Prawn and Avocado Cocktail Wontons

Gosh, I can't believe it - this time next week will be the 25th of October!!  Pretty significant in my house because - my baby "Precious" turns 21!!!  Where have the years gone?!?

Not only is it a big day for us in this house, but it also means the start of the countdown to Christmas!!

Are we all ready?  I know I am not - I have 2 birthdays in October and I know I can't even start to think about Christmas until I have got them out of the way.

As we start on the down hill slide to Christmas you can be assured that there will be lots of entertaining going on from here on in.

If you are heading out and have been asked to bring a plate these little numbers are incredibly easy, and big on the wow factor.  With a glass of bubbly in your hand, they also go down a treat!

Prawn and Avocado Cocktail Wontons


Makes 32

32 wonton wrappers
2/3 cup lite sour cream
3 tsp worcestershire sauce
24 cooked small king prawns, chopped
iceberg lettuce, shredded
1/2 cup olive oil
2tbs tomato sauce (ketchup)
1 tbs lemon juice
2 lge avocadoes, diced

Preheat oven to 180C.

Brush both sides of the wonton wrappers with the olive oil.  Ease the oiled wrappers into mini muffin pans.  Bake for 5-8 minutes, or until golden and crisp.  Transfer to a wire rack to cool.  After they are cooled you can store in an airtight container overnight if you need to.

Combine the sour cream, sauces and lemon juice. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.  Add the chopped prawns, and diced avocado.  Gently toss to coat in the sauce.

Place a small amount of the lettuce in each wonton cup, top with the prawn mixture.

Serve immediately.

Now I am warning you - make sure you grab a few of these as soon as you put them down, because they disappear real fast!!  Don't say I didn't warn you!!

Tomorrow my friend is coming by so that I can have a play with her Thermomix.  We have a big day of cooking planned, and I am going to document it all with photos and recipes.  We plan on making 2 kinds on stock, Ellie's homemade Ferrero Rochers, Risotto, dips, and grinding and milling away to our hearts content.  A real girl's day in!!  Stay tuned for all the details (I think that secretly she is hoping I will want one so badly that I will buy myself one for Christmas!!!)

Salt and Pepper Salmon with Lime Mayonnaise and Prawn Cocktails

I decided that last night a little celebration was in order.  I mean it's not every week that you get one of your recipes published in a magazine is it?













If there is one meal that I can serve in this house that "The Darlings" won't turn their noses up at it is Salmon!  It's just a shame we can't afford to eat it more often.

Always being on the lookout for new and different ways to serve up salmon I was excited to see in this month's Australian Good Food Magazine that there was a section called "In Season" with lots of salmon recipes in it!!

While I was at the local fish market buying the salmon I noticed that school prawns were on special this week - so then and there I decided that we would have an entree of prawn cocktails, followed by Salt and Pepper Salmon!

Classic Prawn Cocktail Sauce

1/2 cup whole egg mayonnaise
1tsp worcestershire sauce
juice 1 lemon
1 tbs tomato sauce (ketchup)
1 tsp horseradish sauce
pinch paprika

Combine all the above ingredients in a bowl.

You can either shred some iceberg lettuce, or I used lovely curly oak leaf lettuce - lay a bed of lettuce on your plates, top with prawn,s add some avocado if you like, then add a dollop of cocktail sauce.  A grind of black pepper, and there you have a lovely refreshing first course!

Salt and Pepper Salmon with Lime Mayonnaise

Serves 4

800g baby potatoes (I used kipfler)
1/3 cup olive oil
2 tbs plain flour
3 tsp sea salt flakes
1 1/2 tbs cracked mixed peppercorns
4 x salmon fillets
1/4 cup white balsamic vinegar
1 small red onion, cut into very thin wedges
1 bunch chives cut into 4cm lengths
2 tbs roughly chopped dill

Lime Mayonnaise

1/4 cup whole egg mayonnaise
finely grated rind of 1 lime
juice of 1/2 a lime

Preheat oven to 200C (fan).  I used kipfler potatoes, so all I did was scrub the skins to remove the dirt, then cooked them in boiling water for 15-20 minutes, or until they were just cooked.  Drain for 5 minutes.

Line a baking tray with baking paper, and gently flatten the potatoes.  Now you can either use the olive oil that is mentioned above, or you can spray them with garlic olive oil spray (which is what I did - I sprayed them twice - once to start cooking, then halfway through - this way they go lovely and crispy!) Season with salt flakes and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until lovely and crisp.

Combine the lime mayonnaise ingredients.  Season with salt and pepper.

Combine the flour sea salt and cracked pepper.  Dust the flesh sides of the salmon with the flour mixture. Place a small amount of olive oil in a frying pan over high heat.  Cook the salmon skin side down first for 2-3 minutes, or until crisp.  Then flip over and cook the flesh side for 2-3 minutes, for medium, or to your liking.

Whisk the vinegar with remaining olive oil (approx 1 1/2 tbs).  Now what I did was place the onions in this vinegar mix first - and let them site for a few minutes.  Then I added the cooked potatoes and the herbs.  Season with salt and pepper.  Combine well.

Place the smashed potatoes on the serving plates.  Top with the salmon, then add a dollop of lime mayonnaise.

This was so yummy!  There were so many flavours going on - the tangy lime mayonnaise, the salt and pepper on the salmon, and then the vinegar on the potatoes just topped it off!!  I am not usually one for having raw onion, but blended all together with the herbs and potatoes (and leaving it a little longer in the vinegar) you really didn't notice that it was raw.