Fifteen Minutes From Cold Pan To Table
When I was a boy in Guadeloupe, prawns did not come from a shop. They came from the river.
Up in Basse-Terre the water runs down off the mountain, cold and fast and clear, and in it live the ouassous. Big freshwater prawns, long blue claws on them, sitting under the stones like they own the place. My brothers and I went up on a Saturday with a bucket and no plan. You turn a stone over, you wait for the water to clear, and then you are quick or you are not. Mostly we were not. We came home wet to the shoulders with six prawns between the four of us, and my mother looked in the bucket and laughed at us.
Then she cooked them, and she did almost nothing to them. A pan on the fire, oil, garlic sliced thin, the prawns in for the time it takes to say a prayer, then off the heat with cive and parsley and a squeeze of lime. Table laid, everybody sat, done before my hair had dried.
She used to tell me, the prawn is already perfect. Your job is not to improve it. Your job is to not ruin it.
I will tell you a secret about garlic prawns. Almost everybody ruins them, and in the same two ways. They cook them too long, so a sweet springy prawn turns into a little rubber comma. And they burn the garlic, because they throw it in at high heat with the prawns, and by the time the prawns are done the garlic is bitter and black at the edges.
So we do it my mother’s way. Prawns first, garlic after, herbs last and off the heat. Fifteen minutes, one pan.
Recipe at a glance
- Cuisine: French Caribbean (Guadeloupe)
- Prep: 5 minutes • Cook: 10 minutes • Total: 15 minutes
- Serves: 4
- Featured sauce: Fresh Herbal Sauce
- Heat level: 0/10, no chilli at all, just herbs and garlic
- Diet: Dairy free, pescatarian
What you’ll need
Buy raw prawns, not the pink cooked ones. This matters more than anything else on the list. Cooked prawns have had their one chance at the heat already, and a hot pan can only take them backwards. Raw king prawns are grey and slightly translucent, and they turn pink in front of you. That colour change is your timer.
Peeled and deveined saves you five minutes on a weeknight and I am not going to pretend otherwise. Frozen is fine, often better than the “fresh” ones on the counter that were frozen anyway. Just thaw them properly and dry them well.
- 600g raw king prawns, peeled and deveined, tails on if you like
- 6 fat cloves of garlic, sliced thin (not crushed)
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 4 tbsp Fresh Herbal Sauce
- 4 spring onions, sliced thin (this is our cive back home)
- A small handful of flat-leaf parsley, roughly chopped
- 1 lime, halved
- 1 tsp sea salt flakes
- Black pepper, a good few turns
To serve: plain rice, or a loaf of bread you do not mind tearing with your hands.
How I make it
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Tip the prawns onto kitchen paper and dry them properly, another sheet pressed on top. Wet prawns will not sear, they sit in their own water and steam themselves grey. Thirty seconds of drying is the best thirty seconds in this recipe.
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Season them with the salt and a good grind of pepper. Leave them on the paper while you do the garlic.
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Slice the garlic thin, across the clove. Do not crush it and do not use the press. Crushed garlic burns far faster. Sliced garlic gives you sweet golden coins that you fish out and eat when nobody is looking.
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Put your biggest frying pan on a high heat with 2 tbsp of the oil. Wait until it is properly hot and just starting to shimmer. A shy pan is the enemy of a good prawn.
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Lay the prawns in one layer with a little space around each one, in two batches if you need to, because a crowded pan is a steamy pan. Now leave them alone. Ninety seconds. Do not stir, do not lift one up to look.
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Turn them over. Another minute, ninety seconds if they are very big. The moment the second side goes pink and the prawn curls into a loose C, they are done. Get them out onto a plate straight away.
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Turn the heat right down to low. Add the last tablespoon of oil and the garlic to the same pan, prawn juices and all. Thirty to forty seconds until it smells sweet and goes the colour of pale straw. Not brown. Brown is bitter and there is no coming back from it.
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Take the pan off the heat completely. This is the important bit. Off the heat.
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Put the prawns back in with any juice from the plate, add the spring onions, and stir in the Fresh Herbal Sauce. Turn everything over two or three times so every prawn gets a coat of green.
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Squeeze over half the lime, scatter the parsley, turn again, and let it settle for a minute in the warm pan.
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Take it straight to the table with the other lime half cut into wedges.
That is it. Cold pan to table in fifteen minutes, and most of those you spent standing still.
