February Recipe of the Month

Barbecue Tiger Prawn, Nduja Butter, Buttermilk and Pickled Cucumber Dressing, Agretti

This recipe has come together through the development of several different techniques that we have been using on different dishes over the past couple of years at Holland & Holland.

We make the Nduja in the kitchen but a good quality shop bought version will be totally fine.

This dish has also featured on the opening menu at Hawthorn and was reviewed in the evening standard in February.

Serves 6 as a starter 

We use extra large tiger prawns that we get from Flying Fish Seafoods (our fish supplier based in Cornwall) and give one per portion for a starter. The prawns are about 150 grams each so it’s still a generous portion.

Agretti (also known as Monk’s beard) is a beautiful samphire like vegetable that is only available for a short season in the winter.

Ingredients 

6 Very Large tiger prawns. Peeled and deveined (this can be done by your fish monger)

100ml Buttermilk

1 Tablespoon of apple juice

1 teaspoon of extra virgin olive oil

2 large bunches of dill

200g clear rapeseed oil

1 small bunch of agretti (or samphire)

100g Nduja

150g butter

1 teaspoon of runny honey

Salt and pepper to taste

1 small cucumber

50g of white wine vinegar

50g of caster sugar

Method

First make the dill oil. Pick the dill leaves and discard the stems. Put the rapeseed oil and dill into a high powered blender such as a Vitamix or a Nutribullet and blitz until it gets hot and goes a deep green colour (this should take 2-3 mins) immediately pass through muslin cloth or a J-Cloth and chill in a bowl sitting over iced water

Now make the Nduja butter by blitzing together the butter, Nduja, honey, salt and pepper. Reserve at room temperature.

For the buttermilk dressing, whisk together the buttermilk, apple juice and olive oil. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

To pickle the cucumber- peel and dice it, removing the seeds. Bring the vinegar and sugar to the boil and drop in the diced cucumber. Allow to chill in the fridge before using.

We cook the prawns over charcoal on a Konro Barbecue at Holland & Holland, as it imparts a lovely smokey flavour, but a chargrill will work fine.

To cook the prawn, get the grill very hot and lightly oil and season the prawn on each side. Cook for about 45 seconds on each side (depending on the size of the prawn) inserting a small knife into the prawn and checking if it is hot to the touch will tell you if it is cooked. Melt some of the Nduja butter in a pan and brush the prawn with it as it cooks.

Bring a small sauce pan of boiling salted water to the boil and cook the Agretti for about 10 seconds then immediately drain. 

Plate the prawn, spooning over generous amounts of Nduja butter from the pan. Next mix the buttermilk dressing, pickled cucumber and some of the dill oil in a small bowl and spoon onto the plate. Place the agretti on top and serve immediately.