The Prawn Toastie

Seafood. I guess as today is prawn toastie day we can call it a nautical theme somehow, parcelled up with yesterday’s Anchovy offering. Still, prawns are tasty and delicious, while in my unbiased opinion anchovies are salty little blights on an otherwise perfectly good dish.

We already have a rather lovely crayfish toastie (mozzarella, houmous, sun dried tomatoes, pesto and crayfish) but we wanted to experiment with a more mainstream combo, and see if classic 80s dinner party favourite Prawn Cocktail works in a toastie.

Today’s Menu:

Prawn Toastie version 1:

-Mozzarella

-Sliced Tomato

-Prawns

-Watercress

-Thousand Island Dressing

Prawn Toastie version 2:

-Monterey Jack cheese

-Prawns

-Chorizo

-Baby Spinach

-Thousand Island

Taste.

No 1 is a fairly recognisable prawn cocktail, with the addition of mozzarella as a nicely neutral cheese to bind and add molten goodness without smothering. While it did have a surprising 80s flair to it, it didn’t really have much else. The Prawn Cocktail relies almost entirely on thousand island to do the flavour leg-work, with the little pinkies bringing up the rear like unwanted mascots. Not at all bad, just not especially good. 5/10

The second toastie, with the addition of chorizo because it happened to be in the fridge, was a revelation. Monterey Jack is also a solid cheese for pairing with seafood, as we already knew from the tuna melt (tuna, spring onions, dill, Monterey Jack and mayo), but prawns and chorizo surprised me. I know it works in dishes like paella, but you rarely encounter them in the same mouthful. Here the two got together and did a lot of filthy things to my taste buds. 9/10

Appeal

It’s seafood, so some people will never even go near it. Double meat in v2 will also push the price up, but the majestic prawn is the most appealing of all the seaside wigglies, so 6/10

Suitability as a signature.

I feel like the signature should somehow reflect our utterly landlocked town, but v2 is still playing on my mind. 6/10

Difficulty Rating

Starting with cooked prawns (which we did) makes this a technically simple toastie. Just don’t over do the thousand island and keep prawns and dressing in the middle. Easy.

I went into this feeling like I might be starting the new year with 2 mediocre toastie posts in a row. Instead I’m seriously considering bumping the signature score a little. The Prawn Cocktail V2, which really isn’t a prawn cocktail at all any more, will almost certainly be making an appearance some time soon, and we are on for a month of toasties.