Recipe - Gambas al Ajillo - Spicy Garlic Prawns

These have never failed to please a crowd. There are some big flavours in there with the generous one clove of garlic per person, but the cooking softens it in both texture and flavour.

The olive oil combines with the juices from the prawns, the spices and the white wine to emulsify, the oil molecules become suspended in with the water molecules and the sauce becomes one and thickens, giving you a delicious taste in the mouth that is saucy, rather than oily.

Your guests will probably be fighting each other to mop up the remaining sauce, which I believe is a good sign.

Gambas al ajillo

Ingredients (serves 4 as a starter or tapas)

12 Prawns, large

4 cloves Garlic

2 Dried cayenne peppers, chopped (you can use other chillies but be mindful)

1 tsp Sweet smoked paprika

100ml Dry white wine

150ml Extra virgin olive oil

Parsley, roughly chopped, to garnish

Sliced baguette, for mopping up the delicious juices

1. Prepare the prawns. Remove the heads using a twisting motion, but keep them aside as we will be using them to flavour the oil with their ‘coral’. Peel and remove the shells but keep the tails connected, this helps the prawns to keep their shape during cooking, and stop them drying out. 

2. Now butterfly the prawns, cut an incision into their backs with a small paring knife. Remove the vein from inside and discard.

3. Peel the garlic and slice each clove lengthwise into large chunky slices approximately 2mm thick. Try to keep all of the slices a similar size so that they cook evenly and you do not end up with some burnt, and some raw.

4. Heat up the olive oil in a pan over a medium heat. Add the prawn heads and fry them for 2 minutes. Squash the heads with the back of your wooden spoon to squeeze out the juices from the heads, known affectionately in Spain as the ‘coral’. This will flavour the oil with a rich prawny flavour. Turn off the heat and remove the heads, keeping as much of the flavoursome oil in there as possible.

5. Turn the heat of the oil back on to medium, and add the sliced garlic and cayenne. You are looking to lightly brown the garlic but not to burn it. Because you have nice thick even slices, they should be able to resist getting burnt.

6. Add the smoked paprika and the prawns and cook whilst stirring for around one minute.

7. Next, add the white wine and cook whilst stirring until the smell of the alcohol from the white wine has disappeared and the wine and the oil has emulsified together to become one sauce. The prawns do not take much cooking, and will continue cooking in the sauce, they should be done after 2 minutes of total cooking.

8. Finish with a sprinkle of parsley, a pinch of salt, and a crack of black pepper, and serve immediately. They can be served sizzling from a terracotta or ceramic bowl, in a bowl, or from the pan. Don’t forget, all those juices are important and addictive.

Sweet, juicy, delicate prawny shrimps (you say tomato and I say tomato)