I have been invited recently to taste some cold water prawns….

I couldn’t attend the tasting but since then I read a lot about prawns and the famous cold water ones.

They live in a natural cold water habitat like Norway, Greenland, Canada…They are initially all males and become females after 3 years. They are caught in clean, deep water and those species supply only about 15% of the world market for prawns, the rest are tropical prawns, farmed and not fed the way it should be.

For the majority of the water prawns stock, the assessment indicates the harvest is on a sustainable basis. There are something like 8 different species, some might be at risk soon but legal fisheries remain and is still open with reduces catches.

I heard about the causa croquettes, (first time, never heard before).

I am a croquette fan so I checked, it sounded very South American to me as per its ingredients : prawns, potatoes, lime, red onion…

It is actually from Peru, as always I am in need of travel, these croquetas transported me. It’s made with prawns and crab meat which I don’t really like from a tin. A crab should be eaten fresh, should have its shell broken with a small hammer and its flesh sucked up while wearing my napkin around my neck. For me, crab in a tin doesn’t really worth the price, so I put sardines instead, tasty, cheap and from sustainable fishing.

Causa croquettes, for around 15 croquettes :

Ingredients :

• 750g of potatoes
• Butter
• 1 red onion
• Juice and zest of 1 lime
• 200g of small cooked cold water prawns
• 100g of sardines from a tin
• 100g of flour
• 2 eggs beaten
• 100g of breadcrumbs
• 500ml of vegetable oil

Avocado dressing

• 2 ripe avocados
• 2 limes
• 1 red onion
• 1 ripe tomato
• 1 bunch of coriander
• Extra virgin olive oil

 

Method :

1. Boil the peeled potatoes in salted water till they are tender. Then mash with a big knob of butter, season well.

2. For the avocado dressing, make a guacamole by mashing the avocados, grate in the red onion and cut the tomato without the pips very finely, add the juice of the limes, chop the coriander and add it to the mix with a lot of olive oil. Put some salt and leave it aside.

3. For the prawns and sardines, cut them very finely, toss together the red onion and the juice of the lime and mix it with the fishes. Leave behind the excess juice if there is.

4. Line up 3 bowls : 1 with the 2 eggs beaten, 1 with the flour and 1 with the breadcrumbs.

5. Place a scoop of mash potato in your hand and roll it into a ball (roughly 4cm in diameter). Press a hole in the middle with your thumb and spoon in some prawns and sardines mixture. Don’t be shy and put quiet a lot, close the hole gently to conceal the filling. Repeat the operation until you’ve used all your mash. (if you have a bit of filling left like me, you can use it in a salad).

6. Pour the vegetable oil in a large pan on medium heat until the oil is very hot then put the heat a bit down. Roll each croquette on flour, then eggs and to finish breadcrumbs. Plunge gently the croquettes into the oil till they get golden. If you don’t want to deep fry the croquettes and not use that much oil, just put around 2 cm oil in your pan and you can turn them slowly when one side is golden.

I hope you enjoy as much as I did and be transported to Peru for a little while 🙂