Tag Archives: prawns

South American Style Prawn Cocktail

25 Wednesday Jan 2023

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, salads, Snacks and Tapas, Starters

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When I cook for my friends I quite often like to have a theme to the dishes, so once I’d decided on Chicken Burritos as a main course for this particular lunch, I was looking for something to have as an appetiser. There are generally frozen prawns in the freezer, so why not mix them with typical South American salads, tomatoes, peppers, sweetcorn, add a spicy sauce sharpened with lime juice and have a prawn cocktail?

My guests loved it!


Per person

8 large prawns in their shells

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon quinoa – black or red look good, but if you have neither then the white is fine

1 tablespoon diced green pepper

1 tablespoon diced red pepper

1 tablespoon sweetcorn kernels

1/2 small avocado diced

Lettuce leaves to decorate your dishes

For the dressing

1 small clove of garlic

Fresh red chilli – finely chopped

1 teaspoon finely chopped fresh coriander leaves or the same of green coriander seeds

zest and juice of 1/2 a small lime

Boil the quinoa until tender.

Drain and put in a bowl with the rest of the salad ingredients.

Peel the prawns reserving the heads and skins.

Fry the prawns in olive oil until just cooked. Remove to a plate and let cool.

To the same pan add the heads and skins. Fry gently squashing the juices out of the heads with a wooden spatula.

Once the prawn heads are cooked and have given out their juices, add the coconut milk and water. Mix well scraping any solid bits at the bottom of the pan into the liquid and squashing the the heads again to add yet more flavour to the dressing.

Let cook down a little and then take off the heat.

With a pestle and mortar crush the garlic, chilli and coriander with a pinch of salt.

Strain the dressing into the mortar and then mix well.

Add the lime zest and juice, mix again, then add the dressing and cooled prawns to the salad and mix to cover all with the dressing.

Line your serving dishes with leaves and pile on the cocktail.

Enjoy!

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Market Day Salad Nicoise

12 Tuesday Oct 2021

Posted by in Fish, Main Courses, salads, Shopping, Vegetable Dishes

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Sometimes when food shopping most of the elements of a great recipe just happen to appear before you. In this case, picked this morning french beans, bright green little gem lettuce and fresh from underneath the hen free range eggs. A salad Nicoise is asking to be made. There is no fresh tuna, which I would normally use, but lovely big prawns will do nicely for the fish element. Southern Spain is the land of the tomato, so super tasty tomatoes are always plentiful.

I prefer poached eggs to boiled, I like warm yolks to dribble over the salad, and a vinaigrette dressing to mayonnaise, so here is my version of Salade Nicoise.

Per person

lettuce leaves

1 or 2 tomatoes – chopped

French beans – top and tail them and cut them into about 3cm lengths, then blanch them in boiling water for two or three minutes. Drain and leave to cool.

1 tablespoon corn kernels

1 clove of garlic – chopped

olive oil

7 large prawns – peeled

2 large free range eggs

For the dressing

1/2 teaspoon dijon mustard

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 tablespoon white wine/cider vinegar

pinch of sugar

Firstly mix all the dressing ingredients together thoroughly. You can put them all in a little jar and give it a good shake. Put to one side while you assemble the salad.

Lay the lettuce leaves on a dinner plate to make a bed for the rest of the ingredients. Strew over the tomatoes, beans and corn.

Heat water in a small pan for poaching the eggs.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a small frying pan and add the chopped garlic, fry for a minute then add the prawns. Fry gently until just cooked through. Add to the salad with the cooking juices and garlic.

Poach the eggs, drain and lay on the salad.

Spoon over the dressing, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Serve with fresh crunchy bread.

Sweet Potato Cakes & Avocado Salsa

08 Wednesday Apr 2020

Posted by in Main Courses, Vegan, Vegetable Dishes

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Levi Roots’s Caribbean Cooking is one of the books that I am revisiting since spring cleaning. The original recipe for these potato cakes has cooked prawns added to the mix but the cakes taste equally good with or without them. I made half the cakes with prawns for my sister, while I had my half without.

THE SWEET POTATO CAKES

makes 6 cakes

400 grams sweet potato

200 grams waxy potatoes

1/2 onion -finely chopped

2 cloves garlic – finely chopped

1 red chilli – finely chopped

1 teaspoon ground cumin

2 tablespoons plain flour – plus extra for coating the cakes

salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 tablespoon chopped fresh coriander

oil for frying

50 grams cooked prawns per portion – Optional – cut into pieces if they are large

Scrub the sweet potato and bake it whole in its skin at 190 C for 30 – 40 minutes until it is soft and tender. Leave to cool.

Peel the white potatoes and cut into smallish chunks. Boil in salted water until tender. Drain and leave to cool.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a frying pan and add the onion, garlic and chilli. Cook gently until translucent.

In a bowl mash the sweet and white potatoes. Add the onion mix and mash to mix in.

Add the seasonings and flour, then mix in with a spoon.

