Crunchy coconut shrimp / prawns with a spicy Thai MANGO dipping sauce! This sauce is so scrumptious I want to pour it over everything. And really – you could! On cooked meats, seafood, as a salad dressing…..let your imagination run wild!
This is a very special recipe to me because it was created during a visit to a mango farm called Groves Grown Tropical Fruits in Queensland, Australia. I’m fortunate to have travelled fairly extensively around the world, and yet this trip is possibly the one that has affected me most profoundly as an avid foodie, a cook, and a writer.
When you are welcomed by a farmer and his family onto their farm and into their home, walk the soil and see the fruits (literally) of their hard labour, it gives you a new perspective on things.
Last week, I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to meet Ian Groves and his family at Groves Grown Tropical Fruits farm. I expected a tour, some Q&A time, and to learn more about Australian mangos.
But within minutes of pulling up in my hire car, I knew this was not just the offical tour I was expecting when Ian said to me “Let me show you to your room.”
“My room?”, I asked, perplexed. “I have accommodation booked for me in town.”
“Oh no, you must stay here!”, he insisted. Which I gratefully accepted because I had no desire to be driving back and forth 50km on country roads.
And I knew, when I dragged my suitcase into my room and saw this, that this visit was not going to be just “a tour”.
This pretty much set the tone for the entire visit. Warm, welcoming, funny, thoughtful.
I’m sure the Groves family got sick of hearing me exclaim “I’m supposed to be “on the job”, but this feels like a holiday with friends!”.
I spent the day being toured around his extensive farm with his daughter Melanie and the obligatory farm dog, Milly, astounded by the scale, the time, care, labour, science and detail it takes to grow beautiful, plump, juicy mangoes that city folk like myself take for granted.
I was especially pleased to see that some of the mangoes were low hanging. Fantastic for shorties like myself!! 😉
I want to write so much and share so many photos but I know I’ll probably implode my site if I dribble on as much as I could. So I want to share with you one thing that I learned that I didn’t really appreciate before my visit – the mango varieties. Wow. Just wow.
Green mangoes. Red mangoes. Gold ones, giant ones. I was sent home with an extraordinary variety of mangoes, all hand marked by Ian so I wouldn’t forget. 😂 I’ve spent the past week making my way through the stash – eating and cooking half, and freezing the other half (note the absence of reference to giving them away!).
Each member of the Groves family has a favourite type of mango. I love ’em all, but having now tried Kensington Prides, Keitts, R2E2’s and Honey Gold mangoes, I must say I’m quite partial to Keitts! They are the red tone mangoes in the photo below with the tinge of green. Just as juicy, sweet and “meaty” as other varieties, but there is a very mild tang, almost lemony which really appeals to my palette.
I was thrilled that Sandi, Ian’s wife, let me take over the kitchen on the 2nd day so I could experiment with mango recipes!! So I created this recipe while I was there but I must admit, I couldn’t get the sauce quite right (performance anxiety!) so I worked on it once I got back to Sydney until I was happy.
I really wanted this sauce to have some depth, zing and freshness to offset the sweetness of the mango which I thought would be a great accompaniment to the sweet, crunchy shrimp / prawns.
These crunchy prawns / shrimp…so, I have to tell you, the first batch I made was just coated in coconut. But they just weren’t that crunchy! Panko is essential for this Coconut Shrimp. As is using desiccated, rather than flaked or shredded coconut.
Many thanks to to my official taste tester for this recipe, Melanie, Ian’s daughter, for helping me make the prawns just right!!?
Oh!! In all the excitement chattering about my trip, I almost forgot! I did a little video for this Coconut Shrimp / Prawns with Spicy Thai Mango Sauce recipe, along with a little peek at the beautiful Groves Grown Tropical Fruit Farm. And proof that these prawns are absolutely irresistible….you get to see DOZER taste testing!??
Regular readers will know that I don’t fry very often. It is reserved for very special occasions, for food “worth frying” for.
