why am i so frightened of prawns? is it victoria wood's fault?

[AitchTwoOh]

that line about them hanging around sewage outlets treading water with their mouths open? [barf]

DD eats them at my mum's house all the time, i love them in a restaurant but i am bizarrely terrified of cooking them myself for fear of killing us all...i've had a pack of M&S fancy pants honduran king prawns in the freezer for months now but i can never think of anythign to do with them. which is stupid, cos right off the top of my head i can think of squizzing some lime juice over them and frying them up with chilli. but i won't. because i haven't, iykwim. so they'll sit there forever.

tell me about prawns, everyone. particularly frozen ones. how do you get the poo out of them for starters? how do you defrost them without getting food poisoning? are they even Good For You? etcetera etcetera etcetera.

I have just googled this for you, as I didn't think it was really poo! It is described as an intestinal vein (not sure if that makes it better or worse, really), and the general advice seems to be to slit down with a sharp knife and just lift it out.

(Or buy the nasty cheap small prawns that moondog would bin, as they don't seem to have visible intestinal veins. I buy these little ones in bulk when they are on special offer, and they are fine in sauces, thai curries, etc. (IMHO). The big juicy lovely yummy ones are better though.)

intestinal vein? ellbell, what do you keep in your intestines? fairy flowers?

Surely veins have blood in them? (And anyway I am not a prawn )

i suppose, if you choose to concentrate more on the word vein than intestinal. i'm going to try it tomorrow, i think. i do prefer prawns shell on myself, so i'd be interested to find out if i can get them frozen as that would make prawns a great convenience food.

Repeat after me: "It's a vein. It's a blood vessel. It's a vein. Prawns are yummy" You can do it!

ellbell, it's prawn shit. i've tasted it. but i must move on...

Good luck! Am going to be away for a couple of days and un-mumsnettable, but will check back on this thread when I get back to see if you've actually eaten a prawn yet!