I absolutely love simple suppers like this – from chopping board to table in 15 minutes or less! The River Cafe Cookbook is full of delicious, quick recipes – this one is loosely adopted from their ‘spaghetti in a bag’ recipe. I love the mix of spaghetti, prawns, chilli and tomato from their recipe, but am not so keen on the eponymous ‘bag’ – a tinfoil parcel in which the dish is cooked and served. The thought of accidentally biting on some tinfoil somehow takes the joy out of eating it for me!
I also prefer fresh tomatoes to the tinned ones in the River Café’s recipe. Larger tomatoes, peeled and deseeded, in place of the chopped cherry tomatoes here would give a smoother sauce, but I quite like the little bits of tomato skin and anyway, life’s too short for peeling tomatoes!
Ingredients (serves 2)
180g spaghetti
3 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
1 large clove garlic, peeled and very finely chopped
1 red chilli, deseeded and very finely chopped
220g cherry vine tomatoes, chopped
1 packet (150g) cooked king prawns
2 tbsp basil, roughly torn
Method
1. Place the garlic and chilli into a small saucepan.
2. Pour the olive oil over the garlic and chilli and set the saucepan over a medium heat. As soon as you hear them starting to sizzle (about 30 seconds), add the tomatoes to the pan and mix well. Season with salt and pepper, reduce the heat to low and stir intermittently until the tomatoes have broken down and the sauce is reduced to a nice consistency (about 10 minutes).
3. Cook pasta according to packet instructions.
4. When your sauce is nice and reduced, mix in the prawns and the torn basil leaves. Mix the sauce with the cooked pasta and serve immediately. Buon appetito!
Yvo Cooks 