Tropical Garlic Prawns

Eating prawns and seafood are synonymous with living in North Queensland, and the further North you travel the more it becomes the preferred option for a delicious meal. I think that when it comes to eating seafood, often freshly cooked, chilled,  and unadorned is best, however garlic prawns is such a classic and delicious way of cooking green prawns. I have adapted this recipe from one I found on my friend Julia's blog from Tropigal Cooks. We both love seafood so I knew this would be a good recipe. This one was originally for 600g of prawn meat, so I have just slightly increased the quantities to suit 1kg of green prawns. This was enough for three of us, so to serve four people you could safely increase the quantity of prawns by another 400g. There will still be enough delicious garlic wine sauce for everyone and plenty of prawns.

I had these gems in my freezer and always intended to make garlic prawns from them, and when I knew we would be driving to Cairns I decided to bring them up in our car fridge freezer and cook this dish for our daughter Shannon as well. I would never freeze cooked prawns because they are never the same again and become mushy, however it is quite safe to freeze green prawns and not impair the quality of them, as long as they are thawed out in the fridge. This is a great recipe as every part of the prawn is used imparting so much flavour. The shells and heads are poached in wine to create a beautifully flavoured base and stock, which combined with the cream and garlic creates a rich and delicious garlicky wine sauce. Mr. HRK and Shannon both loved this dish so I think it will now become part of my regular cooking repertoire. Initially cooking up the shells and prawn heads is a little bit more work than some of the other recipes out there, however the result is well worth it.

I am also very careful when buying fresh prawns, green or cooked,  to look at the labels in the seafood distributors or the supermarket and only buy Australian Wild caught if possible. Sometimes the only ones  available are from the prawn hatcheries and that is fine if they are local hatcheries, but the wild caught prawns are far superior in flavor and quality.

So easy and quick to make. Thanks Jules.

Ingredients:

Serves 3-4 people

1 kg raw green prawns (peeled and the shells and heads reserved) (1400 grams will be a good quantity for 4 people)
1 1/4 cup white wine
50g butter
1 tablespoon garlic infused olive oil
5 cloves garlic
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
300ml cooking cream
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 cup rice or spaghettini to serve (I prefer rice)

Let's cook:-

1. Peel the prawns, remove the heads, and place the green prawn meat back in the fridge in a covered dish. Place the prawn shells and heads, the wine and a cup of water into a saucepan over a medium heat and poach until the liquid reduces by half. Strain through a fine colander and reserve the liquid. You will need about 1 cup of this stock.
2. Discard the shells and heads.
3. Melt the butter and olive oil in a large frying pan over a medium high heat.
4. Add the garlic and the prawn meat and cook, stirring for 2 minutes until prawns start to turn pink.
5. Add the mustard, cream and the reserved prawn stock and cook for 2 minutes.
6. At this point if you think you have too much sauce, remove the prawns to a dish and keep warm, and simmer down the sauce gently for about 10 minutes. Removing the prawns stops them from becoming tough. Add the prawns back into the sauce.
7. Stir through herbs (I prefer parsley) and and toss to combine. Add the cooked pasta if you are using pasta instead of rice. Serve the prawns with the rice.
8. Serve in bowls with grated fresh Parmesan. (I didn't have any Parmesan this time and honestly it wasn't missed.)

Bon appetit and enjoy your prawns!

Thanks for visiting,

Best regards

Pauline.