If one half of your mix is, like mine, having prawns, divide the mix into two and make one half into three cakes, forming them on a flour covered plate and turning them so that they are evenly covered in flour.
Add the prawns to the other half of the potatoes and mix well. Make three cakes as before.

Heat oil in a frying pan and cook the cakes on a medium heat until nicely browned on one side. Turn over and cook on the other side.

Serve with this spicy avocado salsa.

AVOCADO SALSA

1 small avocado – finely chopped

1 large tomato – finely chopped

1 clove garlic – crushed with a pinch of salt

1 spring onion – finely chopped

1 red chilli – finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon ground cumin

juice of a 1 small or 1/2 large lime

2 tablespoons olive oil

hot chilli sauce – if needed

Mix all the ingredients together well, mashing them slightly as you mix.

Taste for seasonings adding chilli sauce if needed.

To go with the cakes, I made Rice and Peas, cooked in coconut milk, from the same book. I’ll give you that recipe tomorrow. Hasta mañana!

A Mid-Week Dinner – Continued

27 Friday Mar 2015

Posted by in Starters, Sweet Things, Vegetable Dishes

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For the – probably one of you – who has been waiting for the rest of the recipes for this dinner, here at last they are. IMG_1518 SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS AND RAISINS

For 4

25 grams pine nuts

A good bunch of fresh tender spinach

Olive oil 25 grams small golden raisins

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Firstly toast the pine nuts until a golden brown in a thick based pan over a low heat. Shake the pan from time to time to turn the nuts.

Wash and drain the spinach.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a shallow pan. Add the spinach, cover and let wilt for a couple of minutes over a low heat.

Add the pine nuts and raisins and stir to mix.

Season then cover the pan again and leave to cook for about five minutes.

Serve on hot plates.

PRAWN WITH GARLIC, LEMON AND PARSLEY

For 4

20 medium sized peeled prawns

1 large clove garlic

Olive oil

Juice of half a lemon

Chopped flat leaved parsley

Heat a tablespoon or so of olive oil in a frying pan.

Add the chopped garlic and fry until light brown.

Add the prawns and cook quickly on a high heat until opaque and slightly browned.

Squeeze in the lemon juice and stir to collect any brownings at the bottom of the pan.

Sprinkle in the parsley and serve immediately on a hot dish.

IMG_1525 CARAMELISED FIG CUSTARDS

FOR 4

The only remotely complicated thing about this recipe is remembering to cook the custards early enough that they can cool completely. You can of course cook them the day before they are needed.

I will point out also that it is not an error that the custard does not have sugar added to it. There is enough sweetness in the caramelised fig to balance the less sweet custard.

4 tablespoons caramelised fig jam

Butter for greasing your pots

2 eggs

200 ml full fat milk

Few drops vanilla essence

Preheat the oven to 140C

To cook this you will need individual ovenproof pots for the custard. Most crockery is oven proof provided you don’t heat or cool it too rapidly. I used some glass coffee cups to cook my custards.

Grease the pots with butter and then put a tablespoon of the fig jam in the bottom of each.

Break the eggs into a jug and whisk lightly to mix.

Add the milk and vanilla essence and whisk a bit more to mix this.

Pouring through a sieve to remove any solid bits in the egg, pour the custard into the pots.

Put the pots into a deep baking dish and add boiling water to the dish to come about 2cm up the pots. This prevents the custards getting too hot and burning on their bases.

Put in the oven and leave to cook for about an hour until the custards are just set.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool completely.

To serve slide a thin knife around the edge of the custard, put a small plate on top of the pot and invert the whole lot. You may have to give the custard and encouraging shake. If any of the jam stays in the pot, simply spoon neatly on top of the custard.

MINI CARDAMOM SHORTBREADS

100 grams plain flour

40 grams fine semolina

Quarter teaspoon ground cardamoms

30 grams sugar

100 grams butter

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix.

Cut the butter into small pieces into the flour mix and rub in.

Bring the mix together in a firm dough.

On a floured surface roll the dough out to just under a centimetre thick.

If you have a very small round cutter – ideally about 3cm diameter – then cut into small biscuits. Otherwise cut into small squares or lozenges.

Bake at 150C for about an hour until pale golden.

A Mid-Week Dinner

09 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Main Courses, Starters, Sweet Things

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PRAWNS WITH LEMON & GARLIC, SPINACH WITH PINE NUTS & RAISINS

RABO DE TORO SERVED WITH PLAIN BOILED POTATOES

CARAMELISED FIG CUSTARDS SERVED WITH CARDAMON SHORTBREAD BISCUITS

This didn’t seem like a complicated meal for mid-week when I cooked it the other week, but now that I am writing about it, there is quite a lot of work. I must have been in one of those Zen cooking moods.

Much of it is done in advance, which makes it feel less work. The oxtail stew is cooked the evening before and left to very slowly cool in the oven overnight, which lets it cook long and slow and so develop a rich flavour. I cooked enough stew so that there was enough not only for this meal, but also for making Fresh Pasta with Beef Ragout for my sisters the following weekend.