The role of Fresh Herbal Sauce in this dish
Here is why the sauce goes in off the heat, and why it is Fresh Herbal Sauce and not one of the others.
Herbs are volatile. What you love in parsley and thyme and cive is the smell, and smell is the first thing to leave over a flame. Cook a green herb sauce hard and you get a dull khaki paste that tastes vaguely of grass. Stir it into a pan that is hot but off the heat, and the residual warmth is just enough to loosen it and let it cling to the prawns, not enough to cook the life out of it. The smell comes up at you as you carry the pan across the kitchen. That is the moment.
Fresh Herbal Sauce has no chilli in it at all, and for once that is exactly the point. A sweet river prawn does not need to be shouted at. It needs garlic, green, salt and acid, then it needs leaving alone. The sauce brings the green and the salt, the pan brings the garlic, the lime brings the acid, and the prawn brings the sweetness. Four things, each doing one job.
It is vegan in the jar, and it is the only thing in this pan that did not come from the fishmonger or the greengrocer.
Tips from my kitchen
Dry prawns, hot pan, short time. If you remember nothing else, remember those three. Everything else in this recipe is decoration.
Do not salt the prawns an hour ahead. Salt pulls water out. Season them just before they go in the pan, or you undo all your drying work.
Two batches beats one crowded pan, every time. It feels slower. It is not, because a crowded pan takes twice as long to colour anything and gives you grey prawns at the end of it.
Keep the tails on if you are eating with your hands. They are a handle, and there is a lot of flavour in the shell that leaks into the oil. If you are serving this over rice with a fork, take them off.
Save the pan. Whatever green garlicky oil is left after the prawns are gone, do not wash it away. Tear the bread and wipe the pan. In my family that was the best bit and there was fighting over it.
What to serve it with
Plain white rice is what we ate at home and it is still the right answer. The rice takes the green oil, and that is half the pleasure of the plate.
Bread is the other way. A baguette or a good sourdough, torn not sliced, everybody going into the pan themselves. This is the version for a Friday when you cannot be bothered with plates. On the side, a sharp tomato and cucumber salad, or fried plantain if you want it to feel like home.
If you do want heat with your prawns, do not put chilli in the pan. Put a small dish of Caribbean Hot Sauce on the table and let each person decide for themselves. The ones who want fire get it, and the prawns still taste of prawns. To try the milder sauces side by side first, the Fruity and Herb Discovery Trio is the gentle way in.
FAQ
Can I use frozen prawns for garlic prawns?
Yes, and I do it all the time. Thaw them overnight in the fridge if you can, or in a bowl of cold water for twenty minutes if you cannot. What you must not do is put them in the pan half frozen, because all that ice turns to water and you have boiled prawns in a frying pan. Thaw them fully, then dry them like you mean it.
How do I know when prawns are cooked?
Watch the shape more than the clock. A raw prawn is almost straight. As it cooks it relaxes into a loose C, and that is the moment to take it out. If it pulls itself into a tight O it has gone too far and it will be chewy. The colour helps too, grey and see-through to pink and solid, but the curl is the honest signal.
Can I make this with a different Full Feast sauce?
You can. Exotic Caribbean Sauce makes a sweeter, fruitier version that is lovely with prawns and a bit of pineapple in the pan. Caribbean Hot Sauce turns it into a proper spicy plate, though I would use only two tablespoons rather than four. But the herb sauce is the one that lets the prawn stay the star, so start there.
Is this recipe gluten free?
The prawns, the garlic and the oil are. We do not make a gluten free claim on the jars, so if you are cooking for a coeliac guest read the label on the one in your hand, and choose rice or a gluten free loaf to go alongside. There is more on ingredients over on our FAQ page.
Can I cook the prawns and reheat them later?
I would rather you did not. Prawns are one of the few things that genuinely do not survive a second heating, they tighten up and go rubbery. If you have leftovers, eat them cold the next day in a salad or on toast, and they are very good like that. Better still, cook the amount you are going to eat, because it only takes fifteen minutes anyway.
Final word from me
This is the recipe I make when I have got home late and the fridge is nearly empty and I still want to eat something that tastes like it came from somewhere. It has never let me down. Fifteen minutes, one pan, and a smell in the kitchen that pulls everybody out of their rooms.
Get the prawns dry, get the pan hot, and take them out before you think you should. Then let the herbs do the rest.
Cook it once and you will not need to read this again.
JP
