Our resident chef Mark Hix on what to do with all those extra prawns you’ve got lying around
As a kid I used to fish for prawns in the autumn and winter months off the end of the pier in West Bay with drop nets. Occasionally it would be quite productive, but more often than not I would barely get enough for a prawn cocktail. Commercial prawn fishermen are hard to find down in Dorset but a couple of years back a local man called Tax started getting us good quantities of delicious local prawns, more than we could use at my fish restaurant in Lyme Regis in fact, so we ship them up to London.
The local prawns down there are pretty small, but full of flavour and a great size to deep fry in their shells and scatter with sea salt so you can eat the whole thing, head and all. Some people get a bit squeamish but the flavour and texture are great. We serve them plain – steamed with mayonnaise – and when the customer thinks they have finished, we deep fry the heads and shells and send them out for a second round.
The season lasts just a few months from now, so make the most of them while you can.
Prawn and grapefruit ceviche recipe
Serves 4. (Don’t throw away the shells, use them to make a stock or a soup.)
Ingredients
- 40 or so raw, very fresh prawns, peeled
- 1 grapefruit, peeled, segmented and the segments cut into 4-5 pieces (reserve all of the juice)
- 1 medium red or green chilli, finely chopped, seeds and all
- A handful of coriander, chopped
- 1tbs extra virgin olive oil
- Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
Put all of the ingredients into a bowl, season, mix well and leave to stand for 5 minutes then spoon onto serving plates.