Prawns Tavern Casserole

Prawn casserole

Name: Prawn casserole
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Aegean
Ingredients: 500 g Prawns, peeled; 200 g Mushrooms; 3 pcs Tomatoes; 2 pcs Long green peppers; 4 cloves Garlic; 40 g Butter; 1 dsp Tomato paste; 100 g Kaşar cheese; 15 g Parsley; 2 g Black pepper; 7 g Salt

The prawns go in for the last four minutes. Cooked with the sauce from the start they turn to rubber, and there is no way back.

Fish and seafood · Aegean · Under 30 minutes · For guests

35 minTime

310Kcal / serving

1241Total kcal

Preparation: 15 min
Cooking: 20 min
Difficulty: Practised hand
Cost: Dear
Season: Autumn, Winter

Where this dish comes from

A tavern classic and one of the most frequently spoiled plates there is. Prawn flesh turns opaque and is done at 55–60 °C; above 70 its collagen contracts and the texture turns rubbery. The gap is ten degrees and a casserole sauce is already at 95. So the prawns go on top of the sauce at the very end, and stay in the oven for four minutes.

Method

Before the heat goes on

Clean the prawns, take the vein out of the back and dry them.
Heat the oven to 220 °C.

You will need: A pan · Small earthenware dishes

Brown the mushrooms in the butter for six minutes, until their water has gone.

Look for The sizzle should return and the mushrooms colour at the edges.

Why If the mushrooms’ water stays, the sauce thins in the dish and pools around the prawns, which then poach in it and turn rubbery.

Frying dynamics Surface water is flashing to steam and pushing outward — that is the shield keeping the oil out. no way back
Add the garlic and paste for a minute, then the tomato and peppers for eight until it thickens; season.

Look for A channel drawn with a spoon should stay open.

Why The sauce must be THICK before it goes into the oven: it has only four minutes there and no time to reduce.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

Salt · 1.00% Right in the window. Flavours sharpen, bitterness retreats, water is held.
Divide the sauce between the dishes, lay the prawns ON TOP, grate the cheese over and bake FOUR MINUTES at 220 °C.

Look for The prawns should go pink and curl into a loose "C". A tight "O" means overcooked.

Why Buried in the sauce a prawn cooks in liquid at 95 °C and passes 70 immediately. Sitting on top it is heated only by the oven air and reaches 60 °C in four minutes, which is exactly right.

If it went wrong

Once they are an "O" the texture is gone. Chop them into the sauce and serve it with pasta: rubbery pieces are less noticeable in a sauce.

Starch gelatinised The granules soaked up water, swelled and burst into a network. It has thickened, and it will firm further as it cools. no way back

Salt · 0.53% Low. Everything reads flat and nothing steps forward.

What the model could follow

This recipe was run through the engine step by step — what goes in when, and at what temperature and for how long. The reactions above come from that run.

peak 220 °C · 19 minutes · engine 1.0.0 · confidence low

What can go wrong here

The meat came out dry and tough⌄

What happened

The meat passed 70 °C. Past that point the muscle fibres contract and wring out their water, while collagen never gets the time to turn into gelatine. It loses moisture and never tenderises.

By the numbers

Beef medium at 57 °C, chicken at 74 °C. Rest it for 10 minutes off the heat; unrested meat leaves its juice on the plate.

Without a thermometer

The palm test: touch thumb to index finger and press the pad below your thumb — that firmness is rare. Middle finger is medium, ring finger is well done. Watch the juice too: pinkish and clear means you are there, running white means you went too far.

Servings

4

Ingredients

500 g Prawns, peeled
200 g Mushrooms
3 pcs Tomatoes
2 pcs Long green peppers
4 cloves Garlic
40 g Butter
1 dsp Tomato paste
100 g Kaşar cheese
15 g Parsley
2 g Black pepper
7 g Salt

What did you think

Who is eating

Everyone A baby under one Pregnant A child An athlete

We hold no safety rule for this group that a dish could break — training, or an age, does not make food dangerous. The thresholds below are about the person rather than about the dish.

Not about the dish — about the person

Protein in a day

0.83 g/kg

An adult Context established

Per day, 0.83 g for every kilogram of body weight — about 58 g a day for somebody of 70 kg. This is a floor: the amount that prevents a shortfall, not an optimum.

European Food Safety Authority, Dietary Reference Values for protein, 2012

Salt in a day

5 g 2000 mg

An adult Context established

Under 5 g of salt a day, which is under 2000 mg of sodium — just under a teaspoon. A label usually gives sodium, and the two are not the same number: salt is about 2.5 times the sodium.

World Health Organization, Salt reduction

What is done, and what is not: There is no calorie target here: daily energy need depends on age, body composition and training volume, and a figure written without them is a guess that looks certain. The protein calculation is offered because it rests on a sourced range and a single input. Supplements, and rapid weight cutting in weight-class sports, are conversations to have with a professional.

This choice is not stored anywhere.

Diets

Gluten-free Suitable if the label checks out Carries a risk of wheat contact during processing; the packet has to say gluten free.
Vegan Not suitable Prawns, Butter, Fresh kaşar cheese
Vegetarian Not suitable Prawns
Lactose-free Suitable as it is
Diabetes-friendly It depends

This verdict comes from the recipe\u2019s own ingredient list. The label on a packaged ingredient is always the last word.

Calculated nutrition

310.4 kcal
35.1 g Protein
9.4 g Carbohydrate
15.7 g Fat
2.4 g Fibre

Per serving, computed from raw weights as bought. Cooking drives water off and sometimes adds fat, and neither is accounted for.

composition figures unsourced · held in the system

After the heat goes off

Serving

In its dish, very hot, with bread. Scatter the parsley at the table.

Keeping · 1 days

One day in the fridge; the prawns firm up noticeably by the second.

Cooling and reheating

Do not reheat: a second heating certainly turns prawns to rubber. Warm the sauce and add the prawns cold.

Does not freeze

Cooked prawns do not freeze. Raw ones keep six months, but a thawed prawn is never refrozen.

What is left

Chopped, the leftovers become a pasta sauce or go onto bread.

For a child

Prawns are a crustacean allergen: on a first exposure give them alone, in a small amount, during the day. Suitable from twelve months; for 12–36 months halve each prawn, since a whole one is a choking risk. Leave the peppers out and lift their share before the salt.

If you have not got it

Prawns → Squid Squid works, but squid has two cooking times — under two minutes or over thirty. In this recipe take the first.

Where to go from here

The oven The method this recipe rests on
Prawns What it does in heat, water and acid
Tomato What it does in heat, water and acid
White button mushroom What it does in heat, water and acid
Fried squid Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Steamed fish Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Mushroom soup Similar method, or something that sits on the same table
Under 30 minutes Other recipes that answer the same need
For guests Other recipes that answer the same need

Taste profile

What it tastes like

The axes that define this recipe: umami 47, aroma 64, sweet 25.

Sweet 25
Salty 11
Sour 17
Bitter 16
Umami 47
Heat 5
Richness 17
Aroma 64

This profile is computed rather than measured: the role-weighted average of its ingredients’ taste vectors, shifted by what the cooking does. The thin line is the database average on that axis.

Computed similarity