pasta with prawns & rocket
The weekend that PJ took the girls to the coast to watch whales, I stayed home to host a Girls’ Weekend with several of my old school friends who are all turning 40 this year. We booked in the weekend sometime last year when I discovered that there was a very cool date coming up – 7,8,9/10/11 (sorry, that doesn’t really work for you Americans who write it MM/DD/YYYY – oh well). We talked about what we might get up to in order to appropriately mark the occasion of our 40th Birthdays and in the end Nina’s suggestion to stay in, cook dinner and drink excellent wine got the most votes. So that’s what we did. And here’s what she cooked:
JAMIE OLIVER’S SPAGHETTI CON GAMBERETTI E RUCOLA
(SPAGHETTI WITH PRAWNS & ROCKET)
Serves 4.
455g dried spaghetti
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
extra virgin olive oil
2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
1-2 dried red chillis, crumbled (Nina used a fresh one, the rebel)
400g peeled raw prawns
1 small wineglass of white wine (that’s about 200ml, I reckon)
2 heaped tablespoons of sun-dried tomato puree, or 6 sun-dried tomatoes blitzed in a blender
zest and juice of 1 lemon
2 handfuls of rocket, roughly chopped
Cook your spaghetti in a large pan of salted boiling water according to packet instructions. Meanwhile, heat 3 good lugs of extra virgin olive oil in a large fying pan and toss in the garlic and chilli.
As the garlic begins to colour, add the prawns and saute them for a minute. Add the white wine and the tomato puree and simmer for a couple of minutes.
When the pasta is ready, drain it in a colander, reserving a little of the cooking water. Toss the spaghetti with the sauce, squeeze in the lemon juice, add half the chopped rocket, adding a little of the reserved cooking water if you want to loosen the sauce a bit, and correct the seasoning.
Divide between 4 plates and sprinkle with grated lemon zest and the rest of the rocket leaves.
Can I just say – the lemon zest makes this dish. Yum.
Over to you…