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Butter Prawn is a Malaysian recipe that is buttery, salty, sweet, spicy, and garlicky. The main ingredients are prawn, butter, grated coconut and curry leaves.
Malaysian Butter Prawn
Butter Prawn is a delicious Malaysian recipe that you can commonly find in local restaurants.
It combines the best of Malay, Chinese, Indian, and western ingredients; this is a knockout dish in terms of taste, smell, and presentation.
Every bite of the prawn reveals layer upon layer of complex flavors. It’s buttery, salty, sweet, spicy, and garlicky working off one another seamlessly and perfectly.
This recipe is truly Malaysian and the taste is simply scrumptious and mouthwatering!
Recipe Ingredients
Other than prawn, the key ingredient of this dish is curry leaf.
Highly aromatic in nature, curry leaf is widely used in southern Indian cuisine and Malaysian recipes.
The exotic scent of these dark green leaves saturates coconut milk based curries with rich fragrance and perks up seafood dishes such as Butter Prawn and Black Pepper Crab.
Another key ingredients is grated coconut, which adds amazing taste to the recipe.
See the recipe card for full information on ingredients.
Frequently Asked Questions
This recipe is only 258 calories per serving.
What To Serve With Butter Prawn
For a wholesome meal and easy weeknight dinner, I recommend the following recipes.
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Other Malaysian Recipes You Might Like
Butter Prawn
Ingredients
- 1 lb (500g) prawn, for example: tiger prawn
- 1 tablespoon oil
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
- 3 sprigs curry leaves, use only the leaves
- 1-2 small bird’s eye chilies, pounded, optional
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 tablespoon Chinese cooking wine, rice wine preferred
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 3 dashes ground black pepper
- 6 tablespoons grated coconut, dry fried until golden brown
Instructions
- Leave the prawn heads and shells on, but chop off the eyes. Cut the legs with scissors. Slit down the back to remove the veins, then pat dry.
- Heat a skillet with oil and pan-fry the prawns until the shells turn white but are not completely cooked. Drain and set aside.
- Melt the butter, then add the garlic, curry leaves, and bird's eye chilies (if using). Stir-fry for 1 minute or until aromatic. Add the prawns, oyster sauce, wine, sugar, black pepper, and grated coconut. Cook over high heat for 1-2 minutes, stirring frequently.
- Dish out and serve immediately.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Yummy! They look so nice. I gotta figure out a way to pass this recipe to Suanne.
Hi, this is my first time visiting your blog and I love it! Totally coming back :)
I will try out this butter prawns recipe soon, it looks real delicious!
Hi, I happened to stumble upon your blog while finding a mee goreng recipe! Boy, was I glad to know of your website :) The food pics all look wonderful & definitely, I will try
Lucia – Nestum prawns, sure no problem but there is no nestum herre…can send some to me?!
By the way, I didn’t mean the dish to be new new, but I remember this dish started showing up when I was in high school, but I guess you are right…it was a loooooooong time ago when I was in high school. :P
PE – You are too sweet. OK, is there an Iron Chef Asian food version? I can enter and you will be the judge. ;)
Tigerfish – oh well, I hear you, but they are very light, so we don’t need 1 lb of them. Will check out your butter prawns when you are try this recipe.
Lyn – are they supposed to be drier? I haven’t had this in a long time and I can’t remember…I guess you are right…mine was a little “wet.” Will have to order this dish the next time I go home.
looks very yummy! great for a first time.
only maybe not dry enough?
The curry leaves are soooooo expensive in the Bay Area.
No joke. After you’ve done your steamed tofu (I was going to do that too), this Butter Prawns dish is also lined up on my cooking list as I’ve got so much curry leaves left. And I cannot waste them since they’re sooo…expensive. $14.99/lb at 99Ranch!!!
This is the second time this week that I’ve wept openly while looking at your blog. First, it was because of the shrimp wontons. Rasa Malaysia, you really are a master chef! The crispy little bits do look killer!
oops. above comment was by me. auto fill came out with only ‘l’ and i didn’t realise it. :)
er… is butter prawns new? i thought i thought it is quite an old dish. i had try it many times before and yes, i love the kerisik and curry leaves – will sapu them all.
next, bee yinn, you should show us how to made nestum prawns. they are just as good as butter prawns.