Species sheet · The Edible Ocean
common prawn
Grey in the water, pink only once cooked.
- Flash-boiled with coarse salt
- Sautéed with garlic and parsley
- The heads into a quick bisque
- In French
- Bouquet rose
- Scientific name
- Palaemon serratus
- In the water
- Benthic; brackish; from 0 to 40 m; shallow rocky and muddy bottoms.
- Season & buying
- Trapped from November to March, from southern Brittany down to the Gironde estuary; buy it live or cooked that same day, with the tail curled tightly under the body.
- Common length
- ~11 cm
- How to identify it
- Translucent body striped red-brown
Long toothed rostrum, upturned tip
Bright pink once cooked
On the plate
Fine and sweet, far more delicate than a farmed prawn.
Avoid: Cooking it in a flavoured court-bouillon: thirty seconds in salted boiling water is enough.
Its shell is transparent while it lives: you can watch its heart beating behind the head, which is why it is a classic laboratory animal.
In Umay recipes
One Umay recipe calls for it.
