"Peel and devein, leaving the tail intact"

What's with prawn recipes and leaving the tail intact ? I could perhaps understand with finger food, it gives a sorta handle to use but otherwise I find it annoying having to eke out that last bit.

Apologies to Mods for posting in wrong forum

 

presentation mostly

 

Presentation and flavour. There's loads of flavour in prawn shells, you can make an amazing stock out of them.

There's a method to getting them out, I've seen people try to peel off the tail bit but you just grab it just where the tail ends and squeeze between your fingers, all of the fleshy bits will pop straight out.

 

I agree it's presentation but i also hate it, who wants a seafood risotto/pasta where the mussels are still in the shell and the prawns still have tails on, just let me eat it all with a fork and not have to use my hands/knife

 

Some places leave the tail on to show that its a better quality/fresher prawn than the big blocks of mass frozen prawns. Or the restaurant has gone to the trouble of peeling prawns themselves.

The el cheapo mass frozen prawns usually have the tails removed already.

 

Presentation. Tail alone won't add much in ways of taste. Although it is true that the shell are absolute gold mine for stock. Especially the heads. I love sucking on the head of large tiger/banana prawns when I cook garlic prawns. I usually shell and devein my prawns but leave tails and head intact. Love the heads.

 

Yep. Nothing better than sucking a prawns brain out!

 

I LOVE my prawns, but urgh, I can't think of anything worse then this...

 

one of my favorite recipes is a Portuguese dish that involves slow cooking prawns in a mixed blend of chili, basil and coriander.

You cook the entire prawn, and then eat the entire prawn - the heat kills off any of the bacteria. Cooking the entire prawn adds so much flavour it's fantastic! My wife then generally makes herself cry by eating all the sauce on bread - which is so damn spicy you can't help but cry.

 

If you want to get more flavour into the prawns or make them easier to peel, straighten out the prawn and use some scissors to cut off the legs and then cut along the back of the prawn, also it traps some of the marinade if you are grilling for example.

Use above method with or without head, marinate in some butter olive oil salt and garlic, skewer them together and throw them on a gas or charcoal grill. The shells protect them against the high heat from the dripping fats and baste them once or twice. Lovely

 

I rip the tail and the head off and use the them as stock.