Tiger prawns cooked in sea salt (a.k.a. Mazzancolle al sale)
    

Preparation: 10 mins
Cooking: 10 mins
    
Difficulty: Easy
   

When looking for “mazzancolle” at the fishmonger, just ask for tiger prawns. For the recipe below, I used 10 tiger prawns because it is quite easy to lay them in one circular flan dish. If you want to cook more than 10, then I suggest you use use more than one oven dish or cook at different stages remembering to use the same salt mixture (it tastes even better!). This recipe is ideal as a starter when you have a fish meal but you can also decide to have it as a main course (it just depends on how many tiger prawns you use).

SERVES 2-3 AS A STARTER

Ingredients:

• 10 Tiger prawns
• Coarse sea salt (in this recipe I used 800 g - 1 ½ lb of salt)
• Lemon (just half lemon)
• 40 ml (1 ½ fl oz) Extra virgin olive oil
• A handfull of flat leaf parsley (finely chopped)

Directions:

Put all the salt into a large bowl.

Squeeze over about half a lemon.

Add the parsley.

Add the olive oil.

Mix everything together.

Put part of the mixture into a flan dish to form a bed.

Lay the tiger prawns onto the salt bed with their heads pointing outwards.

Cover the tiger prawns bodies with the remaining salt paying attention NOT to cover the heads.

This is how it should look like before putting it in the oven. Now, pre-heat the oven at 200 °C (gas mark 6) and when it is ready, put the dish into the oven for about 8 - 10 minutes (see How to cook perfect mazzancolle). Generally speaking, the prawns should be ready when their heads start becoming slightly burnt. Try different cooking times to suit your taste. This way you will know exactly how to get the best results from your oven.

To serve this dish, place in the middle of the table and everyone helps themselves. Remember that because the salt is very hot, the prawns will still be cooking. To avoid overcooking, remove the top layer of salt with a fork.

Buon appetito!

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