Prawn pasta with lemon, garlic and chilli

The prawns in this recipe are those that are somewhat clunkily named “prawn meat” in the frozen section of the supermarket. It’s a misnomer: they’re whole tails, deveined and shelled. They have been blanched before being frozen, but they nevertheless need to be cooked. I fried them quickly, turning them once.

The pasta is cavatappi (cute little curved spirals, not the screw-like ones that look like you could use them to fix a painting to the wall). But you could use another kind of small pasta.

Ingredients

500 g blanched prawns (peeled, deveined)

250 g cavatappi (pasta spirals)

3 garlic cloves, chopped

2 red chillies, seeded and chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

Fruity olive oil

Ordinary olive oil

Coriander leaves

1 ladleful of pasta water

A generous drizzling of top quality olive oil

Salt

Black pepper

Method

Defrost the prawns by soaking them in cold water in the (clean) sink, then drain thoroughly. Once drained, pat them dry.

Cook the pasta until al dente, then reserve a ladleful of the pasta water. Drain the pasta.

Add the chopped garlic and chilli to ordinary olive oil in a heavy pan and bring it to a moderate heat. Fry the prawns in batches, with space in between them. Remove and fry the rest. Season with salt and black pepper as you go.

Scrape the pan after cooking the prawns, then add the pasta water and lemon juice and deglaze. Add the drained pasta, a generous drizzling of a fruity olive oil such as Babylonstoren coratina or frantoio, and the juice of half a lemon. Serve, garnished with chopped coriander. DM