Simple Barbecued Prawns

There is honestly not much to say on or about today’s post! These Simple Barbecued Prawns are just that – easy and quick! You can make the marinade as laid back or as adventurous as you want it to be.

Marinate for 20-30 minutes, on the barbecue they go, for 2 minutes each side, serve them with some salad and chilli or dipping sauce. And of course, they make the perfect addition to a barbecue spread! If it’s raining, under the grill (broiler) will be perfect too, keeping them quite close to the heat source.

The trick in the presentation is to get the largest prawns you can find and to pierce a wooden skewer right through the prawns to maintain the “straight look”. And yes, we cook them with their shells on, cooking prawns this way with their shell on, produces more succulent meat, the marinade still does get passed on to the meat and at the same time the shells impart a depth of their own to the prawn meat, much like when making stock with prawns shells.

If using a lot of vinegar and/or lime juice as I have here, don’t marinade the prawns for longer than 30 minutes as the prawns will be acid cooked before they get on the heat. I’ve kept the marinade very simple here, in keeping with the concept but feel free to add some ginger, lemongrass, chilli, whatever you fancy!

Simple Barbecued Prawns

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★★★★★

5 from 3 reviews

• Prep Time: 30 minutes
• Cook Time: 5 minutes
• Total Time: 35 minutes

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Ingredients

• 8 large prawns
• 8 wooden skewers, soaked in water for 30 minutes

Marinade

• 2 tsp fish sauce
• 1 tsp rice vinegar
• juice of half a lime
• 1 small clove garlic, crushed
• dash of chilli flakes
• half tsp cornflour (cornstarch)

Dipping sauce

• 2 tbsp fish sauce
• 2 tbsp rice vinegar
• juice of 1 lime
• 1 tsp palm sugar
• 1 small clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 red Thai chilli, chopped
• 1 spring onion, white part, thinly sliced

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Instructions

1. Clean the prawns, remove the head and wash off any gunk. Leave the shell and tail intact.
2. Mix the marinade and coat the prawns thoroughly and leave to marinade for 20 minutes. Stir it a round a couple of times to ensure even marinating.
3. Take a skewer and pierce a prawn from the tail right through to the top.
4. Repeat with the other prawns.
5. Barbecue for 2 minutes on each side. Alternatively, cook them under the grill. As the cooking time is so short, there is no need to baste.

Dipping Sauce

1. Mix everything together and keep aside.
2. Can be made a day earlier and kept, covered, in the fridge. Will last 2-3 days.

Notes

Prep time includes 20 minutes of marinating, during which time, put your feet up and have a drink!

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 2