Recipe: These Easy Mexican-Style Butterflied Prawns Are a Bombshell at Every Barbeque

Forget your average shrimp on the barbie. Daniella Guevara Muñoz is ready to take us straight to the coast of northern Mexico with these spectacular butterflied grilled prawns, known as camarones zarandeados.

This is serious, regional grilling; the name zarandeado refers to the distinct flipping motion used when cooking seafood over fire. Muñoz learned the technique from local fishermen while volunteering on Isla Isabel, Nayarit, a small state in western Mexico, back in 1995.

But the real secret weapon here is the surprisingly rich, tangy marinade. Built with an unexpected base of whole-egg mayonnaise and American mustard, it’s amplified by dried Mexican oregano and a serious whack of hot sauce. The butterflied prawns are slathered in this creamy coating and hit with high heat on the barbeque until they’re tender on the inside and crackling-crisp on the outer.

This dish will disappear fast from any spread. “We recently made a batch meant for four people, but the two of us ate it all – it’s too tasty to resist,” Muñoz writes in her new cookbook, Provecho: Real Mexican Food at Home. She recommends serving them with corn tortillas, white rice and refried beans for a full Mexican spread.

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Grilled butterflied prawns by Daniella Guevara Muñoz

Serves 4

Ingredients

1kg large raw prawns, in their shells

Juice of 1 lime

Marinade

120g whole-egg mayonnaise

30g American mustard

¼ tsp ground cumin

1½ tsp dried Mexican oregano

1 tbsp olive oil

100ml Valentina or Huichol hot sauce

To serve (optional)

Corn or wheat tortillas

White rice

Refried beans

Valentina or Huichol sauce

2 limes, halved

Method

Add all the marinade ingredients to a bullet blender or small mixer. Blend until you have a smooth cream. Place the creamy goodness in a bowl.

Using a large, sharp, serrated knife (like a bread knife), butterfly the prawns by cutting through the back and the head, then opening them out. The easiest method is to place a prawn on its side on a chopping board, then, pushing the prawn down with your hand, use the other hand to cut horizontally with the knife through the back and head, but not all the way through. Make sure the two halves remain attached.

Remove the black vein and any sandy bits, but keep the yellow-coloured bits around the head as this is all flavour.

Blot the prawns dry with some paper towel and place on a large tray. Using a basting brush, coat both sides of the prawns with the marinade.

Preheat the barbeque for 15 minutes if using gas. If using coal, light it around 1 hour before grilling. Make sure your barbeque is hot.

Grill the prawns for 1-2 minutes on the meat side, then for about 3 minutes on the shell side. The shells should be crunchy – some dark spots on the shells are perfect.

Serve the prawns with some corn or wheat tortillas, white rice, refried beans, spicy Valentina or Huichol sauce. If the prawn shells are crunchy, I eat the whole thing, shell and tail, but add some lime juice first.

Images and text from Provecho by Daniella Guevara Munoz, photography by Simon Bajada. Murdoch Books RRP $45.00.