Prawn Cocktail
A classic first course or salad that's so quick and easy to make, including the simple, creamy and tangy Marie Rose sauce.
Ingredients
- 250 g small cooked prawns or shrimp see Recipe Notes
- 4 pinches paprika smoked or unsmoked
- 4 pinches Aleppo chili flakes optional
For the Marie Rose sauce
- 3 rounded tbsp mayonnaise
- 1 rounded tbsp tomato ketchup
- ½ tbsp sriracha chilli sauce or Tabasco to taste
- 1 tsp Balsamic vinegar or Worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp paprika smoked or unsmoked
- ¼ lemon juice only
For the salad
- 4 handfuls crispy lettuce e.g. Romaine shredded
- 4 spring onions finely chopped
- ⅓ cucumber deseeded, finely diced
- 1 tbsp chives finely chopped
Instructions
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Make the Marie Rose sauce
Put all the ingredients in a medium sized bowl and whisk together.
Taste and add more of any ingredient until the flavour is to your liking.
Can be made up to 24 hours in advance and stored in the fridge.
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Mix together all of the salad ingredients, reserving a little of the spring onion, cucumber and chives for a garnish.
Divide the salad between four glasses, bowls or plates, making a little hollow in the middle of each salad.
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Fold the prawns into the Marie Rose sauce.
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Fill the hollows in the salad with prawns and sauce, then pile the rest on leaving a ring of lettuce showing all around.
Sprinkle over the reserved spring onion, cucumber and chives plus the paprika and chilli flakes if using.
Serve immediately.
Recipe Notes
Here in the UK, choose cold water prawns, which are wild caught, rather than warm water prawns which will almost always be farmed and come from much further afield.
A bag of quick frozen cooked and peeled prawns, defrosted in the fridge overnight then drained, is convenient for this dish. Look for the Marine Stewardship Council ecolabel.