Showing posts with label prawns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prawns. Show all posts

Thursday, November 12, 2015

Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet

Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet
Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet


Lance doesn’t like sorbet. In fact, when he saw me pouring this mango mix into the ice cream maker, we had a conversation a bit like this:



“Ooh, you’re making me ice cream! What flavour are you making?”

“Not ice cream, something different”

“What? Hang on, are you WASTING our mangoes making sorbet? You don’t love me!”



And yet, there I was, making sorbet for us as part of our date night dinner. Now, I see what you’re thinking  - maybe he’s right. Maybe if I know he doesn’t like sorbet but I’m still specifically making it for an important meal – then maybe I don’t love him. First, how dare you question my love! Secondly, remember the pie incident?
Yeah. And remember our Wills Domain Degustation? Lance loved the herby sorbet palate cleanser.

I would never serve Lance a sorbet for dessert. Nor would I serve him a nut milk ice cream, or coconut milk ice cream for dessert. This sorbet? Not a dessert. This sorbet is an entrĂ©e (or appetizer, for my American readers! Hi!) Riffing on the herby sorbet we both loved, I decided to make a more ‘savoury’ sorbet that would in essence be the sauce for a fun spicy and fruity prawn cocktail. Using some of our homegrown mangoes and jalapeno, I added some tamarind for a tart hit. Served with some cold prawns that are dusted with some smokey hot paprika and the traditional iceberg lettuce bed, it was quite the cute little dish. And a perfect date night/dinner party appetizer as everything can be made in advance. Just churn the sorbet right before you want to serve it.


Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet


Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet
Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet

Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet

2 cups water
5 tsp tamarind puree
¼ tsp pepper
½ tsp salt
2 jalapenos
3 mangoes, flesh removed
1 egg white
cooked, cooled prawns (6 or so per person)
iceberg lettuce, shredded to serve
hot smoked paprika, to serve

Finely mince the jalapenos and add the mangoes, water, tamarind puree, salt, pepper, jalapenos and egg white and blend until fully homogenised. Leave for 5 minutes to allow some of the air to leave the mixture, and then give one quick stir before pouring into your ice cream maker. Churn for 30-45 minutes, depending on your machine's instructions.

Place lettuce on your serving plate/bowl. Scoop a ball of sorbet on top of the lettuce, arrange the prawns artfully and dust with smoked paprika. Serve immediately.

Leftover sorbet can be tightly wrapped in the freezer for a week. Soften in fridge 30 minutes before serving like this again. Alternatively, blend up with a little tequila for a killer cocktail!

Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet
Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet
Feels Like Summer - Mango Tamarind Prawn Cocktail Sorbet

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa

Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa

Remember my badly photographed DIY Slider Bar party that my friend and I hosted last year? We had 4 different types of burgers, with a table full of salads and condiments so you could build your own set of sliders. And it was brilliant. One of the slider options we had that day were prawn burgers. And that same prawn patty is still my favourite non-beef burger. And it’s probably my most made burger at home. I’m not going to lie, this recipe is really, really similar to the KrabbyPatties recipe that I posted last year. But these prawn burgers are where it all started. These are my favourite burger patty. The sweetness of the prawn, the smokiness of the paprika. I love mango added into that flavour profile, but instead of a mango guacamole, I made a simple mango tomato salsa to go with it. Lance has been growing me some grape tomatoes and they are no good for slicing up into burgers, but make for a delicious condiment in them!

It was crazy hot the day I cooked these, so they were done outside on the BBQ. You do need to add a little oil to your cooking surface. I don’t always bother when BBQing, but prawns are practically devoid of fat, so it helps to make a nice crisp outer layer and stop it sticking. Something that’s not as big a deal when cooking beef or lamb patties.

Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa

Mango Tomato Salsa

1 small mango, diced
Half punnet grape tomatoes, diced
2 chipotle pepper, finely chopped
Pinch salt and pepper
Juice of one lime

Mix all ingredients together. Set aside for the flavours to meld while you cook your burgers.


 Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
 Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa

Prawn Burgers

(makes 6 patties)
500g prawns
1/2 cup panko breadcrumbs
1/2 cup coconut flour (or fine shredded coconut - unsweetened)
1 egg
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp basil
1tsp smoked paprika
to serve
6 buns (toasted, if desired)
mayo
salad ingredients
mango tomato salsa

Dice the prawns into small pieces and throw in a bowl. Mix the mustard, garlic, salt, black pepper and basil until all the prawn pieces are well coated. Mix through the egg to get everything wet, and finally add in the breadcrumbs and coconut.

