarta’s Muara Angke fish market driven me to a mantis shrimp on a large icy batch that looks like a giant bugs for me. The seller convinced me that the mantis shrimp are as fresh as possible by picking one of the mantist shrimps arm, squeese out the meat and eat it like a sashimi. Well, the tricks works for me. Since my nephew told me to bargain it radically due to the sellers incorrect weight scale, i can take it home for about 5 USD a kilo (not true weight though) from the first 7 USD offer.
How to cook mantis shrimp ??? thats’s what i thought right away when i purchased it in Muara Angke Seafood Market, Jakarta. Internet search calls for either boiled, roasted, deep fried, stir fried or even eaten raw as sashimi. I choose too stir fry the mantis shrimp with humbe black pepper sauce to let the sea bugs introduced to my taste buds. How does mantist shrimp taste like ??? i think it’s similiar to lobster and prawn, but the texture is more like a crab since it fleshy and stick’in to the shell.
You can deep fried the shrimp for about one minute or even two, before tossing is with the sauce, but i did’t since i like to simply stir fry it first with a little of oil and cooked it in the blackpepper sauce. This is the secret how to cook mantis shrimp to prevent it got overcooked.
Mantis Shrimp in Black Pepper Sauce Recipe :
- 3 udang rongeng/mantis shrimp (about 1 kg),cut into 3 segment, cleaned throughly, drizzle with a little of lime juice, drained
- 1/2 bell pepper, jullienned
- 1/3 tsp freshly grounded black peppercorn
- 1/4 small onion, thinly sliced
- 2 tsp of oyster sauce, i use Lee Kum Kee Brand
- 3 cloves garlic , chopped
- 2 cm ginger, finelly chopped
- a pinch of salt and sugar to taste
- 2 tbs of premium light soy sauce
- 1 tsp of chinese cooking wine
- 1 tsp kecap manis/sweet soy sauce
- 1/2 tsp corn flour, dissolve with 1 tbsp water
- 1 tsp of sesame oil
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil for stir frying
- 1/2 cup water
- shaved spring onion for serving
Instruction How to Cook Mantis Shrimp on Black Pepper Sauce :
- Heat up the vegetable oil in a large wok pan, saute the garlic, ginger and the onion until slightly brown
- Add the grounded black peppercorn and mantis shrimp, stir fry another 2 minutes
- Add the oyster sauce, cooking wine, light soy sauce, sweet soy sauce and water to deglaze the bottom, stir well and close with glass lid and bring it to boil
- Nearly done, add the sesame oil and dissolved corn flour to thicken the sauce
- Serve black pepper sauce mantis shrimp with shaved spring onion