Prawn Shrimp Toast
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 4 as an appetiser (12 pieces)
- 300g/10.6ozs raw, peeled prawns
- 30g/1oz. spring onion, roughly chopped
- 2 small or 1 large garlic clove
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
- 1 teaspoon pickled pink ginger (gari)
- 1 egg white (30g/1oz)
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon white sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon white pepper
- 3 slices white bread
- 1/4 cup sesame seeds
- 500ml/16.9flozs rice bran oil to fry
- Sweet and sour sauce to serve
Step 1 - Place the prawns, spring onion, garlic, sesame oil, ginger, gari, egg white, salt, sugar and white pepper in a food processor and process until it forms a paste. Scoop into a bowl.
Step 2 -Take a piece of white bread and spread a third of the mixture on top and smooth it over with a spatula. Place the sesame seeds on a plate and press the bread prawn side down and coat the prawn mixture with sesame seeds patching up any gaps with seeds.
Step 3 -Heat a pot with the oil and when it reaches 180C/350F fry the toast prawn side down for 3 minutes. Turn over and fry on the other side for 2 minutes. Serve with sweet and sour sauce.
Personal Note
I love making prawn toast for dinner parties. We have been having so many people over because the weather has improved lately and the house renovations are mostly done. For the past few weeks we've had people over every weekend starting with New Year's Day when we had Queen Viv and Miss America over. That morning on New Years Day Mr NQN was going to go to buy some things from Bunnings after he walked the dogs. While he was out I was listening to a voice note that my friend Sammie in the UK sent (we leave each other voice notes as there is such a big time difference) and she warned me in no uncertain terms that it was very bad luck to spend any money on NYD. Normally I'm moderately superstitious but given 2020-2022 I didn't want to give 2023 any reason to curse us so I told Mr NQN that he couldn't go to the shops and spend any money at all. I had a crazy look in my eye so he knew I wasn't joking.
"Okaaaay," he said looking at me trying to size up how serious I was about it. He looked up New Years Day superstitions and saw that indeed, you are not meant to spend any money at all, because if you do you'll spend money for the rest of the year. Mr NQN was about to protest when he came upon another new years day superstition - no cleaning. He was tasked with vacuuming the floors before our guests came over but he figured that if he couldn't go to Bunnings because of a new year's day superstition, then he could also get out of cleaning.
"How serious are you about this?" he asked, impish smile playing on his lips.
"I'm dead serious! I need to wash my hair today but I won't!" I replied, referring to another new year's day superstition of not washing hair on NYD.
And with that he embraced both superstitions because it not only got him out of cleaning, but it also got him out of shopping! He is a big fan of NYD superstitions now.
So tell me Dear Reader, do you observe any new year's superstitions and if so which ones? Do you like prawn toast?