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I have jars of Caramelised Fig Jam, made from fruit from the farm last summer. So for the dessert, I only needed to mix an egg custard, put that in pots on top of the Fig Jam and then put the pots in the oven to cook and set.

But then I got into biscuit making mood. The custards are perfectly fine without the biscuits. But I had that yearning in my minds stomach for buttery, crunchy, sweetness with the gorgeous fragrance of cardamoms…..

IMG_1522

I am giving you the stew recipe today. You will get the starters and dessert tomorrow.

RABO DE TORO – OXTAIL STEW

Serves 6

6 pieces oxtail

2-3 tablespoons flour

salt and freshly ground black pepper

olive oil

4 cloves garlic – finely chopped

1 large onion – finely chopped

2 red peppers – cut into strips

2 large tomatoes – skinned and roughly chopped

half a bottle of full bodied red Spanish wine

1 clove

5allspice berries

Small piece of cinnamon bark

salt

freshly ground black pepper

Gremolata – finely chopped fresh garlic, flat leaved parsley and the finely grated zest of one lemon

Put the flour in a shallow dish and season very generously with salt and black pepper.

Heat 2-3 tablespoons of olive oil in a thick based casserole.

Coat the oxtail pieces in the seasoned flour and fry on a medium heat, turning each side until browned all over.

This may have to be done in two batches. The meat pieces will brown more easily if they are not crowded in the pan.

Add more oil as you go along if needed.

Remove the meat from the pan and put to one side.

Add the onions and garlic to the pan and cook for a couple of minutes.

Add the peppers and continue cooking for about ten minutes until the onions are slightly browned.

Add the tomatoes and cook for a further five minutes scraping any flour stuck to the base of the pan into the sauce as it is moistened.

Put the meat back in the pan.

Add the wine. It should just come up to the top of the meat.

Heat to a simmer.

Put the clove and allspice berries into a thick based dry pan and heat slowly for five minutes or so to toast and bring out the flavour.

Grind to a powder with a pestle and mortar.

Add this to the stew with the piece of cinnamon.

Cover the casserole and put in a low oven, you want the sauce to be showing an occasional bubble but no more. For my oven this is 120C.

Leave to cook for 6 hours. Turn the oven off and leave to slowly cool.

Reheat at 180C the next day to serve.

Serve with plain boiled potatoes and gremolata sprinkled on top.

 

 

Arroz Negro – Black Rice

21 Saturday Jun 2014

Posted by in Fish, Food for One, Main Courses

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IMG_1199

Continuing on the rice theme, here is my favourite seafood and rice dish. It is fairly simple to make and does not have many ingredients, but the flavour of the squid ink and seafood mixed with that of the chilli and onion makes for a rich tasting dish. I regularly cook it just for myself.

FOR 6
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion – finely chopped
1 red pepper – chopped into small squares
1 green pepper – chopped into small squares
Half a red chilli – finely chopped
500 grams squid
500 grams mussels
500 grams prawns
250 grams rice
500 ml fish stock
500-750 ml chicken stock
Salt and pepper

Let’s start by preparing the fish.

Remove the innards from the squid and carefully remove the ink sacks into a small bowl. Cut the tentacles from the innards and save discarding the rest.

With the ink sacs, you need to break them open to release the ink and press them with the back of a spoon to make sure that it is all out before discarding the sac. In some places it is possible to buy the ink frozen in little sachets which saves on the fiddle of extracting the ink.

Wash the squid bodies and tentacles and dry them on kitchen paper. Cut the bodies into thin circles. If the tentacles are small leave them whole, but if large cut them smaller.
Clean the mussels and steam them open.

A lot of cooks like to cook the mussels in the rice, but I find that there is often grit in the mussel shells and so prefer to open them separately and then sieve the liquid. Also some mussels are extremely salty, so if you have their liquor apart, you can taste it for saltiness before deciding how much to add to your dish.

If I am making this rice just for myself, I use ready cooked and shelled mussels that I buy frozen and keep in the freezer for these sort of mixed fish dishes that only require 5 or 6 mussels.

The prawns can be left in their shells to be opened at the table, but if you prefer for easier eating, they can be de-headed and peeled now.

Heat the oil in a large shallow pan and add the onions. Fry gently until translucent.

Add the peppers and chilli and keep cooking gently for five to ten minutes.

Add the squid and and continue frying gently for another five minutes.

Add the rice and stir well to coat with all the other ingredients in the pan. Fry for about five minutes.
Mix a little of the fish stock into the ink to dilute it and add it to the pan with the rest of the fish stock. Mix well.

Cover and leave to simmer for about five minutes. If it is starting to look dry add some of the chicken stock.
After another five minutes add the prawns if they are in their shells and the liquor from the mussels. Check the seasoning in the liquor in the pan and add salt and pepper as required. Add more chicken stock if needed.

Continue cooking until the rice is at the al dente stage – cooked but with firmness in the centre.

using unshelled prawns add at this stage and then a couple of minutes later add the mussels and let them warm through.

Let the rice rest for five to ten minutes.

Serve with Alioli and a tomato salad.

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