Butter prawns are a flavour packed Asian dish that is sweet, spicy, tangy crispy and crunchy. It takes about 20 minutes to make from scratch and can be made with either fresh or frozen prawns.
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!
Prawn Tips
- 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)
- If using Fresh Prawns, remove the outer shells and intestinal tract (leaving the tail on)
Cooking the 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
Main or Side?
I personally find this a very rich dish and wouldn’t eat it as my main dinner. I think that its best for:
- A light dinner on a Friday or Saturday night
- A lunch
- An Appetizer
- As part of a nibbles platter
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.
More Prawn Recipes
- Crispy Prawn Tacos
- Thai Prawn Salad
- Creamy Garlic Prawn Fettuccine Pasta
- Garlic Prawn Pizza
- Garlic Prawn and Tomato Risotto
How To Serve With Butter Prawn
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
- In green salad
These Butter Prawns are crispy and fragrant with toasted coconut giving it a delicious texture and a soft tender juicy centre. You can adjust the level of spiciness to suit your taste, but adding more or less chilli and 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!
Butter Prawn
Ingredients
- 500 grams/1 pound of Uncooked Prawns heads removed (see note 1)
- 1/4 cup Coconut Oil
- 3 tablespoons Butter
- 2 tablespoons Crushed Garlic
- 1 tablespoon Grated Ginger
- 1 large Red chilli finely diced
- 1 teaspoon Granulated sweetener that measures like sugar
- 1 tablespoon Light Soy
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup Shallots/Spring onion diced
- Zest of 1 Lemon
- ¾ cup Desicated Coconut
- ¼ cup Panko Breadcrumbs
- 1 ½ cups steamed Jasmine Rice
Instructions
- Heat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 degrees F and toast the coconut and panko crumbs for 10 minutes, then set aside
- 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.
- In a new clean pan, add the just cooked prawns, shallots or spring onions, butter, cooked coconut, panko garlic, ginger, chilli, lemon zest, sweetener, light soy, and salt.
- Toss through for 2 minutes until fragrant and serve immediately
To Serve
- Divide the prawns into 4 servings, sprinkling any leftover coconut crunchy bits. Definitely make sure you eat all those, they’re the best.
Notes
- Buy the prawns with the heads already removed if you an as it cuts down on prep time and makes this recipe a whole lot less messy.
- If you don’t have panko breadcrumbs, you can use regular breadcrumbs. This will result in a slightly finer lot of crumbs or “floss”.
- Nutritional information does not include rice.
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