My deliciously healthy prawn salad

I’d love to share with you this beautiful, easy, healthy and delicious recipe that’s perfect for brunch, lunch or dinner and can be enjoyed all year round! It’s just turned Spring here in Melbourne, Australia so this will be getting a workout over Spring & Summer for sure!

You will be quite surprised at how easy this salad actually is!

The flavours in this salad are amazing! There’s nothing fancy about the dressing I use or way this salad is put together. It’s just a perfect tasting dish that I’m sure everyone you share this with will be quite impressed! My husband says that this prawn salad is to die for! For my husband to say that, it must be good!

The great thing about prawns (or shrimp as some of you may refer to them as) here in Australia, is that we always have the freshest seafood available to us all year round. All we have to do is go to the local market or fishmonger and ask for some. A few tips when buying fresh seafood would be only buy seafood that’s fresh – as in caught that day. Make sure it looks and smells fresh – smelling like salty water is perfectly fine, they do live in the ocean after all! Make sure you buy your seafood the day you want to use it. Never buy it today and leave it in the fridge for a couple of days – wrong, wrong, wrong! There is nothing like eating fresh seafood the same day. It’s just amazing!

Another tip on buying fresh prawns, some people say buying prawns with their shell on are better. You can either remove the shell before cooking, or cook them with the shell on to intensify the flavour. If you do leave the shell on, remove the shell before putting the salsa on or you could even try cooking them in the fry pan with the salsa. I have no problem with them already being deveined and shelled, as long as they were caught that morning! I don’t do frozen prawns out of a packet, but if that’s your only option and you’ve tried them before, I have no problem with you using them.

Cooking prawns in the fry pan is easy. Although trying to find information about cooking times vary quite a lot. My rule of thumb is to turn the prawns once, twice maximum! Once they change colour – they will tend to go an orange-pink colour – turn them over. The prawns will also start curling up and you know they’re almost done. Try not to cook the prawns too long as they will dry out and go rubbery – yukk! Depending on the size of your prawns will also play a big part in the cooking time. I say, once you see no raw meat (translucent flesh) they are ready.

Here are some tips for (almost) everything you need to know about cooking & preparing prawns:
from Walter Trupp
from Free Camping Aussie
from Tesco
and I just came across this insert from Cooking Moroccan online

I hope you find these useful, but seriuosly, you can’t go wrong following my frying tips. They turn out perfect every time!

If you find it hard to get prawns or you’re not a big seafood fan, I would substitute chicken in its place. Make sure it’s either poached chicken or a bbq chicken, not fried. This would still be healthy and taste great too!

Please feel free to comment or ask any questions here on Miss Food Fairy’s blog post or on my Facebook page if you would use anything other than prawns. Or you can contact me personally via email on foodfairywishes@gmail.com I would love to hear what you experimented with – and it gives me a few more ideas and some inspiration for next time!

For all my Facebook followers out there, this is the recipe to my cover photo on Miss Food Fairy’s Facebook page. I know how much you’ve all been looking forward to finally getting this recipe! I hope it was worth the wait and thank you for being patient.

Please enjoy 🙂

 

PREP: 5-10 minutes     COOK: 5-6 minutes     SERVES: 2

INGREDIENTS:
2 teaspoons olive oil
8 (170-180grams) green prawns (shrimp), deveined and shelled
2 tablespoons salsa
2 iceberg lettuce leaves, roughly torn
1 zucchini (courgette), diced
1 avocado, diced
4 teaspoons homemade mayonnaise
¼ cup coriander (cilantro) leaves, roughly chopped

METHOD:
Heat a small fry pan or skillet until quite hot. Add oil and prawns. Cook until they change colour, about 4-5 minutes, turning once or twice. Once cooked, remove from heat and place in a bowl with the salsa, coating the prawns well.

Place the pan back on the heat and add the zucchini one minute until slightly coloured. Remove and turn off heat.

In two small salad bowls, divide the lettuce leaves, zucchini and avocado, making sure the avocado isn’t mixed too much as it will break apart.

Top with 4 prawns, mayonnaise and coriander leaves in each bowl.

Easy!

Now it’s time to enjoy these delicious prawns. And they are absolutely gorgeous, if I do say so myself!

 

As seen on Kitchen Dreaming’s Week 20. Come and join the party – it’s a great way to meet new people who just love cooking!

 

I was also featured (which was a lovely gesture and I felt very honoured to appear as a weekly feature) by The McCallam’s Shamrock Patch

 

You’ll also find this recipe on Simple Supper Tuesday Linky Party #13. It’s so amazing to be a part of these great parties – hope to see you there soon!