Creamy prawn and tomato pasta

As this lockdown has continued, the amount of pasta I have been eating has gone up to the same degree that the amount of exercise I have been doing has gone down. That’s not great, but hey, it’s temporary, right?

There’s always something comforting about pasta which makes it very appealing at the moment. But what to do with it to make it a bit different?

Hello, shrimps, prawns and cherry tomatoes, with healthy dollops of garlic, wine and cream.

This isn’t a recipe as such as I just played around for a couple of hours until I was happy with it.

What to use – serves 1

  • A packet of shrimps
  • A packet of uncooked king prawns
  • Five cherry tomatoes, quartered
  • A table spoon or so of creme fraiche
  • A good swig of white wine – maybe 75-100ml
  • Flat leaf parsley, finely chopped
  • A big handful of chopped frozen shallots and garlic
  • 100g dried pasta

How to use it

I sautéed the shallots and garlic in some olive oil for a few minutes until they were soft/translucent. (I used ready chopped frozen shallots and garlic – I’m working from home and while there’s no commute you’re still working all day and I don’t want to spend any more time in the kitchen than necessary on a weeknight. Using frozen also means they’re chopped to the same size.)

I then added the tomatoes and let them soften for a couple of minutes. Then I added the wine and most of the parsley – keep some back to garnish. I let this cook on a low heat for a long time – about an hour – and added water when it started to reduce down too far.

I then added the shrimps and keep cooking for another 15 minutes or so, so the shrimp flavour came through. I then added some creme fraiche, salt and pepper, and brought back to a gentle bubble, then adjusted the flavour – I added a bit of lemon and a bit more salt.

When the pasta was a couple of minutes away from done, I added the raw prawns to the hot sauce and cooked them for a couple of minutes until done.

Drain the pasta, and put it into the pan of sauce. Stir, cover and let sit for a minute. Sprinkle over the remaining parsley and serve.

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