Christmas Prawns: When to Order Them and How to Keep Them Cold

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

Order Christmas prawns in the last week of November, collect them on 24 December, and get them home in a pre-chilled esky inside two hours. Prawns keep three days from purchase in a fridge at or below 5°C. Allow 200 g of unpeeled prawns per adult.

There are no prawns on this website and there never have been. We pack jars, crackers and pastry cases by hand in Corio in Victoria and send them off with a courier, which is a very different job from the one you have on Christmas Eve: a local errand with a hot car in the middle of it. What we can help with is the part beside the platter, two or three jars from sauces and mixes bought weeks earlier, and the part nobody at the counter has time to explain.

The ordering calendar

Prawns are not a shelf item. The date you order decides the size you get and how long you queue, and that calendar closes about a week before Christmas.

Allow 200 g of unpeeled prawns per adult as part of a spread, closer to 400 g if the prawns are lunch, then stop counting. Our guide to how much food per person does the rest of the table, and when to order Christmas food and hampers covers everything that is not seafood.

Cooked or green

Cooked prawns are the Christmas Eve errand, near the end of their life when you buy them, so the clock starts at the counter rather than on the calendar. Green prawns are the opposite. Bought frozen and kept frozen, where they hold for up to three months, they are the only part of the seafood list you can settle in October. Thaw them overnight in the fridge, never on the bench, and do not refreeze them.

Collection day, and the two hours that decide it

An esky keeps cold things cold. It does not make anything cold, so a lidded box on the back seat with nothing frozen in it is only a slower way to lose the prawns. Six things, in order.

1. Chill the esky the night before. Ice bricks into the freezer on the 22nd so they freeze through rather than going slushy.
2. Make the seafood the last stop. Bottle shop, bakery and fruit shop first. The prawns should spend less time in the car than anything else you buy.
3. Buy the ice on the way to the counter. A bag bought at 8am and carried around for an hour is half water by the time it has any work to do.
4. Keep the prawns out of the ice water. Sealed bag on top, bricks underneath. Cold air falls, so ice under the prawns beats ice over them.
5. Put the esky in the cabin. The air-conditioned part of the car is cooler than the boot, which in December is the warmest place in the vehicle.
6. Unpack the seafood first. Two hours from counter to fridge is the number to beat, and most of the risk is the detour you had not planned on.

On a long drive, ask for extra ice in the bag at the counter and say why. Fishmongers do it without blinking on Christmas Eve.

What goes beside them

Prawns are bought late and eaten plain, which puts the flavour work on what sits next to them, and all of that is shelf stable. Glasseye Creek Pretty Hot smoked chilli sauce is fired by three day smoked jalapenos and tamed with wood smoked roasted tomatoes and Canterbury blackcurrant. At $16.95 for 400 g there is more in the bottle than one platter needs, which is the point: it goes on eggs and through mayonnaise all summer. For the sharp bowl, Ottolenghi honey mustard dressing at $24.95 for 250 ml has dijon and preserved lemon in it already, and a jar of Belazu preserved lemons at $12.95 doubles the lemon without a wedge in sight.

Then something to eat them with. Artisan pita baked with olive oil and sea salt, $7.95 for 100 g, holds a wet sauce better than a plain water cracker, and the rest of the range is in crackers. The sauces themselves are written out in our guide to what to serve with cold seafood. Order that half in October, because we do not offer same-day delivery and December is not the month to find that out.

In the fridge, and how long they keep

Home is where most of the damage happens, because the fridge on 24 December is packed, opened every few minutes and running warmer than it does in June. Australian food authority guidance is a fridge at or below 5°C and prawns eaten within three days of purchase, cooked or green, or frozen for up to three months.

Clear a shelf on the 22nd rather than the 24th. Keep the prawns airtight or tightly covered, in the coldest part of the fridge, which is the back of the bottom shelf and never the door, and away from other food. Leave them in the shell as long as you can, because the shell stops them drying out and taking on the smell of everything else in there. A cheap fridge thermometer settles the argument about whether a full fridge is still cold.

Two things before the platter goes out. Seafood should not sit out of the fridge for more than two hours, so put out what will be eaten in the next hour and keep the rest cold. And ready to eat chilled peeled prawns are among the foods the food authorities tell pregnant women and anyone with a severely suppressed immune system to avoid, which is easier to plan around before you shop than at the table.

Christmas prawn questions

When should I order prawns for Christmas?

Ring your fishmonger in the last week of November and ask when the order book opens and closes. Most close about a week out, and the larger grades are spoken for before that. Name a collection day and an hour when you order, then confirm in mid December.

How many prawns do I need per person?

Around 200 g of unpeeled prawns per adult when they are one part of a spread, which is five or six large prawns each once you allow for heads and shells, and about 400 g if seafood is the meal. Count a child under ten as half an adult. Buy a little over rather than a lot over, because prawns are a three day item and the crackers beside them are a one year one.

How do I get prawns home without them going warm?

Freeze the ice bricks two days out and chill the esky overnight. Make the fishmonger the last stop of the morning, buy the ice just before you collect, and keep the prawns in a sealed bag on top of the ice with the bricks underneath. Put the esky in the air-conditioned cabin rather than the boot, and get them into the fridge inside two hours.

How long do cooked prawns keep in the fridge?

Three days from purchase, at or below 5°C. A 24 December collection and a 25 December lunch sits comfortably inside that window, while a 23 December collection puts you on the last day of it. Keep them airtight in the coldest part of the fridge, leave them in the shell, and go by smell as well as the date.

The seafood is a local errand you cannot bring forward. Everything beside it can be done now, and two or three jars from sauces and mixes is the short version of that list. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post, and shipping is free Australia-wide over $100. If you are the guest rather than the host, our Christmas hampers skip the queue altogether. This piece is part of our guide to Christmas food in Australia.