Finely Minced Prawn & Courgette Fritters
Allergen lists cover the priority allergens in the recipe as written. Always check your own ingredient labels, and introduce each new allergen on its own first.
Ingredients
- 150 g raw peeled king prawns, deveined, tails and shells fully removed — choose plain, unbrined prawns with no added salt, no sodium phosphates and no added sulphites (check the label: salt, phosphate and sulphite treatments are all common on raw and frozen prawns, and sulphites are a declarable allergen in their own right), defrost thoroughly in the fridge and rinse before use
- 100 g courgette, coarsely grated and squeezed dry in a clean cloth
- 60 g floury potato, boiled until soft, mashed and cooled
- 30 g oat flour (porridge oats blitzed fine) — use oats labelled gluten-free if wheat has not been introduced
- 1 tsp finely chopped fresh dill or parsley
- 15 ml (1 tbsp) olive oil, for the pan
- 1 squeeze of lemon juice, to serve (optional). No salt is added at any stage — prawns already carry natural sodium, and a baby's kidneys cannot cope with any added on top
Method
- 1. Pat the prawns very dry, then pulse them in a small food processor (or chop and then scrape with a knife) until they form a smooth, even paste with no rubbery chunks left. Whole or chunky prawn pieces are springy and a real choking risk for a baby — mincing thoroughly is the safety step in this recipe.
- 2. Squeeze as much water as you can from the grated courgette, otherwise the fritters will not hold together.
- 3. Mix the prawn paste, courgette, mashed potato, oat flour and herbs into a soft, scoopable mixture. Chill for 10 minutes if it feels loose.
- 4. Warm the olive oil in a non-stick frying pan over medium-LOW heat.
- 5. Shape the mixture to the size for your baby's stage and cook for 4–5 minutes per side, until set, pale golden and fully opaque all the way through (74–75°C / 165°F in the centre if you use a probe). Cook shellfish thoroughly — never lightly seared or translucent in the middle.
- 6. Rest on kitchen paper and cool to just-warm, then break one open to confirm it is cooked through and squashes easily between your thumb and forefinger.
- 7. Serve within the day, or freeze cooked and cooled fritters and reheat once only, until piping hot all the way through, then cool to just-warm before serving. Never reheat a second time.
How to serve by age
6–8 months
Shape into flat finger-length logs about 8 cm long, 2 cm wide and 1.5 cm thick, so a log protrudes from a closed fist and can be gnawed at the exposed end — the shape the palmar (whole-hand) grasp needs before fingertip control arrives.
9–12 months
Cook as small 3 cm patties and then break or cut them into 1 cm pea-sized pieces so your baby lifts each one with the pincer grasp (thumb and forefinger); the soft, mince-based texture means a piece falls apart easily if it is swallowed whole.
Paediatric note
Crustacean shellfish allergy tends to appear later and to persist for life, so there is no benefit to delaying it — offer it within the first year, on its own, at home and earlier in the day, and once tolerated keep it in the rotation about 2–3 times a week, since sustained exposure rather than a single taste is what supports lasting tolerance. Buy prawns with a clean label, as sulphite preservatives are widely used on raw and frozen prawns and would mean testing two allergens at once. Prawns are also a useful source of iodine, zinc and B12 for brain and thyroid development, and unlike large predatory fish such as shark, swordfish, king mackerel, marlin or bigeye tuna they are very low in mercury.
Source guidance: https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/feeding-nutrition/Pages/default.aspx
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