D is for Dinner: Miang wraps with prawn and pomelo

What's a chef to do with his restaurant when he's off for a couple days to represent Ottawa in a nationwide cooking competition?

How about invite 14 of the city's top chefs to keep the place hopping?

Jonathan Korecki, formerly of Sidedoor, is one of the chefs who'll take part in the restaurant takeover at Coconut Lagoon as chef Joe Thottungal vies for top honours this weekend at the Canadian Culinary Championships, more commonly known as the Gold Medal Plates.

• Coconut Lagoon chef wins Gold Medal Plates competition

Korecki shared his take on the Thai street food, Miang, on D is For Dinner, the weekly food segment on CBC Radio's All In A Day.

"Some (variations of Miang) contain just a few ingredients while others, like this one, include fruit and prawns," Korecki said.

"This is great dinner party fare. Just have all the ingredients on the table and guests can make their own wraps as they like. Take extra care on cutting the lime, ginger and shallot the lime should be a miniscule dice, the ginger a bit bigger and the shallot about fivemillimetre cubes."

Miang ingredients

Serves 4-6

• 20-30 Betel (bai tong lang),or substitute withspinach, romaine or Boston lettuce leaves.
• 1 pomelo or grapefruit or pineapple,cutinto chunks.
• 1 bunch cilantro leaves.
• 1 tbsp. lime,diced fine.
• 2 tbsp. ginger, peeled and diced.
• 4 tbsp. shallots, diced.
• 4 tbsp. coconut, grated and roasted.
• 20 prawns, blanched, peeled and halved.

Sauce ingredients

• 1 tbsp. ginger, diced.
• 1 bird's eye chili.
• 4 tbsp. coconut, grated and roasted.
• 1 tbsp. roasted peanuts or cashew.
• 1/4 cup fish sauce.
• 3/4cup palm sugar.
• 1/4 cup water.
• 3 tbsp. tamarind (no seeds).

Instructions

Sauce

1. Grind the first fiveingredients together using a mortar and pestle, or a food processor.

2. Heat the palm sugar and water in a pot until dissolved.Add the ground up paste and tamarind, thensimmer for a few minutes. Let cool before tasting it should be sweet, rich, sour and salty.

Miang

Arrange all ingredients separately on a platter, with the sauce in the middle. Guests canchooseingredients to put onto onto betel leaves. Enjoy.