Prawn Cocktail with fresh herb gremolata

If you’re a seafood enthusiast looking for a tasty and refreshing appetizer, then you’ll love our Prawn Cocktail with fresh herb gremolata!

This dish takes the classic prawn cocktail and elevates it to new heights with the addition of a vibrant herb gremolata, made with freshly chopped herbs and zesty citrus. Recipe compliments of Homegrown Tastes South Africa.

Ingredients

For the poaching liquid

• 3 shallots, quartered
• 500ml fish stock
• 1 tablespoon peppercorns
• Bouquet Garni
• 300g uncooked and peeled prawns

For the sauce

• 1/4 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup tomato sauce
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons Spicy Harissa Red Pepper Paste

For the prawn garnish

• 4 tiger prawns

For the fresh herb gremolata

• 20g fresh flat leaf parsley
• 10g mint
• 10 gram coriander
• Zest of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Salt & Pepper, to season

To garnish/serve

• Parsley oil, in a pipette to serve
• Spring onion
• Rocket Leaves

Method

1. To prepare the prawns, place all the ingredients into a pot and bring to the boil, add in your prawns until cooked and then remove from the poaching liquid. To this liquid add your tiger prawns and allow to cook. Be careful not to overcook.
2. To make the sauce mix together all the ingredients and season to taste.
3. For the Gremolata, chop together all the ingredients and season to taste.
4. When the tiger prawns are cooked, remove from the poaching liquid and pan-fry.
5. Chop the prawn meat until, but keep chunky, toss into the sauce and set aside.
6. To assemble the prawn cocktail, place rocket at the bottom of a martini glass, follow that with the prawn sauce mix.
7. Top with fresh Gremolata and finish with the fried prawn, spring onion and parsley oil pipette.

Recipe notes

Bouquet Garni 
– To make a bouquet garni at home, simply use kitchen string and muslin/cheese cloth and tie together black peppercorns, bay leaf, parsley, thyme and any other fresh herbs and use this to flavour poaching liquids like in this recipe, soups, curries, stews, stocks or even rice/couscous etc.

Gremolata (use the stalks)
– Use other citrus, such as lime or orange to give the Gremolata a different flavour. The stalks of most herbs like mint & coriander have most of the flavour chop them into your Gremolata to pack a punch of flavour.

Spring Onion
– Thinly slicing spring onion and placing into an ice bath will create beautiful garnish for a dish like this, it can also be used on a variety of other dishes.

Herb Oils
– You can easily create herb oils at home, for this one simply blanch parsley, and blend together with olive oil, pass it through a muslin cloth and use as desired.