These Coconut Shrimp are worth it. Pinky swear, promise. – Nagi x
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Coconut Shrimp / Prawns with Spicy THAI Mango Sauce
Ingredients
Shrimp / Prawns
- 1 lb / 500 g whole prawns OR 12oz/350g peeled fresh prawns (Note 1)
- 1/4 tsp salt
- Black pepper
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
- 1/2 cup desiccated coconut (Note 2)
- Oil , for frying
Mango Sauce
- 1 cup (packed) fresh mango. roughly diced
- 2 tbsp cilantro/coriander , leaves and stems, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp red onion or eschallots , finely chopped
- 1 tbsp fish sauce (or substitute with light or ordinary soy sauce)
- 1 tbsp sriracha (Note 3)
- 1 tsp red chilli , finely chopped (adjust to taste)
- 2 - 3 tbsp coconut milk (adjust for desired sauce consistency)
Instructions
- Mango Sauce: Place ingredients in a small food processor (or blender or use a blender stick). Whizz until smooth. Adjust salt and spice to taste. Use coconut milk to adjust the consistency.
- Peel and devein the shrimp / prawns. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
- Whisk egg in a small bowl. Mix panko and coconut in another bowl.
- Dip a prawn in the egg mixture then coat with panko. Repeat with remaining prawns.
- Heat oil in a skillet (Note 4) over medium high heat. Toss in a clotted lump of panko/egg to test for heat - if it sizzles right away and floats to the top, then the oil is hot enough.
- Working in batches, carefully place prawns in the hot oil. Cook for just 45 seconds (Note 5) until golden brown - start counting when you slide the first prawn in and remove the prawns from the oil in the order that you put them in.
- Remove onto a paper towel lined tray to drain.
- Serve warm with Spicy Mango Dipping Sauce!
Recipe Notes:
No nutrition for this….when food is this good, it doesn’t matter! (Also, because it’s fried, I don’t know how to calculate it accurately, sorry!)
This post is brought to you by Aussie Mangoes who arranged my visit to Groves Grown Tropical Fruits. Many thanks to Ian Groves and family for welcoming me into their home, showing me around their beautiful farm, sharing a wealth of information about growing and harvesting mangoes, letting me take over the kitchen to create this recipe, indulging me with incredible food, and officially converting me into a mango snob.❤️
Thanks for idea! I like mango and I want to try this sauce.
I hope you love it!!
i love no nutrition value, when food is good who cares. try to ask a real italian mama how many calories has a spaghetti bowl, she will tell you that she doesn’t use calories in her kitchen, must be something very Australian, and she doesn’t know it 🙂
Hi Nagi, just wanted to ask if it was possible to freeze the sauce? Look forward to hearing from you.
Sounds delicious. Want to to try it using an air fryer. What do you think? I could use some oil. Thanx
This looks tasty and I will try the shrimp so much — my husband loves coconut shrimp! Meanwhile, we’re having a broth-based fondue with shrimp and lobster. I’m thinking about using your mango sauce as one of the dips. Any thoughts on that?
Oooh yes to that! What an amazing sounding fondue! N x
Can you bake this instead of deep frying
Hi Glenn! I’m afraid that won’t produce the same result – it won’t be golden and crunchy. sorry to disappoint! N xx
Hi Nagi,
Mangoes are not in season now so could you use canned or frozen mangoes for this receipe
YES!! I do that all through winter 🙂
Hi Nagi. Have 2 questions about your coconut shrimp recipe. Can the mango sauce be made ahead and refrigerated for a day or two? Also, since I’m not much of a cook (but finally starting to experiment in the kitchen), I don’t know if sweetned or unsweetened coconut is the better choice. Thanks for your help! Can’t wait to try so many of your recipes!!
Hi Linda! yes the sauce can be made ahead and unsweetened coconut is best. 🙂 Hope you enjoy it! N x
I love prawns & the lovely mango sauce.
Will definetly try this gorgeous recipes.
Thanks Kim! Hope you do try it, it’s SO YUM!
