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Recipes with raw king prawns

7 recipes that use raw king prawns, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Gambas al ajillo, takes 15 minutes. It is most often cooked with garlic, sugar and egg.

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Okayama barazushi

Okayama families make a big shallow platter of barazushi for the autumn shrine festivals, Girls' Day in March and other celebrations, and it is sold in station lunch boxes all year. A local story says it began when a lord ordered people to eat only one side dish, so cooks hid everything in the rice instead. The seasoned rice is mixed with simmered vegetables and topped with seafood from the Seto Inland Sea. This version uses cooked prawns, gently simmered squid and egg threads, plus ready-made vinegared mackerel, which is cured but not cooked. Use very fresh, sushi-grade fish from a trusted fishmonger; not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Leave the mackerel out, or add extra prawns, to make it fully cooked. Chef's tip: fold the vinegar into the rice while it is hot and fan it as you go; the rice soaks up the seasoning and turns glossy instead of wet.

60 minRice & Grains
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Gambas al ajillo

Walk into a bar near Madrid's Plaza Mayor or Puerta del Sol and you will hear gambas al ajillo before you see them: peeled prawns still spitting in a small terracotta cazuela of olive oil, sliced garlic and dried chilli. They arrive at the table bubbling, with a basket of bread for mopping up the golden oil, which many people think is the best part. At home it takes ten minutes and works as a tapa for four or a quick supper for two. Chef's tip: pat the prawns completely dry with kitchen paper before they go in, so they sizzle in the oil instead of stewing in their own water.

15 minFishGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Moqueca baiana

Salvador's moqueca baiana is the richer, sunnier cousin of the capixaba one, and the contrast is worth knowing: where Espírito Santo uses only tomato, annatto and olive oil, Bahia adds coconut milk, sweet peppers and dendê, the orange-red palm oil that came to Bahia with enslaved West Africans and runs through its Afro-Brazilian cooking. The result is creamy, golden and fragrant with coriander. In Salvador it is a weekend lunch at the seafront restaurants and at home, served with white rice, a yellow farofa fried in dendê and pirão. Look for dendê (red palm oil) in Brazilian, African or Caribbean shops. Chef's tip: add the dendê near the end; its flavour is strong and fades with long cooking, so a little stirred in late goes much further.

45 minFishGluten freeBrazilian
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Har gow

No basket at a Guangzhou yum cha is judged more harshly than the har gow: a dim sum chef is said to prove themselves by folding ten or more pleats into each one. The wrapper is made from wheat starch and tapioca, so it steams clear and slightly chewy, showing the pink prawns inside; the filling is snappy, sweet and lightly seasoned with sesame and bamboo shoot. They take patience rather than special skill, and a batch made on a weekend morning feels like a trip to a teahouse. Serve them straight from the steamer with jasmine or pu'er tea and a little chilli oil on the side. Chef's tip: roll each wrapper only when you are ready to fill it, because the thin starch dough dries and cracks within minutes.

75 minSnacks & Starters
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Tom yum goong

Steaming bowls of this prawn soup land on almost every table in central Thailand, from riverside shophouses in Ayutthaya to family dinners in Bangkok, where it sits in the middle to be shared with rice and two or three other dishes. The broth is thin but loud: sour from lime, salty from fish sauce, hot from crushed bird's eye chillies, and perfumed by bruised lemongrass, galangal and torn makrut lime leaf, which flavour the soup but are left in the bowl. This is the clear style (nam sai) with a spoonful of roasted chilli paste for colour and a gentle sweetness; the creamy nam khon style adds evaporated milk, which we leave out to keep it dairy free. Serve it piping hot with plain jasmine rice. Chef's tip: simmer the prawn heads and shells for five minutes before anything else goes in, and the soup tastes of the sea rather than of water.

25 minSoupsGluten freeSpicy
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Pad thai with prawns

On Mahachai Road near Bangkok's Golden Mount, pad thai cooks work charcoal-fired woks late into the night, and their style is the model here: chewy rice sticks tossed with a dark, sweet-sour tamarind sauce, scrambled egg, cubes of firm tofu, sweet preserved radish, garlic chives and plump fresh prawns. It should taste tangy first, then sweet and salty, never like ketchup. Everyone finishes their own plate at the table with crushed peanuts, chilli flakes, a squeeze of lime and a handful of raw bean sprouts and chives for crunch, and children usually love it with the chilli left off. Chef's tip: make the tamarind sauce a day ahead; it keeps for a week in the fridge and the noodles then take ten minutes.

30 minPasta & Noodles
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Shrimp and grits

In the Lowcountry around Charleston, South Carolina, shrimp and grits started as a fisherman's breakfast and is now brunch on every restaurant menu in town. Stone-ground grits are simmered slowly until creamy and finished with sharp cheddar and butter, then crowned with prawns cooked fast in a smoky, lemony pan sauce with spring onions. Chef's tip: whisk the grits into the liquid a little at a time and keep stirring for the first five minutes; lumps form only at the start.

50 minFishGluten free
by KrazyBadal 0 views

Goes well with raw king prawns