Jamie's Italy
Spaghetti with prawns and rocket (Spaghetti con gamberetti e rucola)
With sun-dried tomatoes & a splash of white wine
20 mins
Not Too Tricky
serves 4
About the recipe
This dish was on the menu in a little restaurant called La Gondola in one of the roughest parts of Palermo. I thought the combination of flavours was great, and very accessible to us back home in Britain. Finish off with good-quality olive oil and wild rocket full of flavour and you’ll be laughing.
Recipe From
Ingredients
455g dried spaghetti
2 cloves garlic
extra virgin olive oil
1-2 dried red chillies
400g peeled raw prawns, from sustainable sources, ask your fishmonger
1 small wineglass white wine
2 heaped tablespoons sun-dried tomato purée, or 6 sun-dried tomatoes blitzed in a blender
1 lemon
2 handfuls of rocket
Top Tip
You can buy very high-quality frozen prawns in supermarkets these days, so it’s a win-win situation, but if you can get hold of some super-fresh ones and peel them yourself this can all of a sudden become very luxurious in flavour. If using frozen prawns, make sure they’re thawed out.
Method
- Cook your spaghetti in a large pan of salted boiling water according to the packet instructions.
- Meanwhile, peel and finely chop the garlic. Heat 3 good lugs of extra virgin olive oil in a large frying pan, then toss in the garlic and crumble in the chilli. As the garlic begins to colour, add the prawns and sauté them for a minute. Add the white wine and tomato purée, and simmer for a couple of minutes.
- Grate the zest of the lemon and roughly chop the rocket. 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 with sea salt and black pepper.
- Divide between 4 plates and sprinkle with the grated lemon zest and the rest of the rocket leaves.
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