Salt and Pepper Prawns with Smoked Salt
When I was at an open day at Salt Meat Cheese recently I met Rowena Firth . I started talking to her over a glass of wine and some wonderful cheeses. She was a lot of fun and after a while I asked her what she did and she told me that she is a Selmelier. Yes, you thought I spelt that wrong didn’t you?. That’s right she is a salt expert. She has a bit of a wandering spirit much like I do and during a stint living in the US she became interested in salt.
Salt is a natural chemical compound that has been a major trade item for humans since records began. It is an absolute necessity to enable our bodies to function properly. No foods, sweet or savoury would taste the same without salt. It was transported all over the world, before refrigeration, it was critical in the preservation of food. Today, due to industrial food processing, we tend to think that salt is not very good for us, but this isn’t true. What is true is that processed heavily salted packaged foods full of fat are bad for us, giving salt a very bad wrap
So, back to Rowena and her new job as a “Semmelier”. She knows a lot about salt and she imports all kinds of salts; gourmet cooking salts, and lifestyle salts like bathsalts and “salt gifts”-such as storage & servers. We did a bit of a tour of the salt section at Salt Meats Cheese looking at the bags of salt. She brings in all kinds of exciting flavours from around the world and sells them wholesale and on her website The Salt Box. How about Merlot, Balsamic or Espresso salt or maybe Habanero, Rosemary or Porcini?
I’ve got a container of her Yakima Applewood Smoked Salt from Washington State in the USA. I made some whole Smoked Salt and Pepper Prawns with it but you could use this recipe for squid or chicken if you like .
Smoked Salt and Pepper Prawns
Ingredients
- 500 gm prawns
- 4 teaspoons Smoked salt or another flavour
- 1/2 teaspoon chilli powder optional
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 6 Tablespoons rice flour
Coriander and lime Mayonnaise
- 1 whole Egg
- 1/2 teaspoon dijon
- 1/4 bunch coriander
- 40 ml lime juice 2 tablespoons
- 1/2 teaspoon zest
- 5 gm pepper
- 375 ml rice bran or other oil
- 1/4 tsp Smoked salt
- 1 tablespoon coriander extra chopped
- 750 ml oil for frying aprox 3 cups, vegetable oil
Instructions
- Trim the prawns
- Mix the spices and put them into a plastic zip top bag. Add the Prawns and shake. Set aside in the fridge.
- Put the egg yolk, dijon, juice and zest into a blender or processor. Blitz till combined and creamy. Slowly add the oil with the blender going until the mayonnaise is thick. If the mixture is still thin when all the oil is added add a little more.
- Season with smoked salt and pepper and a little more lime juice.
- Put the oil into a deep pot and heat to around 180C/350 F or until a piece of bread dropped into the oil sizzles.
- Add the prawns a few at a time cooking for approx 8 minutes or until starting to colour. The shell should be crispy and the inside moist. Test one.
- Drain on kitchen paper and sprinkle with a tiny bit of extra smoked salt and chopped coriander
Have you met anyone with an interesting job lately?
Salt is one of life’s essentials Tania! Even better if it has amazing flavours like these 🙂 What a fascinating job to have, I’ve read a book on the history of salt and it was unbelievable indeed. I have some fantastic truffle salt that I hoard, but I’m using it in a soup post coming soon xox
One of my favorite ways to prepare prawns!
I was just thinking of salt and pepper prawns the other day. These look moreish – great recipe with the smoked salt and zesty mayo. Yum! 🙂
Is it bad that I could eat good salt on its own? Ok I’ll eat it with your prawns to balance it out.
What an interesting job! I do wonder how someone would end up with that as a career – there surely must have been some twists and turns along the way as I’ve never heard of anyone going straight from high school into training to be a salt expert. I love the look of your prawns! And yes, salt is very important – I have to have iodised salt because of my thyroid issue and I’ve heard a lot of people have thyroid issues because they’ve been told salt is bad and they sprinkle sea salt on their food and not the iodised table salt variety we all grew up with. I use iodised salt in all my cooking xx
I didn’t think you’d misspelled the word as much as I thought it was a title I knew nothing about. I wish I didn’t have to restrict salt in my diet but it does make a difference with the vertigo. Maybe there’s a salt that wouldn’t be as bad?
I’d enjoy your prawns!
These look so delish! And such a great idea to use smoked salt too.