What spices go with prawns

The sour-sweet base of pad thai and of Malay and South Indian prawn dishes. Prawns are sweet and faintly mineral, and tamarind meets that sweetness rather than fighting it — the reason a sour prawn dish tastes balanced where a sour chicken one often does not.

How: In the sauce for pad thai, with fish sauce and palm sugar; In a Malay-style sour prawn curry

Add alongside: Chilli flakes, Coriander seed, Turmeric

Tom yum and the Malay sour prawn curries both run on it. Prawns are sweet and faintly mineral, and galangal’s pine-and-citrus sharpness cuts that sweetness in a way ginger cannot — ginger would meet the sweetness and compound it.

How: Sliced into a tom yum broth; Pounded into a paste for a prawn curry

Add alongside: Lemongrass, Chilli flakes, Tamarind

Prawns cook in two or three minutes, which is exactly the window in which sliced garlic gives its best. The pairing is documented across the Mediterranean and Southeast Asia independently — gambas al ajillo, scampi, garlic prawns over rice — and it works because prawn sweetness needs something pungent against it rather than something aromatic alongside it.

How: Sliced into warm oil, then prawns added before it colours; With chilli and parsley, off the heat

Add alongside: Chilli flakes, Parsley, Lemon

• The timings fight each other: garlic wants low heat and prawns want high. Start the garlic in cool oil and bring both up together.

Tom yum is the documented case and the mechanism generalises: prawns are sweet and faintly iodic, and the citral in lemongrass cuts both without adding the acid that would start cooking them. In a hot-and-sour broth it is the aromatic doing the lifting while lime juice does the souring — the two are usually assumed to be one thing and are not.

How: Bruised stalks simmered in the broth with galangal and lime leaf; Finely sliced raw through a warm prawn salad

Add alongside: Galangal, Chilli flakes, Coriander leaf

• Sliced raw it must be cut very thinly across the grain, or the fibres are unpleasant to eat.

Documented across Thai, Malay and Vietnamese cooking, and the reason is that prawn sweetness needs a sharp rather than a broad heat. Bird's eye arrives immediately and clears, so it cuts through without sitting on the palate for the next mouthful — the opposite of what a superhot would do to a delicate shellfish.

How: Pounded with garlic and lime into a dipping sauce for grilled prawns; Sliced raw into a warm prawn salad

Add alongside: Lemongrass, Garlic, Lemon

• Pounding spreads the placental heat through the whole sauce, so a pounded dressing eats considerably hotter than the same pods sliced.

Tom yum is the documented case and it shows the division of labour clearly: the leaf supplies aroma and the lime juice supplies sourness, and cooks who assume the leaf is doing both end up with a broth that smells right and tastes flat. Prawns are sweet and faintly iodic and take the sharp citrus-floral note particularly well.

How: Torn into a tom yum broth with lemongrass and galangal; Shredded very finely through a warm prawn salad

Add alongside: Lemongrass, Galangal, Bird's eye chilli

• Shredded leaf must be cut very finely across the grain with the rib removed, or it stays tough and fibrous in the mouth.

The defining note of Chesapeake-style seafood boils. Celery seed's bitter-green intensity is one of the few flavours that reads clearly through a large pot of boiling shellfish.

Add alongside: Mustard seed, Paprika, Bay leaf

Prawns and cumin recur from Goa to Veracruz to the eastern Mediterranean. Prawns are sweet and cook in two minutes, so the cumin has to be bloomed in the fat before they go in — added afterwards it tastes raw and dusty against them.

How: Bloomed in oil or butter before the prawns are added

Add alongside: Garlic, Coriander seed, Lemon

Prawns' natural sweetness balances capsaicin heat directly, which is why hot prawn dishes recur from Louisiana to Goa to Sichuan.

Add alongside: Paprika, Garlic

Standard across coastal South Asian cooking, where prawns are turned in turmeric and salt before they meet anything else. It colours them and takes the edge off the iodine note that large prawns can carry.

Add alongside: Garlic, Chilli powder, Lemon

• Turmeric is bitter in quantity and prawns are delicate. A quarter teaspoon for a plateful, not a spoonful.

The Chinese answer, and a good one: white pepper's sharpness cuts prawn sweetness without adding the woody aroma black pepper would. It is also invisible, which matters in a pale dish where black flecks read as grit.

Add alongside: Ginger, Garlic, Sesame seed

Documented across Kerala, Sri Lankan and Malaysian cooking, and the citrus-family aroma is why: prawns are sweet and faintly iodic and take a citric aromatic well, while the nutty base note of the fried leaf stands up to the chilli and coconut these dishes usually carry. It is a sharper, more resinous partner than lemongrass would be in the same role.

How: Fried in coconut oil at the start of a prawn curry; Tossed through a dry prawn fry at the end with the crisped leaves left in

Add alongside: Turmeric, Mustard seed, Chilli flakes

• Pat the leaves dry before they go in the pan. Wet leaves spit hard in hot coconut oil.

Ceviche and aguachile are the documented uses, and serrano is chosen for the same reason as in a raw salsa: it is hot and clean and it needs no cooking, peeling or seeding, so it can go into a raw preparation that will sit for only a few minutes. Its grassy note works with lime and prawn sweetness in a way a fruity chilli like habanero would push aside.

How: Blended raw with lime and coriander for aguachile; Finely sliced through a prawn ceviche

Add alongside: Lemon, Coriander leaf, Onion

• Blending spreads the placental heat through the whole mixture, so a blended aguachile eats considerably hotter than sliced serrano in the same dish.

The same coastal logic as with fish, and prawns benefit more from the restraint: they cook in minutes and a souring agent that can be steeped and removed suits a short cook far better than a pulp stirred through at the start. Sourness and sweetness sit well together, and prawns are sweet.

How: In a Goan or Malvani prawn curry; With coconut and chilli

Add alongside: Turmeric, Chilli flakes, Garlic