'I wouldn't do that': Seafood expert reveals the 'big mistake' to avoid when buying prawns

The second the calendar flips into December, it's official: it's prawn season.

This year, family budgets are stretched a little thinner and we've found ourselves racking our brains for the cheapest way possible to enjoy our favourite summer staple.

So, we did what we had to do. 9honey Kitchen spoke to the team at the Sydney Fish Market to see if they had any ideas to help solve our problem. Thankfully, they did.

Sydney Seafood School Manager and author of A Fish For All Seasons, Sally Webb, says if you want to save money this festive season, the best thing you can do is opt for school prawns.

According to Webb, school prawns are the most underutilised species of prawn, but if you cook them right, they're "to die for".

"You can do a bunch of things with them," she explains.

"But one of our favourite ways to cook them is to toss them in some seasoned flour or tapioca starch and flash fry them or deep fry them in a wok or a deep fryer."

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She says that basically all you do is give them a flash fry, and then when you pull them out the whole prawn is super crispy.

"Like a hot chip," Webb adds.

"And you dust it with a little bit of salt and then you eat the whole thing, you know, head, tail, the whole thing.

"Some people would probably find that a little bit scary, but once you've done it once, it is to die for."

She says school prawns flash-fried like a hot chip is an absolute "taste sensation", but when it comes to larger prawns, you're going to need to handle things differently.

According to Webb, there aren't really any major mistakes you can make when cooking them, but there is one you can make when buying them.

"I'd probably say the only mistake you could make with prawns, which are pretty resilient, is that you might try and cook already cooked prawns," she says.

"That's a big mistake. I wouldn't do that. They'll go tough."

Basically, prawn trawlers can be out for days, weeks and even months collecting stock.

Webb says that because of this, you'll often find cooked prawns in stores because they're harvested and cooked on board the trawlers, then frozen for the trip back.

"You can buy prawns that are already cooked and you wouldn't cook them again because they become very, very tough. But if you buy green prawns, you've got options," says Webb.

"You can boil them so then they become just like cooked prawns. You could poach them, you could pan fry them, or you could barbecue them," she explains.

"And barbecuing beautiful big prawns is a wonderful thing to do."

She adds that the best way to barbeque a prawn is to pair it with a herb butter.

"[It's] a wonderful sort of broth on a barbecued prawn," she says.

"You know, as you're popping it on the barbecue and you get this beautiful, charred, Herbie buttery kind of finish."

But above all else she says to be creative when you're working with prawns.

"Think about the versatility," she says. "Because you can do so much with them."

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