By Dharshan Munidasa

For decades, no chef, hotel or restaurant used Freshwater Prawns extensively like my restaurants do. This prawn tastes far better than its ocean cousins or the farmed version which is Black Tiger. The head of Freshwater Prawns are twice the size of its tail and this lends itself to a better, deeper broth stock coming out, enhancing any dish you make. The meat in the tail is a bonus; the amazing part about this is the taste from the head. The Ministry of Crab Prawn Curry has two of these prawns and 10 regular prawns completely shelled and makes a great Prawn Curry served with ‘kade paan’. At Nihonbashi, we use this prawn for tempura, for Tsui Yaki chargrilled and seasoned with salt. This creates deep flavours that go really well with sake or a full bodied red wine.

Freshwater Prawns have not been that popular in Sri Lanka for its size of the head in relation to its tail and for its meat content. But today these prawns are exported to Thailand and we now find it difficult to buy these prawns ourselves. Between Nihonbashi, Ministry of Crab, Kaema Sutra and The Tuna & The Crab, we probably go through 400 pieces of Prawns a day and sometimes we get the really big ones at Ministry of Crab that exceeds 400g. They are not lobsters; many Sri Lankan fish mongers have sold these Prawns to restaurants, hotels, housewives as lobsters but these are not lobsters.