Do you use green prawns as you are cooking it?
Can’t wait to try it.
Thanks for the recipe.
That looks incredibly yummy! Thank you for sharing your recipe 🙂
No worries! Hope you try it!! 🙂
Great post Nagi. Visiting farms, supporting farmers and local produce is right up my alley. Sounds like a wonderful experience and I’m glad this recipe came out of it!
Thanks Jem!! This trip really meant a lot to me. And now I’m even MORE mango-mad than I was!!!
These are gorgeous, made these last night and going to have them again tonight, love the sauce too!
Cheers Nagi
Awwww…..you’re killing me Scotty!!! I’m so touched that you try so many of my recipes, thank you! I feel like you’re becoming an official taste tester, I wait for your feedback on my recipes!❤️
The shrimp look perfectly coated and the sauce would be good on shoe leather – that is a compliment.
Awww…..thank you Peter!!❤️
Oooh, Nagi, I think I might have made myself a bit sick… I ate too many of your delicious recipe! Hubby who usually doesn’t partake of prawns loves ’em. Think I’ll make a batch of these for company next week, but maybe with Sriracha Mayo instead? What’d ya think? And maybe if I can be bothered, it’ll be in a paper cone.
BA HA HA!!! I am seriously contemplating starting “RecipeTin Lite”, loaded with salads and low calorie dinner options….what do you think???
Nagi, RecipeTinLite would be fab. I love your recipes but my go-to faves tend to have a bit of chicken skin on them. Would be great to have low kilojoule options for the days I’m pretending to watch the scales, or polishing the weight halo! Would love the same concept – everything made from the pantry!
Can I steal that line?? “RecipeTin Lite – for all those days you’re pretending to watch the scales.” BA HA HA! I LOVE IT LOVE IT!!!!
Seriously? I’m swooning BIG TIME over here. This is definitely getting a place reserved in my personal ‘food heaven’.
I’m not a ‘fruity’ person (??!!) but I LOVE mangoes. Another thing I got very excited about when I was in Oz was the gorgeous passion fruit that my mother in law grows. Maybe you can get yourself invited to a passion fruit farm next time!!
Oh my gosh, I really could eat a huge bucket full of these ALL TO MYSELF … no sharing even with a cute dog like Dozer.
Not a “fruity” person?? didn’t someone just post a BANANA cake…??? ?
I’d like to just bathe in that sauce please!!! :p
Send me your address, I’ll courier over bottles and bottles of this sauce!
Oh Nagi ! just printed this beautiful recipe off.
On way to fish shop and green grocer this morning.
The last time I had a dish like this was in a restaurant in
Parramatta in the 80’s ha ha!!
Love the video so much that I feel I can do this….
Thank you so much 🙂
I am keeping my fingers crossed that you love this as much as I do!!! 🙂
Nagi, have you ever tried adding a few sliced almonds to the coconut and the Panko? Adds even more crunch…and flavor.
Oooh Patti! That sounds incredible, I must try it!
absolutely beautiful Nagi! This farm reminded me of my granny’s mango orchard..it had a huge pool in one corner where my uncles caught live fish and shrimps that granny then cooked on an open fire. This brought back so many good memories. Also, what a gorgeous coconut shrimp recipe! I have always LOVED these in restaurants, may be try one day.And yup, we use raw mango and even ripe mangoes in curries.. I have a prawn in raw mango curry somewhere hiding on my blog.. worth a try! Xo..
Oooh!!! I’m going there right now to have a hunt!! I made the most amazing Thai Red Curry using ripe mangoes the other day, I would LOVE to try more recipes!!!
Yikes!! hiding ** in my blog! not on 😛
I got that! 😉
What an amazing trip! Now that’s the type of place I could spend all week exploring! I have a serious love for mangos so this dipping sauce is calling my name! And it’s perfectly paired with that perfectly crispy coconut shrimp! Oh my gawd does that look incredible! Btw, Dozer has a good eye 😉
He’s pretty quick when it comes to FOOD……