Pasta with Prawns & Green Pesto

 

This is a lovely summer pasta dish featuring my homemade celery leaves pesto, the recipe of which you'll find here.  It can be substituted with any green pesto.  Homemade is best, of course.  Experiment with carrot leaves, baby spinach, rockets, watercress and basil when you have plenty of them.  I use curly fettuccine which are not only pretty but hold the thick pesto sauce well in their crevices.  It then needs nothing more than a few nice prawns fried in olive oil with chopped garlic, some thinly sliced baby zucchinis and a generous sprinkling of grated Parmesan cheese.  Good food cannot be simpler.  

Serves 2

INGREDIENTS

• 120g / 4 oz dried curly fettuccine
• 2 cloves garlic, peeled and finely chopped
• olive oil
• 10 raw prawns, shelled and deveined
• 2-3 green/ yellow baby zucchinis, thinly sliced
• ½  cup green pesto
• sea salt & freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese

METHOD

1. Bring a medium saucepan of water to a boil with a good pinch of salt.
2. Add fettuccine and cook according to package directions until they are al dente (tender but firm with a little bite, not mushy and soft).
3. Drain fettuccine in a colander and retain ¼ cup of the cooking water.
4. Return the fettuccine to the saucepan with a pair of tongs.  Gently stir in the pesto and the reserved cooking water.
5. In a large frying pan, sauté chopped garlic in 1 tablespoon of olive oil over medium heat until aromatic, but careful not to let them burn.  Add prawns and stir fry for a few minutes until they are fully cooked (curled up and translucent in appearance).  Remove from pan and set aside.
6. Add 1 teaspoon of olive oil to the same pan and stir fry the zucchini slices for a few minutes until just tender.  Add a tablespoon of water if they look too dry or stick to the pan.
7. Transfer the fettuccine and the prawns to the frying pan to combine with the zucchinis.
8. Season with salt and pepper to taste.
9. Sprinkle grated parmesan cheese on top of each serving.