Prawn and Avocado Vol-au-Vents

Method

1. Peel the prawns. Twist off the heads, unwrap the shells, take the tails off as well, and run the tip of a knife down the back to lift out the dark vein. Pat every one dry with paper towel. Wet prawns thin the sauce and a thin sauce is what softens pastry.
2. Pick out the 12 best prawns and keep them whole in the fridge. These go on top, so choose the ones that curl.
3. Chop the rest into pieces about the size of your thumbnail. Not a mince, not halves.
4. Halve the avocado. Mash one half with a squeeze of lemon juice and a good pinch of salt until smooth. Dice the other half into 1cm cubes and turn them through a little more lemon juice.
5. In a bowl, stir the mayonnaise with the chilli sauce, the lemon zest and the rest of the juice until it is one colour. Taste it now, while you can still fix it. It should be sharper than you think, because the prawns and the pastry are both mild.
6. Fold in the chopped prawns, the diced avocado, the celery and the herbs. Season with salt flakes and pepper. Cover and keep it cold. It will sit for up to two hours, no more.
7. Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan). Sit the shells on a dry oven tray and warm them for 4 minutes, then leave them on the bench until they are properly cool. This drives off any moisture the pack has picked up and is the difference between a shell that shatters and one that bends. Filling a warm shell with a cold filling steams it soft from the inside.
8. Spoon a teaspoon of the mashed avocado into the base of each shell and push it flat. It works as mortar: the prawn on top stops sliding, and the pastry base is sealed against the sauce.
9. Add a heaped tablespoon of the prawn mixture, then curl one whole prawn over the top. Finish with dill tips, a little lemon zest, a pinch of chilli flakes and black pepper. Serve within 20 minutes.

Getting them to the table

Everything except the assembly can be done before guests arrive, and assembly is about six minutes for 12 shells. Peel the prawns and mix the sauce in the morning, but keep them in separate containers, because prawns sitting in dressing go woolly. Warm the shells early too, then store them dry with the lid on tight.

Assemble on a cold platter. On a 35°C day a metal tray straight from the fridge buys you 20 minutes that a wooden board will not. Leftover filling makes a very good sandwich the next day.

Three questions we get every December

What do you serve as a Christmas starter in Australia?

Something cold, small and mostly seafood. Lunch is usually large and the day is usually hot, so the starter is there to keep people going, not to fill them. Prawns, oysters, smoked salmon and cold cuts do most of the work. Pastry cases turn all of them into something you can hand around without cutlery. There are more ideas in our Christmas canapes guide.

How many prawns per person for a starter?

Allow four or five medium prawns a head as a plated starter, which is roughly 150g of whole prawns per person before peeling, or about 75g of meat. Two of these vol-au-vents each does the same job with less mess. If prawns are the only thing on the table before lunch, push it to eight or nine each and put out lemon, bread and somewhere to leave the shells.

Can you fill vol-au-vents in advance?

Not with a wet filling like this one. Twenty minutes before serving is the limit, and 30 is pushing it. What you can do ahead is everything else: peel the prawns, mix the sauce, warm the shells and store them dry. A warmed shell brushed inside with a little melted butter and left to set will hold out for closer to an hour. The mushroom and thyme filling is the same story, and it can be made three days ahead.

Two boxes of shells and a kilo of prawns is the entire project. The Confiletas pastry cases range runs from 38mm mini vol-au-vents up to the 75mm large shells used here, all under $10 a box, and the smoked salmon tartlets use the savoury cases if you want a second tray with no oven at all. If you would rather send the food than cook it, the Christmas hampers are packed by hand in Corio. Shipping is free Australia-wide on orders over $100, and orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched from Geelong that day.