Buying live prawns in Jakarta (Warning ahead: TMI)

Whenever I go to the wet market in Mayestik, I'm always fascinated by the fishmongers who have live prawns for sale. Of course these are pretty small prawns. We are talking about a cooked size of between 2 - 2.5 cm in diameter, but I love to have them in stir-fry dishes with vegetables for instance. So last week when I was there, I decided to buy 1kg which cost me IDR 60k.

When I got home, I gave them a rinse (and they are still alive!) and begin to peel off their heads. Took awhile to get over my own initial awkwardness of "beheading" them (and thinking that they must be saying "Don't peel my head off"), but kinda got used to it. One thing I noticed that with live prawns, their heads is surprisingly very strongly attached to their bodies. A very different tension compared to "beheading" dead prawns. And of course, there were a couple of them walking and swimming legs that were still twitching out of involuntary reflexes after they have been beheaded!

Well you can't get any fresher than these...

Before:

The aftermath: