Coconut and Punk IPA Prawns

Last night @davelozman and his mrs came for tea, It’s always a great night and we usually sup some fantastic beer so I took a bit of a risk and tried to incorporate some beer into the first course. I’ve made beer batter before but only ever for big chunks of fish and I usually use  pretty boring beer with lots of fizz to give the batter a nice lift. However this time I wanted something different, something lighter, crispier and a bit zestier. I’d picked prawns as the items to be battered so now it was just a case of coming up with a beer that would add enough flavour but not so much that Mrs @davelozman wouldn’t eat it, as I know she’s not a massive beer fan.

Bitter sweet prawns with a hint of lime!

I was searching through my beer cupboard when I stumbled across a bottle of  Brewdog Punk IPA hidden away behind my few remaining bottles of Punk X and a couple of cans of fosters (don’t ask), the best before date was fast approaching so this instantly became the bottle of choice for the batter.

Now as with most batter I like to have the liquid that I’m using ice cold, I’m not sure of the technical reasons but I just find it gives a better texture, so the chose bottle of Punk IPA spent all day in the fridge followed by 30mins in the freezer.

With the beer sorted I now wanted to spice things up a little, the main was chicken satay from Jamie Oliver’s 30minute meals, so I wanted to add some flavours that would match up to those of the satay, I nearly went for the obvious choice and thought about chucking a load of chilli in but then that would have been easy. Instead I decided on sweet dessicated coconut to take the edge off the bitter beer and a little bit of lime zest to add some zing.

I was quite impressed with the results (I hope Dave was too)  the beer came through along with a little bit of bitterness, the coconut balanced this out quite well and then there was a lovely clean lime finish along with the flavour of the juicy prawns. The coconut also added a great texture to the batter. So I thought I’d share the recipe with you. It’s all a bit rough and ready as I made it up as I went along

Ingredients

• 75g corn flour
• 1 Bottle of Ice Cold  Brewdog Punk IPA
• Zest of a lime
• 1 handful of desiccated coconut
• salt
• pepper
• 1 packet of fresh raw king prawns (5 or 6 prawns per person)
• Oil for deep frying.
• plain flour for dusting

Method

• Chill the Punk IPA for as long as possible then place in the freezer for 30mins or so.
• De vein and butterfly the prawns, set aside
• Place the flour in a bowl, season with salt and pepper
• Add a big splash of the Punk IPA and mix well, now this is where you need to use your own judgement, you need a batter that’s just a bit thicker than double cream, so keep adding the Punk IPA until you have the right consistency, if it starts to look a bit thin add some more flour. Drink the rest of the beer.
• Then add a handful of coconut along with the lime zest and mix well.
• Dust your prawns with some plain flour, this just helps the batter stick to them.
• Heat your oil up to 180 degrees C.
• Dip your prawns in the batter then carefully place them in the hot oil, fry until golden brown and nice and crispy, they don’t take long and you don’t want to turn your prawns to rubber.
• Serve with some salad and sweet chilli dip.