AI photoPrawn Cocktail
A classic chilled prawn cocktail with avocado cream, crisp asparagus and a Thousand Island-style dressing.
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Ingredients
- 100 ml Crème fraîche 38%
- 1 tbsp Mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp Ketchup
- 1 clove Garlic finely grated
- 1 tsp Paprika
- 0.5 tsp Sugar
- 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tsp Tomato paste
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste, freshly ground
- 1 pcs Avocado ripe
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste, freshly ground
- 8 pcs Asparagus
- 100 g Lettuce e.g. lamb's lettuce, iceberg and rocket
- 250 g Prawns
- 2 tbsp Watercress
- 2 tbsp Dill roughly chopped, fresh
- 0.5 pcs Lemon cut into wedges
- 1 tsp Butter
Steps
For the Thousand Island sauce, mix the crème fraîche, mayonnaise, tomato paste, ketchup, grated garlic and paprika until smooth.
Season with sugar, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste.
For the avocado cream, whip the avocado with lemon juice until smooth and season with salt and pepper.
Snap off the woody ends of the asparagus and fry in a hot pan with butter, just until warmed through.
Divide the lettuce among glasses, top with the prawns, avocado cream, warm fried asparagus and Thousand Island sauce.
Serve with a lemon wedge, sprinkled with watercress and dill.
A prawn cocktail isn't really a salad, it's an argument about a sauce, dressed up in a glass so you forget there's hardly any cooking involved. The prawns need no help from you — they're already done, already seasoned by the sea and whatever brine they came in — so the entire job here is building a sauce with a backbone strong enough to stand next to something cold and bland, then not drowning it.
That backbone is the acid-to-fat ratio in the Thousand Island, and it's the one thing that decides whether this works or tastes like pink mayonnaise. Crème fraîche brings the tang and the body; mayonnaise rounds it out; lemon juice and Worcestershire cut back through the fat so it doesn't just sit heavy on your tongue. Taste as you go and lean harder on the lemon than you think you need to — crème fraîche is milder than people expect, and a sauce that tastes "nice" on a spoon usually tastes flat once it's spread over cold prawns in a cold glass.
Some say the glass is just presentation, a 1960s hotel flourish and nothing more. No — the glass is portion control for a sauce this rich. Piled on a plate, you'd use three times as much and bury the prawns; stood up in a tumbler, the layers stay distinct and you taste shellfish, then cream, then acid, in that order, which is the whole point of a cocktail — contrast, not a mixed mush.
Prawns: buy them already cooked and peeled if you can, or cook them yourself in salted water just until they curl and turn pink — a minute, maybe less, in water that's properly boiling, because prawns left in hot water after they're done go rubbery, and there's no fixing that afterwards. Frozen cooked prawns, defrosted properly in the fridge overnight and patted dry, are entirely fine; wet prawns water down your sauce and nobody wants that. Size matters more than people admit — small prawns get lost under the sauce, so buy the biggest you can afford.
Crème fraîche at 38% isn't a random number — that's full-fat, and the fat is what carries flavour and gives the sauce body instead of a watery slick. If you can't find it, soured cream is the nearest cousin, though it's thinner and tangier, so cut back the lemon juice a touch to compensate. Mayonnaise should be a proper one, egg-based, not a "light" version — the lightness there comes from water, and water is the enemy of a sauce that needs to cling to a prawn rather than run off it.
Tomato paste and ketchup are doing two different jobs, which is why the recipe uses both and why you shouldn't collapse them into one. Tomato paste is concentrated, cooked-down tomato — it gives colour and a deep, almost savoury base. Ketchup brings sweetness and its own vinegar tang already built in, which is why the added sugar is small — half a teaspoon, not a tablespoon, because ketchup already carries sugar in it and you're only rounding the edges, not building sweetness from nothing.
The avocado needs to be properly ripe — it should give gently under a thumb, not the thumb going straight through. Underripe avocado won't whip smooth; it'll fight the lemon juice and stay grainy no matter how long you work it, because the starches haven't broken down yet. If yours isn't ripe and you need it today, there's no honest shortcut — buy a ripe one, or use the avocado cream with a different dish tomorrow and make do here with extra sauce.
Worcestershire sauce is the thing that stops the Thousand Island tasting sweet and one-note — it's fermented, fishy, savoury in a way that's hard to name but easy to miss once it's gone, which is the test: leave it out and taste the difference, then you'll understand why it's in there.
Lamb's lettuce, iceberg, rocket — the mix matters because you want crunch (iceberg), a bit of pepper (rocket), and something soft to sit the prawns on without bruising (lamb's lettuce). Any crisp, cold leaf works if you haven't got that exact trio; the only rule is nothing wilted, because limp lettuce under a rich sauce just reads as sad rather than fresh. Build the glasses just before serving — the sauce sitting on lettuce for an hour will soften it past the point of crunch, and patience here means assembling late, not early.