Garlic Butter Prawns with Lemon & Capers

Ingredients

• 400 g raw king prawns, peeled and deveined
• 50 g butter
• 4 cloves garlic, finely sliced
• 1 tsp chilli flakes
• 2 lemons, 1 zested and juiced, 1 for serving
• 1 tbsp capers, roughly chopped
• 20 g fresh parsley, roughly chopped
• 2 x 250g pre-cooked jasmine rice pouches
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• Crusty sourdough bread, to serve
• Dressed green salad, to serve

Method

1. Pat the prawns properly dry on kitchen paper — water means steam, and steam means no colour. Season generously with salt and pepper.
2. Heat the olive oil in a wide stainless or cast iron pan over high heat until it's shimmering. Lay the prawns in a single layer, working in two batches if your pan looks crowded — pile them in all at once and they'll boil in their own juices instead of catching any colour. Don't stir for a full minute, until they've turned pink and gone a little golden underneath. Flip, cook 30 seconds more, then lift onto a plate.
3. Drop the heat to medium and add the butter to the same pan. Once it's foaming, add the sliced garlic and chilli flakes. Swirl the pan and cook just until the garlic is pale gold and fragrant — 30 to 60 seconds, no more. Burnt garlic turns the whole dish bitter, so watch it like a hawk and pull the pan off the heat the moment it smells nutty.
4. Stir in the capers and cook for another 30 seconds — they'll start to crisp at the edges and perfume the butter.
5. Return the prawns to the pan with the lemon zest, lemon juice and most of the parsley. Toss for 30 seconds so every prawn is glossed in the butter and the pan juices loosen into a proper sauce. Taste, season, taste again — adjust now, not at the table.
6. Meanwhile, heat the jasmine rice pouches according to the pack instructions and fluff out into warm bowls.
7. Spoon the prawns over the rice, then pour every last drop of the garlic-caper butter from the pan over the top — that's where the flavour lives.
8. Scatter with the remaining parsley and tuck a lemon wedge alongside each bowl for a final squeeze at the table.