Blog Swop: Spaghetti con gamberetti e rucola

This was my recipe I cooked extra for Pam at Posie's place in our blog swop! It was fun and look forward to doing this again.

Pam and I decided to surprise our readers with a Blog Swop. We discovered, in our virtual friendship, that we have a few things in common and really took a liking to each other. One thing we both love is Jamie Oliver and his current Jamie's Italy. The recipes are all fantastica! That is why it was rather difficult for me to decide what could I cook for Pam.

At first I thought of making something sweet but then decided to go with this recipe:
Spaghetti con gamberetti e rucola - Spaghetti with jumbo prawns and rucola. I had a few great ideas how I could photograph the prawns ;-)!

I did make one or two very minor changes to the recipe though. For example instead of using white wine I used vegetable stock (I have a 3 1/2 half year old son and substitute alcohol for stocks). I used normal tomato paste and chopped up sun dried tomatoes into the sauce. Jamie recommends using paste from sun dried tomatoes or puréeing 6 sun dried tomatoes into a paste. Instead of lemon juice and zest I used limes. Those were my only changes otherwise I tried to stick to the recipe as much as I could ;-)!

I hope you liked our little surprise and enjoy this great tasting recipe.


Ingredients:
500g Spaghetti or Fettucini - try getting some fresh pasta if you can, it always tastes much better
Sea salt and freshly ground pepper
400g large jumbo prawns
good extra virgin olive oil
2 garlic cloves - finely chopped
1-2 dried red chili - broken into flakes
1 cup vegetable stock
2 tablespoons tomato paste
6 - 8 sun dried tomatoes - chopped coarsely
zest and juice from 1 lime
2 handfuls of rucola - chopped coarsely



Method:

Add some of the olive oil in a large pan and heat. Add the garlic and sauté. Jamie recommends to also add the chilies at this point and sauté with the garlic but as I am cooking for a child I always add the spice later. When the garlic starts to take on a nice color, put in the prawns and fry for approx. 1 minute. Now, add the stock (or wine) with the tomato paste and chopped sun dried tomatoes. And allow to simmer for a few minutes. Salt and pepper to taste.

Cook the spaghetti according to instructions. Once these are ready drain, saving some cooking water for the sauce. Pour this into the sauce until it has you preferred consistency. Now you can take a small portion out if you are also cooking for kids and in the rest add the chilies. Throw in the spaghetti in both sauces and mix well. Pour the lime juice and add some of the chopped rucola. Quickly serve on individual plates sprinkling, a bit of the zest and the rest of rucola over the pasta.



Verdict:
This was just delicious. Soeren once again thought the prawns were chicken. I wanted to explain to him that these were prawns but as I have a very inquisitive son he would have wanted to see what they look like in real. Well, I thought I would save that for another day. He enjoyed the dish very much ... after all all kids love pasta. This is a nice variation to the usual pasta and tomato sauce or the famous bolognese! Of course it is a finer type dish and therefore perfect for when you have guest over.

Tom (my better half), is being spoilt the last few days as I have been cooking for a few blog events since the weekend! He loved the slightly limey taste this had and with the prawns he just relished the pasta. For some reason we did not talk much at the dinner table! I wonder why?
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3 comments:

  1. The type of pasta in the picture is fettuccine, but your recipe calls for spaghetti. Not a big deal, I know, but a little odd because your blog is so well written and edited otherwise.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I love shrimp,
    I love spaghetti or fettuccine..
    It looks delicious!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I like the tips on how to adapt the dish for kids. I am constantly looking for ways to please my kids' taste without having to eat mac n' cheese every night.

    Thanks,
    Carrie
    http://www.streetarticles.com/cooking-tips/cooking-for-kids-save-your-sanity-and-your-money

    ReplyDelete

Thank you for visiting What's For Lunch, Honey? and taking time to browse through my recipes, listen to my ramblings and enjoy my photographs. I appreciate all your comments, feedback and input. I will answer your questions to my best knowledge and respond to your comments as soon as possible.

In the meantime I hope you enjoy your stay here and that I was able to make this an experience for your senses.

Hugs
Meeta