Red prawns from Ciutadella

Red prawns are one of the queens of seafood on our islands, and are part of many seafood dishes. From cauldrons, dry rice dishes, in a clay pot, soups, in paella..., as well as being grilled, fried with olive oil and a pinch of garlic and parsley... In Menorca we also bake them in the oven with potatoes and tomatoes, as well as a very good prawn panadera, which although its name suggests that it contains bread, it does not, but rather contains potatoes. It is an aguiat or what in Basque would be called a “marmitako” of red prawns.

The fishermen of Ciutadella are the ones who catch the famous red prawns that bear the name of the city of Ponent. A shrimp that has its fisheries in the north of the Channel of Menorca, where the waters of Menorca and Mallorca meet, and that due to its bottom and coastline is practically identical, a sister cousin, of the Sóller shrimp.

The red shrimp of Ciutadella, a shrimp that you must try when you visit the island, and that I can personally confess to you that I enjoy a red shrimp cauldron more than a lobster cauldron, because the taste that the shrimps, their heads, their coral and their fat give makes the cauldron have a set of unique and seductive flavors, as also happens when we bake them with potatoes, impregnating the tubers with their juices and that the potatoes cut into slices and seasoned with breadcrumbs and chopped garlic and parsley are even better than the shrimps themselves. Both were also dishes for cooking shrimp, which were expensive if they were large and fresh, when guests or several people were at the table.