Prawns were, to me, quite a luxurious item that I thought I couldn’t afford to eat regularly. Sainsbury’s seems to be selling a bag of frozen raw king prawns for £3.99 – but it’s a measly bag of 200g! But a couple weekends ago, I paid a visit to my closest Chinese market, Hoo Hing, and found 900g bags of similar prawns going for a little over a fiver. Oh, and upon purchase of that bag of prawns, I received a free gift of a very large tub of e-men (?) noodles. Score!

My first thought was to this prawn dish I’ve seen featured on many food posts on New Orleans. Sometimes served on a plate, sometimes stuffed inside a po-boy sandwich, they always looked delectable. Despite their name, the prawns aren’t actually barbecued.

New Orleans Style Barbecued Prawns

New Orleans Style Barbecued Prawns
adapted from The Pioneer Woman Cooks.
serves 2.

400g raw prawns, in their shells
3-4 tbsps Worcestershire sauce
juice of 1/2 a lemon
4 tbsps butter
a good drizzle of extra virgin olive oil
Tabasco to taste
lots of freshly ground black pepper
salt

This recipe couldn’t be simpler. Preheat your grill (broiler in North America) to about 180 degrees Celsius. Take a baking dish that’ll just about accommodate all your prawns in a single layer, though it doesn’t matter too much if a few overlap each other. I used frozen raw prawns and defrosted them and removed their heads beforehand. Head removal isn’t strictly necessary – and you could even remove all their shells if you’re so inclined but peeling them and having the juices drip all down your hands is half the fun.

Prawn Prep

Scatter the rest of the ingredients on top of the prawns and then grill in the oven, turning the prawns over once, for about 10 minutes or until the prawns are cooked. This can all be cooked in a pan on the stovetop if you prefer.

Serve with lots of white bread to soak up all the buttery, olive oily juices that will accumulate at the bottom. Another idea would be to cook shrimp or prawns off the shell and then stuffing them into a long bread roll to create a barbecue shrimp po boy.