This is the sort of recipe that will appeal to people who do not mind dealing with details and a series of steps. It is not at all ‘difficult’ but it does require a little patience, and I don’t know about you but I really don’t relish the chore of removing the gut from each prawn but there is no getting out of it, I’m afraid! — hence not the sort of recipe to be tackled when you’re in a hurry-up mood. That, and it requires very fresh and lovely tasting prawns (frozen won’t do). Said seafood doesn’t come cheap but because it is spread out into a pasta sauce, you can exercise a little good husbandry and not break the bank. That is what makes pasta sauces so very ‘democratic’ — the sauce acts like a conveyor of the expensive food item and so the quantity needed per person boils down to being very reasonable. Look at these beauties!
And here were the courgettes …. le zucchine.
And here they are at home in my kitchen.
PART I – Cleaning and trimming and chopping and what have you …
The first thing to do is to peel the prawns … and keep the heads and shells.
Put the peeled prawns in a bowl after you have removed their gut.
And now it’s time to toast the prawn shells and heads. Just plop them into a saucepan and turn the heat on fairly high …
Have some tomato sauce handy …
Also have some boiling water handy. So to recap: the prawn shells are cooking, you have some tomato sauce to hand, and you also have some boiling water (in the green kettle).
After cooking the shells for a few minutes, add some boiling water, enough to cover them say.
Then add the tomato sauce. This is not normally how one would make a bisque but then that would have taken far too long. So I decided that, necessity being the mother of invention, I would invent a new bisque approach. I am calling it the Tomato Foxtrot Bisque.
Let it cook on a fairly high heat for at least 14 minutes. I tasted it after a while and added a pinch of sugar and a good sprinkle of salt.
In the meantime … trim the courgettes.
Chop the courgettes …
Open the packet of pasta …
Get your pasta water boiling … PART II – COOKING
Sauté some garlic in olive oil … do not allow it to go brown, just golden. And then remove it if the sight of it offends you … or keep it if you don’t mind.
Sauté the courgettes in the garlic-scented olive oil — tossing frequently and only for a few minutes, enough to take the “raw” out of it. Then add the peeled prawns.
Cook the prawns for very little … otherwise they end up being rubbery. Cook them until they turn pink (about 3 minutes?).
Then set both courgettes and prawns aside. You can start cooking the pasta …. PART III – Bringing the sauce together Just to recap. The courgettes and the prawns have been cooked together. The Tomato Foxtrot Bisque has been simmering away, and has reduced by about one half. And the pasta has been put into the boiling water to cook.
Pour the bisque into a large saucepan. Use a sieve to catch the prawn shells and use a ladle to press hard on these shells, to make them release their juices into the saucepan. Then, obviously, throw them away.
When the pasta is almost cooked — i.e. when it’s still quite hard and needs a couple of minutes in order to become al ‘dente’ — remove it from the boiling water and place it into the saucepan with the bisque.
Add some cooking water …
And cover with a lid, turning the heat up very high.
Remove the lid and finish off the sauce with one last ‘press’ of the prawn shells ….
Taste the pasta … it’s the golden rule in the kitchen: taste, taste, taste. And if, as in this case the pasta was still not done … add a little more cooking water and wait for it to reach the precise ‘al dente’ point.
I added some courgette flowers at this point — it doesn’t do much to the flavour, it was more for embellishment.
And when I was sure that the pasta was just right … i.e. tasted some of the pasta …
I added the previously cooked courgettes and prawns.
I can see that I had added some chopped parsely to the sauce too …
Toss and mix, mix and toss …
Turn the heat off. Drizzle a little olive oil …
In the serving bowl. The pasta cooked this way is far far tastier because it has been allowed to “absorb” the seafoody scents of the bisque, the sweet acidity of the tomato sauce, the oiliness of the garlic, and the pretty tones of the courgettes with their dash of green. Oh — and not forgetting the most obvious super-ingredient: excellent olive oil. It is always amazing to me how a good olive oil can transform any ingredient into transports of delight.
Serve and enjoy.
My Home Food That’s Amore
- Arrivederci – Continue to Read my recipes on My New Blog
- Frascati Mutton Stew – Spezzatino di Castrato e Piselli al Frascati DOCG
- Baked Cauliflower and Potato Patties
- Birthdays and The Little Things That Please Us
- Quiche Frascataine
- Risotto alla Carbonara
- A Garland of Potatoes and Vegetables and a Good Bit of Scraping
- A Craving for Sartù – Using Leftovers Backwards
- Meatballs with Peas – Polpette con Piselli
- Rice and Lentil Fritters – Loving the Leftovers
-
Recent Posts
Archives
- April 2015
- March 2015
- February 2015
- January 2015
- December 2014
- November 2014
- October 2014
- September 2014
- August 2014
- July 2014
- June 2014
- May 2014
- April 2014
- March 2014
- February 2014
- January 2014
- December 2013
- November 2013
- October 2013
- September 2013
- August 2013
- July 2013
- June 2013
- May 2013
- April 2013
- March 2013
- February 2013
- January 2013
- December 2012
- November 2012
- October 2012
- September 2012
- August 2012
- July 2012
- June 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- March 2012
- February 2012
- January 2012
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- April 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
Categories
- Antipasti
- Anything sweet
- Artichokes – Carciofi
- Basic Techniques
- Contorni and/or side dishes
- Fish and seafood
- Herbs and plants
- italian home food
- Loving the Leftovers
- Mole type-stew
- Places to eat
- Polpette: Meatballs as well as vegetable crocquettes
- Pressure Cooker
- Primi (first courses – usually a pasta or risotto)
- Recipes from outside Italy
- Risotto
- salad
- Secondi (main course
- Secondi (main course, usually meat based)
- Shops and Stores
- Soup
- Soups
- Travel and Tales
- Uncategorized
- usually meat based)
Meta
I said this before… it is amazing watching you cook! From the market to the table. Gorgeous!
This sounds fantastic and I’m sure it was. Oh to be able to buy courgettes with their flowers still attached.