Smoked Prawn and Mango Salad
CUSTOMS DECLARATION. Goods: prawns, mango. Value: sentimental. Undeclared: one (1) quantity of smoke. Stamped by Colin, who looked directly at the smoke and wrote "fog".
C.
Crew of 6 as a starter · Prep 20 min · Smoke 25–35 min · Sting: none to mild
Fresh off the fire.
Jump to the recipe · All Christmas BBQ recipes
Give this a go. Trust the thermometer, not the clock.
The Cargo (ingredients)
- 1 kg green king prawns, peeled, tails on. The tails are handles. Nobody at Christmas is looking for a fork, and anyone who is can eat in the car.
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 2 tsp Rum and Que Shandy Lemon-Lime Beer Rub, plus extra to finish
- 2 ripe mangoes, sliced. If it doesn't smell like summer at the stem, leave it on the shelf and walk away with your head up.
- 1 avocado, sliced. Ripe for roughly eleven minutes on a Tuesday. Plan around it.
- 2 Lebanese cucumbers, ribboned
- ½ red onion, finely sliced
- 1 long red chilli, sliced (optional, and judged accordingly)
- 1 cup mint and coriander leaves
The Dressing. 60 ml lime juice · 80 ml olive oil · 1 tbsp honey · 1 tsp Shandy · cracked black pepper
The Run (method)
- Set the smoker to 120°C with a light fruit wood. Prawns are a quick job. Bring ironbark to this and you'll only frighten them.
- Pat the prawns dry. Properly dry. Toss with oil and Shandy just before they go on, then lay them on a rack like you're hiding them from someone.
- Smoke 25–35 minutes, until pink, opaque, just firm and curled into a loose C. A tight O means overdone. Stand there and watch them. This is the one job all year where being on time matters, and yes, I see the irony, and no, we won't be discussing it.
- Refrigerate straight away until cold.
- Whisk the dressing. Layer the salad, add the prawns and dress at the table, in front of witnesses. Finish with a light cold shake of Shandy, which keeps the citrus bright.
Cook It With
Rum and Que Shandy Lemon-Lime Beer RubBeer-inspired lemon and lime from the New Zealand comp scene. No chilli.
Four Saucemen Hawkes Bay Lime & Ancho ChilliHawke's Bay lime first, slow smoky ancho after.
The Aftermath. Owl has notes.
Where It Goes Wrong
- Rubbery prawns. They go from perfect to pencil eraser in the time it takes to tell a story. Pull them early, tell it later, and exaggerate.
- Soggy salad. You dressed it before the guests arrived. Guests, as I can personally confirm, are unreliable.
- Prawns went missing. Check your brother-in-law. Check his pockets. He knows what he did.
Darryl's Secret
Dry prawns take smoke. Wet prawns just steam and sulk. A proper going-over with paper towel is the difference between a salad and a confession.
No smoker? Grill over high heat for about 2 minutes a side. You lose the smoke. The mango will forgive you. I won't bring it up more than twice.
Store it: Keep on ice or in the fridge until serving, and return leftovers to the fridge within 2 hours. Eat the same day. Check the label: always check the physical label for allergens.
How It Reached the Book
Christmas Eve, 11.52am, somewhere off Wilsons Promontory. I sent the crew a text saying on my way, which was true in the broad sense that the planet was turning. Lunch at the Secret Cove was noon. I dropped anchor at 3.40, precisely on time, because the tide had come in early and I've got the screenshot of the tide to prove it.
By then the crew had eaten everything that had ever been alive. Left on the dock: one esky of green prawns, a tray of mangoes giving off a smell you'd follow into a burning building, and a shaker of Rum and Que Shandy somebody had been keeping for an emergency. The pit was still warm. I'm a simple man with a silent woodsmoke engine and a futuristic galley, and I know an emergency when I'm late for one. Not that I was.
Twenty-five minutes later nobody could remember what time I'd turned up. Which was the plan.
Cap'n Darryl. Sent from the helm. On time, as always.
