Starter · 15 minutes · Serves 2
Raw prawns with Bright Pepper and lemon
This is barely a recipe: peel, lay out, dress. With prawns this fresh, cooking would only take something away. Red prawns are sweet raw, and the flesh is soft, almost creamy.
The dressing is olive oil and lemon, with Bright Pepper scattered over. The blend carries lemon and orange peel, black and white pepper and a little mint, so it does the work of several seasonings at once, and a few leaves of flat-leaf parsley are all the green the plate needs.
Only make this with prawns sold for eating raw, and very fresh: ask the fishmonger. Keep them cold until they go on the plate, and add the lemon at the last moment, because the acid starts to turn the flesh firm and opaque within minutes.
- Serves
- 2
- Time
- 15 minutes
Ingredients
- 10 to 12 very fresh raw red prawns, sold for eating raw, about 300 g
- 3 tbsp good olive oil
- ½ lemon
- 1 tsp Bright Pepper
- A few leaves of flat-leaf parsley
- Flake salt, only if it needs it
Method
- Put the plates in the fridge to chill, and keep the prawns there until you are ready.
- Twist off the heads and peel away the shells. Leave the last section of tail on if you like.
- Run a small knife along the back of each prawn and lift out the dark thread, if there is one.
- Lay the prawns on the cold plates in a single layer, curled against each other.
- Pour over the oil so they sit in a shallow pool, then squeeze over the lemon.
- Scatter the Bright Pepper evenly over the top and finish with the parsley, a few leaves chopped and a sprig left whole.
- Taste one before you salt, because the blend already has some. Eat straight away.