Divide into 6 equal portions and, using clean hands, form into round patties and squish to flatten. Set aside in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Heat a pan or BBQ plate to medium high and lightly coat with oil. Cook each patty for around 5 minutes, or until golden. Flip over and cook for a further 3-5 minutes until cooked through.

Serve with Mango Tomato Salsa and your favourite burger ingredients.

Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa
Summer Eating - Prawn Burgers with Tomato Mango Salsa

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Sometimes, you have multiple things to celebrate in a short space of time. Like having an award winning Chocolate Beer Jam. Or having it confirm that your recipe will be included in a cookbook. Or having a birthday. And all of those things individually might require a toast…but together, they definitely do. And sometimes, you somehow are left with a half bottle of bubbles when such an occasion arises. I am a little funny about drinking bubbles after the day I open them. Even though we have an incredible re-corking stopper, it’s just something I don’t enjoy as much after the fact. And so I was left with a little champagne (in reality, sparkling wine, but I’m gonna be fancy and call it champagne) that I couldn’t bear to waste. Well, cooking with it seems like the best use!

I’d seen (and eaten) quite a few champagne cupcakes in the last few months. Seems like quite the trend in Perth at the moment! But I wanted dinner, not cupcakes!

My next thought went to my gin and crab pasta, and then to the good deal of seafood pastas with vodka sauces over the years and thought that a seafood pasta sauce was definitely the go. But, I wanted the flavour of the champagne to shine through. It’s not as strong a flavour as the gin, so I didn’t want a thick creamy sauce, so I went with a buttery base. I added some delicious Shark Bay Prawns, and some finely sliced yellow squash for a mellow, summery addition. All complimentary, but subtle flavours. And here’s the kicker. Vanilla. Adding a vanilla bean to the reducing champagne takes this from tasty to next level delicious. It adds a sweetness that you can’t quite put your finger on, but you’d immediately notice it’s absence. Trust me on this. Then you’ll probably want to open another bottle of bubbles to drink with the dish. And you might end up with a little leftover…

This is a very simple dish with very few ingredients, so it pays for them to be good quality. I recommend using fresh spaghetti if you can, and although my champagne was day old, it was still good champagne. You can use anything you would ordinarily drink. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but given the scope of sweetness and dryness you get in sparklings, make it something you enjoy drinking.

Oh, and the last note I will add is that this dish comes together really quickly once you start cooking. I’d say it’s maybe a 15 minute meal. So prep all your ingredients first, get your pasta water boiling (especially if you have dried pasta) and then begin cooking. I used salted butter as that’s what I had, so I needed less salt than you will if you use unsalted.

Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce


Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce 

1 ½ cups champagne (sparkling wine)
2 shallots, finely diced
3 small cloves garlic, minced
1 vanilla bean
125g butter, cubed.
Salt and pepper
500g fresh pasta
250g peeled prawns
4 yellow squash, very finely sliced
Chopped parsley to serve
Red chilli flakes (optional)
More champagne to drink with it!

Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil.

In a large sautee pan, pour in the champagne, shallots and garlic and a little pepper. Split the vanilla bean and scrape the seeds into the pan, then throw the pod in too. Bring to the boil over a medium heat and keep it simmering until it’s reduced by half. Add the butter, a few cubes at a time, and whisk well after each addition to blend into the sauce. Stir well for a further 1-2 minutes to thicken the sauce, then discard the vanilla pod and add the squash slices and prawns. Check for seasoning.

Put the fresh pasta into the boiling water.

Stir the prawns and squash into the sauce well, coating in the sauce and allowing to cook through. 2-3 minutes. At this point, your pasta should also be cooked, using tongs, pull the spaghetti into the sauce, allowing some (not too much) cooking water to come with it. Stir well to coat all the noodles in the sauce and blend the cooking liquid in.

