If you love amazing seafood dishes paired with great wines, here’s something you can try at home. This charcoal grilled prawn recipe, courtesy of Chef Pepe from BAM! Tapas-Sake Bar in Singapore, has enough twists and turns to keep things interesting!
Charcoal-grilled prawns with soused brioche, apple and seaweed
(serves 4)
Ingredients:
* 16 live or very fresh tiger prawns
* 1 Granny Smith apple
* concentrated lobster stock (Pro tip: make fresh stock using prawn heads, onion, carrot, leeks, fennel, brandy, white wine and butter)
* brioche or two-day-old loaf of white bread
* 2 tomatoes
* 3 cloves garlic
* small handful of almonds
* small handful of hazelnuts
* extra virgin olive oil
* hazelnut oil
* smoked paprika
* espelette pepper (a type of chilli)
* sherry vinegar
* best-quality balsamic vinegar
* salt-preserved seaweed (e.g., kombu, wakame, sea lettuce)
* lemon juice
* tempura flour
Method:
* Cut bread or brioche into cubes, season with olive oil and salt, and bake in the oven to create big croutons.
* Remove prawn heads and peel tails, leaving the last piece of shell intact. Remove intestines. Retain the prawn legs from near the head by pulling them off carefully.
Romesco sauce:
* Place tomatoes, garlic cloves, almonds and hazelnuts into the oven and bake at 160C. Remove nuts out once they turn golden brown but leave the tomato and garlic until soft and cooked through.
* Discard peels from tomato and garlic, and blend remaining pulp together with the cooked nuts, seasoning with salt, sugar, espelette pepper, smoked paprika, olive oil and hazelnut oil. Add some acidity using sherry vinegar.
Seaweed and apple salad:
* De-salt seaweed slightly by soaking in water briefly.
* Peel and cut the apple in small flat dices, and preserve in chilled water with a drop of lemon juice to avoid oxidation.
To finish:
* Submerge the bread/brioche cubes in the thick, hot lobster stock until fully soaked. * Pan-sear prawns (in the BAM! kitchen, we use a charcoal oven to grill them)
* Coat retained prawn legs in tempura flour and deep fry at 180C. When golden brown, remove from oil and season with salt.
* Combine seaweed and apple and season with oil and lemon juice.
To plate: Place the charcoal grilled prawns on top of soused brioche/ bread then add the romesco sauce, apple and seaweed at the side with some drops of thick balsamic vinegar. Let your creativity run wild!
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