If anyone asks, my favorite food memory from South Africa is Prawns Peri Peri. I remember as a kid, sitting under the big blue and white tent on the beach in Lorenzo Marques (now Maputo) in Mozambique, eating piles of red hot Tiger Prawns till the tears ran down my face. My mom used to say about me that I only ate 3 things as a kid, Lamb chops, Chinese food, and prawns peri peri.
I had to figure out how to make them as an adult, and luckily was able to find Peri Peri powder from an online South African Store (https://www.africanhut.com/) which has been a great resource for me for a few items. In any event, my recipe is to marinade the cleaned prawns in a marinade of lemon juice, olive oil, loads of finely chopped garlic and a pile of chopped parsley, along with a good amount of peri peri powder (your mileage may vary. Peri Peri is equivalent to the Birds Eye pepper on the Scoville scale. It’s hotter than cayenne, similar to or slightly hotter than Thai bird’s eye chili, and usually not quite as hot as a habanero.)
Then to make it, I always make jasmine rice.
To cook it, ideally, I prefer to cook it over an open flame on the BBQ, but we do not have access to one at our apartment, so I cook them on the stovetop. I use a good size brasier and melt some butter, with olive oil, fresh peri peri powder, and some fresh garlic. When the garlic is softened, I add the prawns, I keep the temperature high and make sure to turn each one over so that they get cooked through, I add any marinade that is left, add a couple hits of angasturabitters, and squeeze a lemon over them to finish. Dish them up over the rice, pour the sauce over the shrimp and go to town. Have ice cold beer available.
These prawns were pretty small, but they were still very tasty!
My Life: A Memoir 