I went to the market today. This is a very big deal where I live. There is a market on Thursdays and on Saturdays. You can find a variety of objects at the market like flowers, junk from someone's house, bacon, ostrich burgers, and fresh seafood. There is something for everybody, even one ride for the kiddies. It goes in circles so whatever they just ate, whether it be an ostrich burger, ostrich hot dog, cupcakes from Miss Gingerbread, or battered sausage, has a chance to make a reappearance in the middle of the mob of people in the town center. Perfect. But I digress.
I decided today to try a recipe I've been wanting to give a whirl at for about a month. It called for peeled, deveined jumbo shrimp. I thought that the fresh seafood man needed a visit. The price was basically 2 pounds for 100 grams of fresh prawns so I thought to myself, "Self, I have not a clue how much 100 grams is because I didn't pay attention to metrics in school so maybe I should go to the grocery store down the street and buy some backup baby prawns." So I did it. With my backup baby prawns in tow I then stopped at the fresh place to get my ginormous shrimp. When I got up there instead of asking if he had fresh, deveined, peeled prawns, this is what I said, "I need 100 grams of fresh prawns." He was happy to oblige and this is what I ended up with:
In case you were wondering, these are not peeled, nor are they deveined. I saw what he was doing, but felt dumb and didn't stop him. I tried to act like I knew what I was doing...like I wasn't from Kansas where our shrimp don't have shells, eyes, legs or gargantuan feelers. In Kansas they come in a package in a freezer.
So I got home and laid them out just like this on the cutting board and stared at them for a while. Confused. While I was staring at them, they were staring back at me:
Then I got a brilliant idea. There is this cool thing called Google, I don't know if you've heard of it, but I hear it's a pretty big thing. So I googled how to peel and devein these little suckers. Oddly, the written directions were different than the video that accompanied it so I did a little bit of both and I think it was pretty successful. So today I'm going to teach you step by step how to peel and devein prawns.
In the course of this tutorial try not to imagine this:
Imagining Pepe will make this a whole lot harder and you'll feel a lot guiltier. Trust me.
So here we go.
Step 1: Attempt to not throw up. This may be hard, as the smell is quite strong and the little critters appear like they could hop up and scamper around your kitchen at any moment. Don't worry, they're dead. They won't scamper. Also in the course of the peeling process you may see some things that will make you want to lose that ostrich burger you ate for lunch. Don't. You can do this.
Step 2: Twist the head of the prawn off. No joke. It'll pop off a lot easier than you may think.
Try not to think too much about what just oozed out of the head...if you do think about it too much refer back to Step 1.
Also as a side note...this may happen:
Yes, sometimes the legs and part of the head may not want to depart the body. If this is the case, just get a knife out and finish the job. Oh yes, and those red smears on the cutting board don't come off...
Step 3: Peel of the shell by grabbing the legs and pulling them apart.
Things are starting to look a little more like their supposed to. the world is becoming right again.
Step 4: Deveining. Apparently I was lucky because I didn't find the veins in my prawn. I think I squished it all out in the ripping the head off portion. But in case you do have a vein still in there...which yes, is their digestive tract...just use a sharp knife and slice it right down its back and pull the vein out.
Step 5: Wrap all of the heads, legs, and shells in newspaper and put it in a paper bag in your garage for the next two weeks to rot, where it will make you garage smell like flowers...
Oh wait...that's just me.
And yes, that is a man shooting peas through a blow gun in that picture. He was practicing for the pea shooting contest. That contest comes a couple months after the eel throwing contest...not lying. But that's a whole other post.
Step 6: Cook 'em up!
They only take like 3 minutes to cook. Aren't their babies cute?
Step 7: Chow down!
And pay no attention to the messy kitchen...it's a figment of your imagination.
So, there you have it how to peel and devein a prawn. You may now go about your regular activities.
