Extracted from One Pound Meals by Miguel Barclay.
Mix up your weekly dinner rotation with three new prawn recipes.
Trofie pasta with prawns and homemade pesto
This simple prawn and pesto pasta dish from Eileen Dunne Crescenzi will be your new go-to meal for the rest of the summer
Serves 6-8
Ingredients
- 500g trofie or casarecce pasta
- 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 500g prawns, washed and shelled
- 1 garlic clove, peeled and left whole
- 100ml white wine
For the pesto
- 100g fresh basil leaves
- 100g freshly grated Parmigiano
- 50g pine nuts
- 30 peeled almonds
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed
- 150ml extra virgin olive oil
Method
- Blitz the basil, Parmigiano, pine nuts, almonds and garlic in a blender with half the oil.
- Gradually incorporate the rest of the oil until you obtain a smooth consistency.
- Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water until al dente or according to the packet instructions. Drain well.
- Pour the pesto and 2 tablespoons of the extra virgin olive oil into a large serving bowl. Whisk together to create an emulsion.
- Heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of oil in a large pan over a low heat.
- Sauté the prawns and garlic for about 1 minute, just until the garlic is fragrant but not browned. Remove the garlic with a slotted spoon.
- Add the wine and increase the heat momentarily to cook off the alcohol, then cover the pan and cook for 2 minutes.
- Add the drained pasta to the serving bowl with the pesto and mix together until all the pasta is coated with the pesto. Fold in the prawns and serve immediately.
Festa A Year of Italian Celebrations by Eileen Dunne Crescenzi from Gill Books.
Sri Lankan devilled prawns
These stir-fried prawns are quick, easy and flavoursome. A nice way to sample a Sri Lankan favourite and a perfect starter course to serve with drinks.
Serves 4
Ingredients
- 400g raw prawns, shell on
- 1 green pepper
- 1 red pepper
- 1 medium onion, cut into quarters
- 2 tsp oil
- 2 tbsp tomato sauce/ketchup
- 1 tbsp medium soy sauce (not dark)
- 2 tsp chilli powder
- 2 tsp sesame oil
Method
- Wash and clean the prawns. Remove the head and most of the shell, leaving it just on the tail. Wash them again, drain and set them aside.
- Remove the stems from the peppers, quarter and remove the seeds. Halve each quarter and cut them into about 1cm chunks and set them aside. Loosen the layers of the onion quarters and set aside.
- Put the oil in a large frying pan or wok over a very high heat, and immediately add the onion. Stir-fry for 30 seconds, then add the peppers and stir-fry for a minute.
- Tip in the prawns and stir-fry for just over a minute, then add the rest of the ingredients and stir-fry for another minute. Serve immediately.
Note: When making other devilled dishes, the main ingredient will need pre-cooking with a pinch or two of salt, before adding into the peppers and onions. You can use this method with prawns, but they do not need to be cooked for long.
Extracted from Sri Lanka: The Cookbook by Prakash K Sivanathan and Niranjala M Ellawala, (Frances Lincoln, an imprint of The Quarto group). Photography by Kim Lightbody.
Prawn wonton soup
This recipe shows how, with a bit of imagination, techniques learnt from one style of cooking can be applied to many different dishes that you wouldn’t expect. Here, a simple Italian technique for making tortellini is used to create these delicate little prawn wontons.
Serves 1
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp of ’00’ flour
- 1 medium egg yolk
- 4 medium-sized prawns
- 1 spring onion
- splash of sesame oil
- splash of soy sauce
- 400ml water
- 1 chicken stock cube
- ½ a sheet of dried noodles (approx 40g)
- ¼ of a pak choi
Method
- In a bowl, add 1 tbsp flour and 1 egg yolk. Mix to form a dough, knead for 5 minutes, wrap in clingfilm and set to one side to rest while you make the filling.
- On a chopping board, finely dice and repetitively chop 4 prawns and a quarter of a spring onion until a rough minced consistency is achieved. Add a splash of sesame oil and a splash of soy sauce, then mash with the back of a fork to mix everything together.
- Chop your ball of dough into 4 and using a rolling pin, roll out each ball into a roughly circular shape. Using the rim of a large glass, press into the dough to cut perfect circles.
- Spoon your filling into the centre of each circular disc. Dip your finger into water and run it along the edge of each circle. Using the water to create a sticky seal, fold each disc in half to form a sealed semi-circular shape.
- You can leave your wontons as semi-circles, or if you are more daring, then by folding the two furthest edges of the semi-circle together, you can create that classic compact wonton shape.
- Next, in a saucepan, add 400ml of water, a chicken stock cube and some chopped spring onion. Bring to the boil over a medium heat and then add the noodles, pak choi and wontons. Simmer for 5 minutes until the noodles are cooked, and then serve in a bowl with a ladle of the cooking stock to create a delicious wonton soup.
Also Read
