*** MARINADE ***
1½ cup Water
2 pound Shrimp
1 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
½ teaspoon Chili Sauce
6 ounce Tamarind
*** COOKING ***
3 ounce Ginger, Fresh
4 large Garlic Cloves
2 small Onions, Red
3 tablespoon Oyster Sauce
1 tablespoon Soy Sauce, dark
1 tablespoon Chili Sauce
3 tablespoon Oil
4 tablespoon Brown Sugar
Marinating: break tamarind apart, place in a small saucepan with water. Simmer, covered, 10 mins or until pasty coating separates from seeds. Press through a sieve to extract all pulp and soupy liquid. Discard seeds. Rinse shrimps thoroughly, pat dry and marinate 1 hour with 1 tb of tamarind liquid, the oyster sauce and chili sauce.
Cooking: meanwhile, cut ginger into toothpick sized slivers. Peel and sliver garlic. Place blachan in non-stick pan and heat gently 4 minutes to develop the flavors. Peel and cut red onions into wedges. Combine oyster, soy and chili sauces; stir into remaining tamarind liquid. Heat a large wok over high heat and pour in 2 tb of the oil. Swirl up sides of wok, and when just at smoking point, dump in ginger and garlic. Stir fry until golden. Adding more oil as needed, stir fry shrimp in batches until orange red, about 3 mins. Pour sauces over all the shrimp in the wok and cook over high heat until shrimps are aromatic and sauces have thickened to enrobe the shells, 8 minutes. Mix in sugar and onion wedges, taste to adjust seasoning, sweetening and spiciness.