BBQ Chermoula Prawns w/ Tropical Salsa

Opps. It may have been a week or two since I last posted. Blame my legs, portfolios, and the fact that it's coming up to the last two weeks of school for the year. Busy busy times.

Anyway. Yesterday I was craving something prawny... yet summery. And I came across the perfect recipe on the Cuisine website. (My go to, when I know I'm craving something, and I know the main ingredient...)

Barbecued Chermoula Prawns with Tropical Salsa.
SERIOUSLY GOOD.

I served mine with a bit of grilled (on the bbq!!!! - it's new, still a novelty - old one rusted into pieces) bread rubbed with a garlic clove.

Ingredients:

Prawns

1/4 cup firmly packed parsley
3 table spoons firmly packed coriander
3 cloves of garlic, peeled
3/4 teaspoon sweet smoked Spanish paprika
2 teaspoons freshly ground cumin
2 teaspoons freshly ground coriander
1/4 teaspoons cayenne (I've run out, so I used cajun spice mix.... becuase it was the closest thing I had)

1 table spoon lemon juice.

2 table spoons olive oil, plus extra for cooking

30 prawns (I used 6 large king prawns.... and could have fit more in the amount of marinade, but had no reason to do so.) - heads and shells removed, tails left on

sea salt
10 - 15 lime wedges for serving (not strictly needed - I didn't have any... so didn't use any.)

Salsa

1/2 ripe pineapople, peeled, decored, sliced and diced
1/2 red pepper, diced
1/2 yellow pepper, diced
1/2 red onion, diced
1/2 red chilli, finely diced (didn't have, so didn't use)
1/2 cup of sliced mint leaves (again, didn't have... but I imagine it's be a nice addition)
3 table spoons of firmly packed sliced coriander

Method:

 Ok... so basically, you chuck all the marinade ingredients (which is everything in the prawns list, except well.. the prawns) into a food processer... and blend. And it creates this gorgeously fragrant paste. Then... chuck the prawns in. Look at my prawns!!!!!

 Toss them in the marinade/paste, and leave them to sit while you make the salsa.

Umm.... for the salsa, chop everything and mix it together. I know, it's hard.

And now... it's time to barbeque!!!! Wipe/spray some olive oil onto your grill... it's fun to watch the flames come shooting up when you spray on oil.... heh.

Grill your prawns... they'll take a minute or two on each side. Longer if they're bigger. They will smell fantastic. As in, my mouth is watering, and it's the day after.

Enjoy! I loved this recipe, and I know my sister (who came home at 4.30 this morning and ate my leftovers) also enjoyed it. It's the taste of summer, fresh from the sea, sweet like all the tropical fruit at this time of year, and smokey and charred from the grill. 

Sesame Prawn Toast

Hands up if you used to love those little squares of Prawn Toast that came in the frozen boxes of dim sum, spring rolls and well... prawn toast?
Me me me!!! It was always the favourite in the family unfortunatly, so we only ever got a tiny amount... but everytime I see it on the menu at a Chinese restaurant I get it... and tonight, I attempted to make it myself. The result wasn't bad... not identical, but not bad.

(Please do ignore 1. my awesome yet vaguely humiliating iBite t-shirt, and 2. the crappiness of the photo, yet again.)

Makes

24 ( I only used 160 grams of prawns, and had to add panko bread crumbs to thicken the mixture a bit.. and it made enough to cover 4 slices of bread. Enough for my sister and I for dinner)

Ingredients

• 6 slices day-old white bread
• 500g green prawns, peeled, deveined
• 2 green onions, chopped
• 2cm piece ginger, peeled, grated
• 1 eggwhite
• 1 teaspoon cornflour
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
• 1/3 cup sesame seeds
• peanut oil, for frying

Method

1. Preheat oven to 150°C. Remove bread crusts. Cut each slice into 4 triangles.
2. Pat prawns dry with paper towel. Place in a food processor with onion, ginger, eggwhite, cornflour, soy sauce and salt and white pepper. Process until smooth.
3. Spread 2 teaspoons prawn mixture over each bread triangle. Sprinkle sesame seeds onto a plate. Dip bread, prawn side down, into sesame seeds.
4. Pour oil into a wok until one-third full. Heat until a small piece of bread dropped into oil sizzles. Cook toasts, in batches, prawn side down, for 1 minute. Turn and cook for a further 15 to 30 seconds or until golden. Remove to a wire rack over a baking tray. Keep warm in oven while cooking remaining prawn toasts.

Verdict? Yummy. Not exactly right..... but not bad.

Penne with Tomato Butter and Prawns

Yet again, I will apologise for the photo quality. My phone and camera are still downstairs.... and I haven't been down there since this morning, as I've been camped out on the couch all ay marking portfolio samples and the sort.
I kind of made up tonights dinner - it's actually a combination of two dishes.

Ingredients: ( for 1 serving)
half a cup of Penne (or however much you like to eat)
half a cup of prawns - I used cooked frozen prawns
1 garlic clove
a few slices of red chilli
1 fresh tomato
10 - 15 grams of butter
a teaspoon of tomato pasta
a scattering of basil leaves
parmesan to top

Method:

Star of by putting a pot of salted water on to boil.
On to the tomato butter - I used a stick blender to make mine, because my butter was still semi frozen... but in the past I've used a hand held mixer. Pop the butter and tomato pasta into a bowl and whizz up. Season with salt and pepper, and set aside.

Crush garlic and dice up chilli finely, and put in a frying pan with a dash of oil. Throw in prawns - the great thing about frozen prawns is that you can put them in from frozen - to thaw and heat if they're already cooked, or just to thaw and cook if they're raw. Put in half your basil leaves.

When your pasta is done, don't drain and throw away the water!!!! When I'm cooking for one, I don't bother to even use a strainer, I just use a slotted spoon. So spoon it into the frying pan with the prawns - it's okay, infact it's good, if a little pasta water comes with the pasta. Chuck in the tomato butter and stir through - heat on low.

Dice up the tomato and chuck in.... Dish up, scatter left over basil leaves and grate parmesan over the top.
Highly fattening, not much nutritional value... but damn comforting after a long day of school work.

Fettuccine with Roasted Red Pepper and Prawns

I'm not going to lie. I totally snagged this recipe from the Cuisine magazine website. (The wonderous archive of recipes that it is...)
Harking back to the glorious weekend of sun that we just had in Auckland........
I felt like a summery pasta dish, so searched site for 'pasta' in the Spring/Summer section, and came across this yummy treat.
I'm not going to just copy and paste the recipe here... that's not fair. But I am going to direct you over there to it.
Fettuccine with Roasted Red Pepper and Prawns

I changed the recipe a little bit - I swapped out Fettuccine for a smaller, cylindrical pasta because I had not fettuccine.... and I added in the leftovers of a tin of tomatoes I had in the fridge. It was probaby around two tomatoes.

Basically, it involvs roasting the red pepper - I charred mine on the BBQ outside, turning occasionally until it was blackened, and then popped it in a plastic bag, tied up, until the skin loosened enough to jsut rub off with a paper towel.

Toss some prawns (it says raw, but I had some frozen cooked, so after thawing I just chucked them in the pan for less time than cooking from raw) with the garlic in a pan.
Chop up the pepper and toss in the pan - (I also added in a roasted red pepper and red onion paste that I made a few weeks ago)... heat... stir... stir.... put in basil and parsley.... stir.... put in cream.....

Meanwhile, cook pasta....

Mix.... shave parmesan over, chuck some yummy baby basil leaves on top, and enjoy.

-Cate