Crunchy Butter Prawn

This Butter prawn dish is packed with sweet, spicy, tangy asian flavours and is crispy and crunchy.  It takes about 20 minutes to make from scratch and can be made with either fresh or frozen prawns. Its a great appetizer, and is amazing tossed through with a simple garden salad.

Recipe Highlights

• Its sweet, salty and spicy and it will get your tastebuds dancing
• There's plenty of texture and crunch with hints of coconut
• Its rich and satisfying with bags of flavour
• The recipe made "as-is" is a medium level of spice
• Its easy to adjust the level of spiciness up or down
• Eat it on its own as an appetizer or toss through with your favouite salad or even a bag of prepared salad mix from the supermarket!
• Make it in under 20 minutes
• Make it with fresh or frozen prawns
• Its a great dish for special occasions or dinner parties if served on its own. This recipe serves 4 as an appetizer.
• Its made all in one pan. No marinating required.

To create the flavour, a combination of crushed garlic, grated ginger, fresh finely diced red chilli, lemon zest, granulated sweetener (eg: stevia or monkfruit), soy sauce and salt.  This is what creates that sweet and salty flavour.

The crisp and crunch is achieved by toasting off desiccated coconut along with panko breadcrumbs.  It gives a rough texture and creates lots of little extra crumb pieces (or "floss") that are one of the best parts.  Don’t thrown these away!

Main Ingredients

I also used shredded coconut flakes and panko breadcrumbs for extra crunch.

Ingredient Notes

• Frozen Prawns: If using Frozen Prawns, put them into a bowl, covered with plastic wrap and let them defrost in the fridge.  Drain all the excess moisture off.  Remove the outer shells and intestinal tract (leaving the tail on)
• Fresh Prawns: If using Fresh Prawns, remove the outer shells and intestinal tract (leaving the tail on)
• Butter: Any butter will do. Avoid using margerine as it doesn;t have the same flavour.
• Soy: I use regular soy sauce, however you coudl use Light Soy or Tamari which I've also tried. Avoid using dark soy sauce as it would be too heavy.
• Granulated Sweetener: any type of granulated sweetener like monkfruit or stevia will work. Alternatively you could use honey.
• Chilli Flakes: Dried red chilli flakes work well and provide good heat intensity, however fresh chillies could also be used. If using fresh chilli, make sure to remove the seeds to moderate the level of heat.
• Ginger and Garlic: I use freshly grated ginger and freshly minced garlic since these are prominent flavours, however feel free to use bottled ginger and garlic. You may need to use a little extra from the jar to get the same amount of punchy flavour
• Salt: this helps to bring out all the other flavours and adds seasoning to the dish.
• Shredded Coconut: these are great lightly toasted in the oven and are used at the end to toss through the prawns . Avoid using desicated coconut as its too fine and tends to go soggy rather than provide texture.
• Panko Breadcrumbs: these provide a secondary textural element and can also be lightly toasted with the shredded coconut flakes. Or you can skip the toasting as they are generally quite firm already.

How To Make

1. Toast coconut flakes and Panko: Heat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F and toast the coconut and panko crumbs for 10 minutes, then set aside
2. Cook Prawns: Add coconut oil to a wok on high heat, and fry off the prawns until they are just cooked, then remove from wok. Drain on paper towel if necessary to remove excel oil.

3. Heat and Cook Seasonings: In a new clean pan, add the just cooked prawns, shallots or spring onions, butter, cooked coconut, panko garlic, ginger, chilli, sweetener, soy sauce, and salt.
4. Combine: Toss through for 2 minutes until fragrant and serve immediately

Recipe Tips for Cooking Prawns

• The oil should be hot before you put the prawns in the pot
• The oil will probably spit a little whilst the prawns are cooking
• Use a large mesh spoon to put in and remove prawns
• Lightly cook prawns in batches
• As they are removed from the oil, let them rest on a wire cooling rack on top of paper towel/absorbent paper to drain off excess oil

If your looking for something to dip your prawns in check out this Sugar Free Sweet Chilli Sauce – a healthier alternative to store bought ones laden with sugar!

I also recommend to eat them as soon as they’re cooked when they hot.  You could certainly eat them cold, but they may loose some of that crunch from the toasted coconut and panko crumbs.

How To Serve

There are a few ways to serve this dish.  Ultimately I think that because they are quite rich, its best to serve with something plain and simple.

• With steamed Jasmine rice (great for a light dinner or lunch)
• With lightly fried garlic greens
• With your favourite salad
• With Zucchini Noodles to or Cauliflower Fried Rice cut through the richness
• With storebought salad mix leaves

These Butter Prawns are crispy and fragrant with toasted coconut giving it a delicious texture and a soft tender juicy centre. 

Its easy to adjust the level of spiciness to suit your taste by adding more or less chili flakes.

More Prawn Recipes

• Crispy Prawn Tacos
• Creamy Garlic Prawns and Rice
• Thai Prawn Salad
• Creamy Garlic Prawn Fettuccine Pasta
• Garlic Prawn Pizza
• Garlic Prawn and Tomato Risotto