Charred Vegetable Salad With Grilled Prawns

Chef Justine Schofield prepares the ideal warm weather lunch or light dinner. Smokey, charred vegetables are topped with grilled prawns and a zingy herb salad – it really is summer on a plate!

?Ingredients – serves 4

Chopped charred vegetables

3 capsicums (1 each of green, red, yellow)

1 long red chilli

1 head garlic

1 tomato

1 ½ tsp. caraway seeds (toasted and roughly ground in mortar and pestle)

Juice ½ small lemon

3 tbs. extra virgin olive oil from Spain

Salt

Grilled prawns

12 prawns, head removed, peeled deveined and half butterflied

1 small fresh chilli

Zest ½ lemon

2 tbs. extra virgin olive oil from Spain

Herb salad

¼ cup flat parsley leaves, picked

¼ cup mint leaves, picked

1 tbs. chive, cut into 3cm batons

Squeeze of lemon juice

1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil from Spain

Method

1. For the charred vegetables, drizzle whole capsicums, chilli and garlic with olive oil. Place on a BBQ or on a griddle pan and continually turn until they are blackened all over. Remove and place into bowl.

2. Cover with cling film and sweat for 10 minutes. Remove all skin and seeds from capsicum and chilli. Roughly chop. For the garlic remove flesh from skins.

3. On the grill briefly cook the tomato until the skin peels off.

4. While the tomato is still hot, squeeze into a large mortar and pestle. Add the capsicums and chilli, followed by ¾ of the garlic, caraway seeds, lemon juice, extra virgin olive oil and salt. Pound gently to combine and to form a very rough puree.

5. For the prawns, add the chilli, lemon zest, remaining garlic, oil and salt. Marinate briefly then grill for no more then 1-2 minutes on a hot BBQ or grill.

6. To assemble, spread the chopped salad on a plate then top with prawns. Mix herb salad ingredients together and add at the last minute.