I’m back with another meat-free Monday for you and this week I am finally sharing with you my famous creamy prawn and courgette spaghetti. This dish is quite special to me and dates back to my Uni years when I was slowly but surely improving my cooking skills. In my final year, this become the house go-to meal when we were feeling fancy and my housemates loved it so much that at times, I would be summoned home from Uni to cook for the girls. They would have gone to Tesco’s and bought everything ready for me. I mean – who wants to study any way right? Even now, we share pictures of us making this dish in our WhatsApp group whenever we make it so you know it’s a good one!
Back then, we could only get hold of cooked prawns, and to be honest, as students we didn’t want to be spending money on the good stuff, so we made do with what we could get hold of. Nowadays, I almost always use raw fresh prawns (I only used cooked prawns if I really can’t hold of the raw fresh ones). If you’re buying raw prawns from the fishmonger, you will need to clean and devein these. It’s a little tedious but trust me, you want to do this to avoid getting a funny tummy! But – keep hold of the shells and the heads, you can make a delicious fish stock using them so they don’t go to waste!
Cleaning & Deveining
- To clean and devein, you want to first remove the shell and the legs – you can keep the tail if you want and also the head, but I always remove both for ease.
- Then, with a small sharp knife, carefully slice along the back of the prawn to expose the “vein” – this is the black/grey/green gunk.
- Use your knife to scrape this out and then give the prawn a little rinse and place on a kitchen towel.
- Wipe down your knife and start the process again.
For the cream, I normally use double cream or in Italy I was using panna di cucina, you can also use single cream if you want to keep it lighter. I also like to use a little less so it coats the pasta rather than drowns, but I use the starchy pasta water to thin it out and lengthen it a little. You can add more cream if desired.
So here it is, I hope you guys love this recipe as much as I do and maybe it will become a staple in your home too!
2
servings5
minutes20
minutes25
minutesIngredients
140 g Spaghetti
1 Small courgette, halved & sliced
1/2 White onion, diced
1 Garlic clove, finely chopped
165 g Raw Prawns (approx. 12 prawns), cleaned & deveined
1 Tsp Dried chilli flakes
60 ml White wine
125 ml Double Cream
Small handful fresh parsley, roughly chopped
2 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tsp Salt
1/4 Tsp Pepper
Directions
- Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, in a large frying pan, add olive oil and warm through on a medium heat. Add courgette and onion and sauté for around 5-7 minutes until the onions are almost translucent.
- Salt the water in the saucepan heavily once boiled and add the spaghetti – cook for 10 minutes until al dente.
- Back to the frying pan, add the garlic and sauté for a further minute. Push everything to the side of the pan, drizzle in a little extra olive oil and spread the prawns out. Fry until pink before turning – this should only take a couple minutes. Season with salt and pepper and all the chilli flakes.
- Combine the prawns with the courgettes and onions, increase the heat to high and pour in the white wine. Allow the alcohol to evaporate before adding the double cream. Reduce the heat to simmer.
- Drain the spaghetti, but keep some of the cooking water. Add directly to the frying pan and carefully combine with the sauce, sprinkling in the fresh parsley. Use the cooking water to lengthen if desired or add more cream if you prefer the sauce to be extra extra creamy. Serve immediately.
Notes
- The pasta water will be super important here! The pasta will continue to soak up any liquid it finds, so you will find the sauce will dry up quite quickly. This is where the pasta water comes in – it will lengthen the cream and the starch will also help to thicken it up. Be gradual as you don’t want to end up with salty starchy watery sauce.