This recipe is a real celebration of Spanish flavors. It’s a real celebration of prawns, garlic, lemon, and olive oil. I use Spanish red prawns because they are really sweet, naturally sweet, with a really rich flavor, although they still remain quite delicate.

Ingredients

If you can’t get hold of red prawns, just large fresh prawns will work perfectly for this.

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The other ingredients that you’re going to need for this: you need 8 to 10 large prawns, whole with their heads and shells intact, but 4 to 6 garlic cloves, four tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, lemon with the zest and the juice, some smoked paprika, some dried chili, which is optional, some flat-leaf parsley, and maybe just some crusty bread for soaking up all the delicious juices.

How I make my Spanish prawns

First of all, you want to wash your prawns, so just run them under some cold water, and then you want to pat them dry with some kitchen paper. So you want to completely dry them so they don’t splatter when they go into the oil, but keep the shells and heads intact.

Next, what I like to do is I like to prepare crispy garlic as a garnish to go on at the end. So you want to heat up a couple of tablespoons of oil in a really hot, heavy-bottom skillet, and slice up your garlic into thin slices and then toast that until it’s lovely and golden and crispy. You don’t want to burn it; you don’t want it too dark.

So you’re just going to want to set some aside and left out and set that aside on some paper towel to drain the oil and crisp up.

So then I’m going to start on your actual prawns. So you want a really high heat for searing your prawns. You’ll use a couple of tablespoons of oil, use the same pan that you fried the garlic in, and you’re going to heat that up, and then you’re going to fry your prawns for 1 to 2 minutes on each side.

So you’re not moving your prawns around; just place the bed in a single layer as soon as you’re getting that sear from the pan. After a couple of minutes, turn it over, and you’ll see the color change from a pale red or pale pink to a really vibrant red or pink color.

When they’re cooked, they should still be pink inside but cooked through.

Okay, so once you take them out and set them aside, we’re going to add some flavors to the pan. So in the pan, you can add chopped garlic. You can add some paprika at this point as well, and if you want some chili, a couple of chili flakes, and then just mix that around in the oil that’s in the pan.

Then what I like to do here is get some butter and throw in about a tablespoon full of butter, and that’s going to make a nice coating for your prawns. At this point, you want to juice the lemon, throw in the juice of the lemon, and that’s going to help get the lovely juices and goodness off the bottom of the pan. Once that’s looking nice and glossy and rich, you’re going to throw your prawns back in with some chopped parsley, give that a mix around, and that is it.

It’s ready to serve.

I like to serve this just in the skillet, so in the middle of the table and everyone can help themself. So this recipe is for two people, and when you’ve got your lovely crusty bread to dip in the juices, just delicious. Okay, so then I will serve some lemon wedges around the side, so everyone can squeeze their own lemon onto it.

So this is a super quick recipe to make a celebration of Spain. Simple ingredients that just work together. Perfect for a date night.