They are derided as the Decade That Taste Forgot, but the Seventies have left us a rich culinary legacy. Foodies may scoff, but the prawn cocktail is still Britain’s favourite dining-out starter — even if, as Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham point out in their newly republished book, it’s called Cocktail de Crevettes.

The Prawn Cocktail Years was first published in 1997, after the two cooks spent a giggly evening recalling forgotten classics of the era — Coquilles St-Jacques, Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Maryland, Peach Melba. They say: “They are what used to be called ‘continental’ dishes, served in the plethora of bistros and restaurants that sprung up in postwar, post-rationing Britain. What they all have in common is the potential for being truly excellent. It’ s a revelation how good they can be.

“Our mission is to rehabilitate these old lags that have become scapegoats in a country now obsessed with culinary novelty.”

Prawn cocktail

You shouldn't muck about too much with a prawn cocktail. Starting at the bottom of the dish, you need the heart of a good lettuce, not the outside leaves. Any fresh lettuce will do but the heart of something like a little gem would be most suitable. Shredding the leaves (chefs say chiffonade) is traditional and there’s good reason for it: who wants whole lettuce leaves getting in the way of their prawns and pink sauce?

Freshly boiled prawns from the British seaside are rare today, which is a pity, so the next best things are whole cooked prawns. They will usually have been frozen but their quality, once shelled and decapitated, is surprisingly good. Frankly, if you wish to use those tasteless, bulk-frozen little pink commas, then you have only yourself to blame.

Home-made mayonnaise is ideal here, but home-made tomato sauce is quite definitely not: the taste of fresh tomato does not a prawn cocktail make. However hard one tries, it is not possible to replicate with fresh ingredients the taste of Heinz tomato ketchup. No other will do.

Ingredients

Prep: 10min
Cook: 5min
Serves 2

The heart of 1 little gem lettuce, finely shredded
1 spring onion, white part only, very finely sliced
1 heaped tbsp cucumber, peeled, de-seeded and finely diced
4-5tbsp of home-made mayonnaise
1tbsp tomato ketchup
2-3 shakes of Tabasco
1tsp cognac
Tiny squeeze of lemon juice
200g cooked, whole, shell-on prawns, peeled (reserve two, unpeeled, for garnish)
Paprika

METHOD

Divide the lettuce between two dishes, sprinkle over the spring onion and cucumber and pile the prawns loosely on top. Mix the mayonnaise, ketchup, Tabasco, cognac and lemon juice together to produce the regulation pink. Spoon the sauce over the prawns and allow it to trickle between them. Dust sparingly with paprika and attach a wedge of lemon.

From The Prawn Cocktail Years by Simon Hopkinson and Lindsey Bareham, Penguin/ Michael Joseph, £25. Available from Times Books First for £22.50, free p&p. Call 0870 1608080

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