While this delicious dish gets its name from the beautiful ginger flower, there is a secret ingredient that absolutely makes it completely non-vegetarian friendly – prawn paste.

More affectionately known as “otak udang”, which literally means prawn brains, prawn paste gives this ginger flower pesto recipe that moreish kick.

If you’re vegan, vegetarian or allergic to prawns, swap the prawn paste for some grated coconut sugar or jaggery sugar (Gula Melaka or Gula Merah).

Ingredients

Pesto ingredients

• 137g (2) ginger flower
• 40g (2 large) red chilies, stems removed
• 33g (6 cloves) garlic, peeled
• 5g (3) birds eye chilies (cili padi), stems removed
• 55g (1 small) red onion, peeled
• 26g (2) lemongrass
• 100g (1/2 cup) olive oil
• 131g (1) lemon
• 10g (2 tsp) sea salt
• 80g prawn paste diluted with equal amounts water

Dry ingredients

• 250g (1 packet) spaghetti, cooked to packet instructions

Garnishing

• 100g (1 large) red onion, peeled
• 17g mint leaves
• 20g (1 large) red chili

Making the ginger flower pesto

• Start by preparing the garnishing. Chiffonade about five to six ginger flower petals. Slice the red chilli and large onion finely. Reserve.

• Cut the rest of the ginger flower, red chilies and red onion into smaller chunks.
• Cut lemongrass as thinly as possible so it blends nicely.
• Blend cut ginger flower, red chilies, red onions and lemongrass along with garlic, birds eye chilies and olive oil until smooth. We recommend using either a high powered blender or a handheld blender as we want to avoid adding any water to this mixture.
• Next, add about half the amount of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Blend to mix and taste for tartness. You want the sourness of the lemon to be pleasant while complementing the rest of the ingredients.
• Add a little more if you feel the mixture needs more sourness. However, do this only after the rest of the ingredients have been blended for better accuracy.
• Add in the diluted shrimp paste and blend until thoroughly combined.
• Finally, add the salt and continue blending until mixed through. You may want to add half the salt first and adjust the amount accordingly as different brands of prawn paste contain different levels of salt. The dish should not be salty. Instead, the salt is there to enhance the flavours of all the other ingredients.

Tossing

• Add your freshly cooked pasta to a large bowl and top it up with the garnishing ingredients.

Pour the blended mixture over the top.

• Toss all the different ingredients together, making sure the spaghetti is coated evenly with the ginger flower pesto.

• Serve individually plated, or in a large bowl so everyone can help themselves.

Extra tips

• If you like things super spicy, feel free to add more birds eye chilies to the mix!
• Prefer a creamier emulsion? Reserve some of that water used to boil your pasta and add it to the mixture tablespoon by tablespoon during the blending process until you get the desired consistency.
• If you’re serving both vegetarian/vegan guests alongside non-vegetarians, opt to serve the shrimp paste and coconut sugar on the side so your guests can mix it into their pasta accordingly.
• Got pine nuts, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds and the like? Then toss a teaspoon or two of these crushed over your ready-mixed ginger flower pesto pasta as the texture and flavour complements the dish really well.

This article first appeared in butterkicap.com

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