This is a lovely easy recipe and is beautiful with fresh green prawns. It’s a great mid-week recipe because it’s quite quick to prepare, and the sauce is smooth and silky. I think it’s a nice change from having a tomato based sauce.
This dish reminds me of an amazing scampi (small prawns) pasta we had in Venice. We had visited the amazing fish markets in Venice earlier in the day and had heard good things about the seafood at this restaurant. After some language confusion we were presented with an enormous serve of fresh, fragrant garlic and tomato scamp pasta. It was one of the best things I’ve ever eaten, and it was so simple. I’m still working on recreating the taste – it all turns upon the quality of your seafood.
Ingredients
- 500 grams Pasta (I use spaghetti or linquine)
- 3 cloves Garlic, finely chopped
- 1 cup White wine
- 2 tbsps Butter (more if you want more sauce)
- 1 tbsp Olive oil
- 1 pinch Chilli flakes
- 20 Green prawns, peeled except for tails
- 5-6 Semi-dried tomatoes, chopped
- 1 tbsp Lemon juice
- 1 tsp Lemon zest
- 2 tbsps Parsley
- handful Cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 stalk Bok choy, chopped
- 1 tbsp Parmesan cheese, finely grated
Directions
- Cook the past in a large saucepan of boiling salted water. Reserve 1/2 cup of pasta water. Drain pasta and set aside to keep warm.
- Put oil in a frying pan with the garlic and heat gently over a low heat.
- When the oil is hot add the prawns, chilli and half the parsley. Increase the heat to high and cook for 2-3 minutes. Turn the prawns and cook through.
- Remove the prawns and set aside.
- Add the lemon juice and white wine to pan, allow to bubble and reduce for two minutes. At this point I added the semi-dried tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bok choy and some pasta water and parmesan.
- Once the bok choy has cooked down a bit, stir in cold butter and lemon zest until you have a smooth sauce.
- Add the prawns and pasta and toss through sauce and heat through.
- Top with remaining parsley and some more grated parmesan cheese.
- Enjoy!
I will just provide you with the link to this recipe – I found it on the NY Times website.
We bought several kilos of prawns (green, unshelled) over Christmas and we have slowly been working our way through them. My appreciation for prawns developed quite late in life, particularly surprising given I’m a Queenslander and loving seafood is like breathing for most of us! However, I have come to enjoy those succulent little morsels, but like most shellfish, they result in an overabundance of leftover shells. The great thing about this recipe is that it actually uses the shells to make a prawn stock, which provides a fundamental base layer of flavour to the dish.
This dish is very “prawn-y” so I don’t recommend it if you are not a fan. However, if you like prawns I feel sure you’ll love this dish. It is not overly complicated, although it does require a fair bit of stove time. The leek adds a subtle sweetness and the rice texture and depth. You will feel like you are eating a far more indulgent dish then you actually are. We wiped our plates clean with thick slices of white tiger bread and sat back, replete.
There is a lack of ‘authentic’ Mexican food available in Brisbane, unless you consider Montezuma’s authentic…
I’ve been bemoaning this fact for quite a while – I’m convinced there must be more to Mexican food than Old El Paso taco mix and fajitas. In such a situation, I turn to my fail-safe – the internet.
We made ‘prawn tacos’ on the weekend – using tortillas instead of hard shells. I googled a few different recipes and came up with my own version.
- whole
- 12 whole peeled green prawns
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp all-spice
- 1 tbsp olive or vegetable oil
- whole
- 1/2 medium onion diced
- 1 large tomato diced
- 1 large ear of corn kernels sliced off cob
- 1/2 large green capsicum diced
- handful coriander and parsley finely chopped
- clove garlic finely chopped
- whole
- whole Tortillas
- container Sour cream (or natural yoghurt)
- slice Lime wedges
- slice Avocado
- slice Cucumber
Directions
- Mix spices and oil together, then marinate the prawns in mixture for 10 minutes.
- Meanwhile, heat some more oil in a frypan to medium-high. Add onion and garlic and cook for a few minutes until onion has softened. Add remaining vegetables and cook for about 5 more minutes. Remove from pan and set aside, keeping warm.
- In the same pan, add some more oil and then put in your prawns. I like to place them in and then turn them once during cooking so they get a nice little crust on them. Once the prawns have started turning pink, add back in your vegetable mix. Continue cooking until everything is hot and cooked through.
- Heat up your tortillas, then set everything out on the table. Stuff the tortillas with whatever ingredients take your fancy. Crack open a Corona (or other Mexican beer) and enjoy!
This is a lovely easy recipe and is beautiful with fresh green prawns. It’s a great mid-week recipe because it’s quite quick to prepare, and the sauce is smooth and silky. I think it’s a nice change from having a tomato based sauce.
23.07.10 | 
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