How to Eat Prawns Nose to Tail — Yes, the Heads and Shells, Too!
Some days the supermarket trip is uneventful; you duly load the items into your trolley while your cooking inspiration seems to be on a remote tropical island.
Other days, that tropical island is calling your name, Piña Colada in hand. It’s seafood you have a hankering for, and the prawns are on special.
You love prawns, right?
They’re such a treat — hot or cold.
But when you are looking at them, wanting to buy them, a little tussle goes on in your head.
Your concern may be the price for the small yield.
Or what else you’ll need to stretch that one kilogram into an entrée and main with that distinctive-yet-delicate prawn flavour as the theme.
Or you think about the effort to peel them.
Or the fact that the heads and shells will still be in your freezer in three months’ time because you keep forgetting to put them in the wheelie bin as you fly out the door to work on bin day.
What if I told you that none of this needs to be true?
That you would need only a few other ingredients. Ingredients that are easy to find or you probably already have.
That you could feed a family an entrée, main, and snacks — and that you would have NO heads or shells taking valuable freezer space OR stinking up your bin.
I know you’re thinking you’d have to be stranded on a deserted island to munch through the heads and shells.
Or nuts.
Well, call me batshit crazy then, because I’m telling you prawns in their entirety, minus only the poo shoot, are versatile, nutritious, and delicious — all in a few simple steps.
How Can Those Weird Little Critters Be So Good for You?
The most exciting benefit of eating prawns is the role they play in giving you energy, increased immune function, and strong bones.
As well as vitamins B and E , prawns are rich in Omega 3 fatty acids, iron, selenium, zinc, magnesium, phosphorous, and copper, to name a few.
Being a good protein source, prawns help your body to build and repair tissue, and the vitamins, minerals, and healthy fat (while still being low in calories) help to protect against:
- depression
- dementia
- eyesight and cognitive decline.
The nutrients in prawns also reduce:
- inflammation
- blood pressure
- heart attack and thyroid disease risk.
These are a few fabulous reasons to eat more prawns but there’s another that you may never have considered, and it’s lying in their heads and shells.
Why Would You Even Want to Eat the Heads and Shells?
The recent trend of eating nose-to-tail is popular not only to honour the animal we are eating by reducing waste, but also to reap the enormous health benefits that the organs such as the liver and kidneys offer.
While I’m not sure that prawns even have those organs, they are hiding a surprising source of nutrition — in their crunchy exterior.
Other than the satisfying crunch-factor coating and snacks, and the bisque-like soups you can make, the heads and shells can soothe and repair your joints due to the glucosamine. This substance is one of the building blocks of cartilage, ligaments, and tendons — as well as chitin, the material of prawn shells.
“If I Need a Long List of Ingredients, I’m Not Doing It”
If you’re like me, I understand why you’d think this. Prawns are effort enough without an ingredient list as long as your arm.
But after simply throwing the prawn heads and shells into the pressure cooker (stove-top works equally well) with some water, garlic, and salt, the smooth and flavourful broth was amazing.
Checking out what could possibly have made it taste better, all of the recipes had between 12 and 19 ingredients — some expensive and some known to cause inflammation in susceptible people. Many also took lots of time and effort.
So, if your time, effort, and dollars are on a budget, you can use as few as four simple ingredients and skip all the hoo-ha by just throwing it all in a pressure cooker or pot.
The basis of the seven dish ideas below has only seven common ingredients. The beauty of this whole idea is that you can adjust or add to each of them to suit your tastes and dietary requirements.
What you will need is:
- Prawns — green or cooked
- Water — with a dash of apple cider vinegar to really extract the nutrients
- Garlic — a whole head sliced across the middle
- Salt — Himalayan Pink or any quality sea salt
- Oil — Cobram’s Lemon Infused Olive Oil is a perfect choice, but they also do a Garlic one, a Chili, a Ginger and Lemongrass, and a Chili and Coriander — such a find!
- Ginger — a big chunk
- Lemongrass and/or lemon peel
Optional Extras
To stretch the prawns even further and make an even greater variety of dishes, you may also like to grab some:
- coconut cream — or normal cream if you prefer
- herbs — I used dried rosemary and oregano, and fresh coriander (the roots and stems can go into the stock)
- chicken and beef
- vegetables of choice
- egg white or gelatin substitute
What If You Have Food Intolerances?
No problem.
Unless it’s a seafood allergy, of course.
All of these are grain/sugar/nut/dairy-free as well as Keto, Paleo and AIP-friendly. Also, these meal ideas are very adaptable to what you like or have on hand.
Two Ways to Tackle These Prawn Recipes
Some people love to suck the juices from the freshly cooked heads and the tactile experience of the finger-licking peeling process. If that’s you, go with the first option below.
- You can marinate the whole prawns in lemon oil, garlic and dried herbs, and bake them for ten minutes at 180°C. This way, everyone has to peel their own prawns, saving you even more time. If you choose this option, make sure everyone saves their heads and shells, so you can make the stock, soup, and snacks later.
- You can peel them first to use the heads and shells for your stock, soup, and snacks, and then quickly fry the flesh for the salad, stir-fry, or steak topper. The stock will have a slightly more intense flavour, and the coating and crackers (both below) will have a finer texture done this way.
Seven Ways to Eat One Kilogram of Prawns
1. Entrée
The marinated and baked prawns above can simply be plonked in the middle of the table to share. With a few finger bowls of lemon squeezed into water, a pile of paper napkins, and a glass of wine, a leisurely Sunday brunch would be off to a delightful start.
Or, if you peel the prawns first, sautée them in butter, garlic, and salt for no more than a few minutes each side. Add a splash of coconut (or regular) cream if you like. They go perfectly in lettuce cups if you eat low-carb or keto — or on rice if you don’t.
2. Steak Topper
Cooked the same way as the peeled prawns for the entrée, garlic prawns make the classic pub meal, Reef ‘n Beef. This one is so scrumptious, remember to take a photo before you eat it 😬
3. Salad
Either cooking method works here.
With whichever salad ingredients you like, add a few prawns and seasonings (I just used salt) and drizzle with the lemon oil — or another flavour if you prefer.
4. Stock
You can make the stock using either cooking method above.
The choice is also yours as to how many ingredients you want to add in to the basic heads and shells, water, and salt recipe, but garlic makes everything better.
If it’s an Asian-inspired flavour you’re after, the combination of lemon, ginger, and coriander will do just that.
Put all of your chosen ingredients in your pot or pressure cooker with the heads and shells, and cook for 20 to 30 minutes.
When you’re happy with the flavour — you can reduce it down on the stove top if you want to intensify the flavour, cool and freeze the stock in small containers or ziplock bags, ready for use in any recipe that calls for seafood or fish stock. But as it also pairs well with chicken and beef, add it any time you want a little extra umami depth to your dish.
5. Soup
Use the stock as your soup base.
If you didn’t have the garlic, ginger, and lemongrass in the pot to make the broth, no problem, just grate the ginger and garlic finely, bash the lemongrass a bit, and fry them in some more lemon-infused oil before adding the stock into your soup pot on the stove.
Add some coconut cream, throw in your vegetables of choice — I used zoodles, and top with some fresh coriander if you’re not one of those people who thinks it tastes like soap. I once saw someone wearing a t-shirt that shouted, ‘I HATE CORIANDER’.
Beats me; I love it.
But if you don’t love it, and in case its nutrition profile can sway you to try to like it, coriander’s long list of benefits, includes being anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory, assisting in fluid retention, skin conditions, lowering LDL (bad) and raising HDL (good) cholesterol — to name just a few.
For variety, you can also add cooked chicken — a pre-cooked organic one from the supermarket is equally delicious and nutritious as anything you might slave over, yourself.
6. Crumbed Chicken
This coating is best suited to the second cooking option — peeling them first.
After you’ve made the stock from the heads and shells that weren’t marinated and baked in oil, lay them out on a baking tray and dry them in the oven at 180°C for about 20 minutes or until they feel really dry and crisp.
Set aside the heads and grind the shells in a food processor until they are as fine as you can manage. Then sift the crumbs to catch any of the bigger pieces because they can be a little rough on the tongue. Mix in some salt — and any other spices you’d like, such as nutritional yeast.
For these chicken tenders, you can marinate them for two days in pickle juice for two reasons: it is said to make them even more tender, and pickle juice is a good source of electrolytes for those who follow a keto eating plan. The flavour also complements the coating well.
7. Prawn Snacks Two Ways
The prawn cracker (above right) is so simple but so crunch-factor satisfying. This was an attempt to recreate the Japanese snack that colleagues bring back after visiting their homeland. They are a delicate prawn flavour with the snap of a cracker.
Soooo good!
Simply use the leftover crumbs from the chicken tenders, added salt (tamari or coconut aminos would also be good) and add just enough lightly beaten egg white to form a gooey ball that is thick enough to dollop onto some baking paper on a tray, yet thin enough to spread as close to wafer-thin as you can. Pop into a 180°C oven for about 30 minutes, turning halfway.
Our Japanese staff members were amazed by the success of recreating this salty, savoury cracker. And our Chinese members experienced memories of home with this version of a snack they often eat — prawn heads.
These can be made with the heads that you marinated as well as with the ones that went straight into the pressure cooker raw. If you prefer a more subtle prawn flavour, go with the second cooking option, but they both turn out wonderfully crunchy after drying out in the oven.
So Satisfying
Next time you peel prawns to create any number of dishes and put the heads and shells in the freezer, whether you’re a Paleo, Keto, or Carnivore eater, remember they’re there.
Also remember the crunchy coating and snacks you’ve been missing that you can now have — all grain, dairy, and sugar-free.
And now that you know you can enjoy a wide variety of exotic meals and treats, as well as knowing exactly what’s in each one and why it’s good for you, without wasting anything …
Impress yourself with your resourcefulness.
And impress others — if you’re willing to share.