Serve with some chopped parsley and some chilli flakes, if you’d like


Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce
Sparkling Meals - Prawn and Squash Spaghetti with Champagne Sauce

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza


Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza


Lance and I both got hit by the flu that was going around. It knocked us around quite a bit and in an attempt to kick it, I started amping up the health-promoting ingredients in all of our dishes. This on top of the lemon, honey and ginger teas we were drinking like they were going out of fashion. One Sunday we were both feeling sorry for ourselves, the sun was shining and I was a bit over the soups. So I made these cold-kicking cream cheese pizzas – full of garlic, ginger, chilli, fresh herbs and lemon and honey squeezed over the top. We sat out in the sun to get some vitamin D and shake off some of the germs and cobwebs from being in bed for a week. 

It felt a lot like the sitting at the pub and having a gourmet pizza that we were missing out on, and it perked us up enough to get back to work the next day.


You don’t need to be sick to enjoy these. But they’re easy enough to cook when you are. I think this is going to make a few appearances over Spring and Summer. Possibly with real, homemade pizza bases!



Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza



Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza


100g peeled raw prawns
4 lebanese loaves
250g Philadelphia cream cheese
2 bunches coriander
1 bunch parsley
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tsp red chilli, minced
1 tsp grated ginger
¼ tsp salt
Handful bean sprouts
1 tbsp capers
Handful rocket
Lemon wedges for serving



Preheat the oven to 170C


Throw your cream cheese, coriander, parsley, garlic cloves, chilli, salt and ginger in a food processor. Pulse until it’s all chopped up and evenly combined.


Spread over the Lebanese loaves, then distribute the prawns, capers and bean sprouts. Pop in the oven and cook for 20 minutes until the prawns are pink and the cheese is getting golden at the edges.


Serve with a handful of rocket on top, then drizzle over some honey and add lemon wedges.
Even better with a beer or crisp white wine


Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza
Get Well Soon - Herbed Cream Cheese and Prawn Pizza

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Skamp's Krabby Patties


Watching cartoons is a guilty pleasure of mine. Despite being 31. I love old kids cartoons. I love Disney movies. I love adult cartoons like Archer. I love Spongebob Squarepants. Here’s a photo of me meeting Spongebob and Patrick Starr back in 2011.
 
 
And me with Lego Spongebob in 2009.

 
So when we went for our annual crabbing trip and we caught our full quota this year and I was thinking of the different ways of cooking with the crab, I decided one dish would be Krabbie Patties (which I’m pretty sure are actually beef in the cartoon). This is just a slightly different take on the prawn burgers I made as part of my Tapas Sliders Night (seriously, need to do another one of those!) and as such, if you don’t have crab meat you can substitute it with much-easier-to-find prawn. One day, I will get around to posting that recipe. It’s delicious. And those I usually serve with a mango salsa. So this I served with a mango guacamole.

I served these with bread to make sandwiches/burgers (I didn’t have buns at home but a nice soft bun would’ve been better), and then the next night we had tacos with the leftovers. It made 6 patties.

 

Skamp’s Krabby Patties
2/3 cup panko breadcrumbs
¼ cup cornmeal
½ tsp smokey paprika
1 large clove garlic
1 ½ cups crab meat
2 eggs
2 tsp wholeseed mustard
1 sprig parsley
Salt and pepper (about 6-8 grinds of each)

Mango Guacamole
Avocado
Mango
Jalapeno
Salt & pepper
Juice from one lime

For the patties, put the eggs, mustard, garlic, paprika, parsley and salt and pepper into a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the cornmeal and panko and stir through. Gently fold through the crab meat, so you don’t break the pieces up too much. If the consistency is too wet, add a little more panko. Wet your hands, then form patties about palm size. Put on a plate and leave to ‘set’ for about 15 minutes. Enough time to make the guacamole.

Peel and de-seed the avocado, add to a heavy bowl with salt and pepper and lime, then mash with a fork to make as smooth or chunky as you like. Diced the mango and slice the jalapeno (remove the seeds/membranes if you don’t want it too hot) and stir through. Set aside.

Heat a frypan to medium high heat and add a thin layer of rice bran oil or other neutral oil with a  high smoke point. Allow the oil to heat, then carefully slide a few of the patties into the hot oil (don’t overcrowd the pan). Cook until golden, about 5 minutes, then flip and cook for another 5 minutes. Drain on paper towels and cover to keep warm while you do the next patties.
 
Serve with buns/bread of your choice, salady ingredients and the mango guacamole.