Prawn toast: mouth-watering and healthy(ish)… surely not?!

Jamie Oliver’s prawn toast recipe- too tempting to resist testing!

Now, I’ve always loved prawn toast. It has been my go-to on the Chinese restaurant menu since I was 5. It is a food with such emotio-cultural value for me. The smell of it brings back yesteryear memories of family meals out around a big white damask clothed round table, adorned with chopsticks which had red, green and blue Chinese characters printed at the thicker end of them, with my grandad asking for a Tiger beer, me looking through the whole menu before deciding that my one contribution to the ordering would be prawn toast, and the hum of oriental music wafting through the thick fairly greasy air. These were my pre-Singapore days when my knowledge, appreciation and love of Chinese and more generally Asian cuisines had not yet advanced, nor palate educated. And whilst prawn toast is no longer my go-to, it is still always on the order list.

 At times they have intrigued me, these little triangles (…always triangles!) of sometimes reheated, sometimes fresh morsels of prawnish paste surrounded by crispiness. But only a few times have I ever been really satisfied. I think this is because they’re a guilty pleasure. They are generally unhealthy: the fried part of the dish will always counter whatever excuses you give for the potential not-so-unhealthiness of the prawns (full of vitamins, minerals and anti-oxidants, high in protein, low in fat- see benefits here) and sesame seeds (good source of protein and fibre- see benefits here). I can’t deny that there is something satisfying about biting into prawn toast and feeling that squash of oil exude from the toast… but my head can no longer justify that primal momentary feeling. My brain instead becomes a little disappointed with my old go-to and craves something similar but …better. Something which satisfies every time. Something without the guilt and thoughts of the treadmill creeping in. Something a little healthier.

So, looking through my Instagram feed a few days ago, my eyes locked on Jamie Oliver’s prawn toast video- cue food memories of sitting at the ubiquitous round table with its stamped chopsticks. I had never before considered actually making them myself. But his video is 3 minutes and 52 seconds long and promises you the world of a prawn toast. I couldn’t not try it.

And gosh I am glad we did. I say we: each weekend my partner and I have a treat meal recipe which we cook together, a new tradition I love as the experience somehow means more when cooking together. The result did not disappoint: it was everything you could wish for in a prawn toast. Actually, it was more. So much so that my prawn toast bar has been raised considerably: every other prawn toast will be judged to its standard. Even looking at the photo of it makes me want to recreate it immediately! The prawn filling felt decadent even though it only consisted of a few ingredients. A compilation of flavours I expected such as soy and spring onion but what I didn’t expect was to add ginger- fresh ginger. This transformed the dish. My partner doesn’t like ginger, in any form- powdered or fresh- but even he agreed that the hint of it catapulted the dish from yummy to mouth-watering. It brings that bit of vim and zeal to the original prawn toast which graduates it to another level. I loved the seed mix we used too, as the pumpkin seeds especially crisp up so nicely in the oil, creating their own umami.

I now have stuck this prawn toastie recipe into my memory bank of treat go-tos. It’s quick, simple, quantities can easily be changed, and smells as fabulous and fresh as it tastes. It would also be a fun one to do with children. It’s one of the few recipes of something I’ve tried where I prefer what I’ve created compared to the dish I was trying to achieve. You know when you try and replicate a dish, I usually find that “it’s a good first try but can be improved” or is missing a vital ingredient which the recipe negates to include.

It was fresh and punchy yet toasty and comforting synchronously. A hygge of a prawn toast yet it also felt like it wouldn’t be out of place for a summer’s evening. A Friday night treat to be repeated… on Friday!

Here is Jamie Oliver’s recipe but adapted with our quantities of ingredients for 2 people for dinner:

220g prawns

4-5 spring onions

2 inch piece of fresh ginger- must be fresh- makes all the difference

4 slices of bread

2-3 glugs of Soy sauce

1 large or 2 small eggs

Seeds of whatever mix you wish

Seasoning – we added salt, chilli and pepper but the choice is yours.

Method:

So, how it works…

We made this recipe for 2 people to have a hearty sandwich/toast each for Friday night treat dinner. So, after preparing the ingredients in the quantity suggested by Mr Oliver, we looked at it and simultaneously said “shall we do some more?”: we doubled the recipe basically: we doubled the suggested number of spring onions, put in twice as many prawns, an extra big wedge of ginger. Oh, and we added chilli salt to the mix too…and pepper, always add pepper.

Also, if you’re using anything other than normally sized pieces of squarish bread, you will need more egg white to stick the seeds to the bread. As I make bread regularly, I had sesame seeds, but mixed with many other seed types, so just for good measure, I poured a good helping onto the plate.

My OCD appreciates this recipe too as we can have a whole row of plates lined up neatly ready to take their part in this culinary performance! So, you’ll have your chopping board of yummy ingredients, your egg whites plate, your seeds plate, and finally your frying pan. Separate the yolk from the whites, putting the yolk in one bowl and the whites onto a plate or shallow bowl (and give a quick stir to, to loosen them up).

Chop the prawns, ginger and spring onions as small as your knife skills will allow- the aim is to get them to a paste like form but a few lumps and bumps will add texture! Then bring the mixture together into a disc on your chopping board.

Add the yolk into the centre of the mixture. Add a couple of glugs of soy sauce and some seasoning too, and then mash it all together again to spread out the flavours.

Then the fun/messy part starts: dollop and spread the mix onto 2 slices of bread, add the other slices on top to create sandwiches and then place each sandwich on the plate with the egg whites. Ensure they are covered on both sides (quite a feat when trying to stop all the filling escaping their bread straightjackets … Jamie made this look so easy!) before transferring these sticky treats to the seeds plate, and do the same again until you have a nice seed layer stuck to your sandwiches. And… although I am not keen on fried food generally, yes, I’m afraid we did fry them. But only in a very thin layer of olive and sunflower oil. Fry until you can see that the contents are cooked- Jamie suggests around 3 mins on a medium heat each side. The seed encrusted bread should be a dark golden colour with a couple of singed seeds for good measure! Our saucepan wasn’t big enough for both sandwiches at once because we chose a large artisan loaf which produced elongated oval slices when cut. Using normal sized slices will make it easier to each have a cooked sandwich at the same time- instead of that, we ended up dividing the first in half and eating that whilst we cooked the next! My excuse for frying was that we need to try the recipe as close to Jamie Oliver’s version as possible as a test run, and then we can hone it and make it healthier as we saw fit…another time.  It would work just as well grilling the toasties – we’ll try that next time!

Oh and we didn’t do triangles!