How To – butterfly prawns

hi I’m Pete from Jamie’s food team and
today I’m going to show you how to
butterfly prawns
here’s first prong as you can see it’s
got its head on and it’s still in its
shell so that this hard shell here this
is his back and what we’re going to do
is cut through its back cut through the
shell open the tail up roll out a little
bit the best thing to do is to take a
serrated knife like this doesn’t have to
be this big you haven’t got one this big
but a serrated blade is really good for
doing this because you’ll find that a
smooth blade will just slip off the
prong whereas this catch isn’t actually
cut into the shell because remember it’s
not it’s not me we’re cutting here
initially its shell we need to cut
through you need to hold the prong flat
you need to be careful
keep your fingers sticking up don’t try
it all little out because then you’ll
cut the end your fingers hold it up and
when you’re comfortable start cutting
with it serrated knife along the shell
like that
and this is what you want open up the
prong like that without cutting through
it you cut a little bit more into the
head if you like there we go and that
stuff when it caramelizes this stuff
when it cooks on the barbecue we’re in a
frying pan super delicious so don’t get
rid of that now one last thing you need
to do before you cook it it just look
inside the back of the shell here then
you’ll find it either on this side or on
this side you’ll find a little pipe like
that and that’s the prawns intestine and
you don’t eat that you know that is you
go pull it all the way down pull the end
off and that’s your prawn butterfly and
ready for cooking now you don’t have to
keep the head on if you don’t want to
you can take it off and that’s easy to
do and we can cut it off and just pull
it off quite simple and then do exactly
the same things you before fingers up
just carefully carefully take your time
cutting the shell if you’re not cut
quite enough to open it up and go back
cut again open it out then we change
knife and we look for the little and
testing bit there is all right
and there’s your prawn butter five and
ready to go so I’ll just do a couple
more fingers up out of the way so gently
don’t have to be super quick at this
open the shell out and use a little
knife pick this dodgy bit out now you
can use this technique on prawns around
the size or prawns a little bit smaller
but when prawns get really small it’s
way too fiddly for prawns that are
really big or even lobsters which are
kind of the same thing the shell is
really thick and it’s actually quite
dangerous to be cutting into it with
your hand right over here so I’m not
sure I would if I was going to cut a
lobster in half I wouldn’t do it this
way here my prawns nicely butterflied
opened out like that you can have them
head on head off whichever you prefer
they’re really nice and easy to eat now
because once you’ve cooked them you can
really take a fork scoop it in pull the
meat out so it’s really simple it’s not
fiddling about peeling shells or ending
like that you made it very very easy for
you and your guests to eat and you can
cook them in all kinds of ways you can
put them on a barbecue you equipment a
griddle pan you can simply fry them or
you could sprinkle them with all kinds
of lovely herbs and spices and steam
them and that’s how to butterfly prawns