3BM Kitchen: Perfect Prawn Pasta

There are some evenings when the only thing that will cheer you up is a night on the sofa with your hair in a top knot and a big bowl of homely pasta! I have a feeling these will be coming our way thick and fast in London with the news that this week will end at a suitably freezing 12 degrees!

At London Towers, our fail safe recipe which we pull out for those week night dinner dates where time is never on our side, is the legendary lemon, fresh tomato and prawn pasta! Ready in under fifteen minutes and super tasty, it never disappoints. It works best with fresh pasta which I know can sometimes be heavy and quite stodgy, however the beauty of this recipe is the sauce is very light and fresh which offsets the carbs perfectly. Give it a whirl, definitely a keeper we'd say...

For 2 people you need...

A bag of fresh tagliatelle
6 large tomatoes (the one's that come on the vine give a great flavour)
2 cloves of garlic
1 lemon (zest and juice)
Creme fraiche
Fresh king prawns

To Make...

1. Put two saucepans on to boil

2. Meanwhile get your tomatoes and score the base of each one with a knife to make a shallow cross into the skin. Once done run the knife around the very top (where the tomato would have joined the vine) and remove the core. 
  
3. Pop the tomatoes into one of the pans of boiling water and blanch for a few minutes until the skins start to loosen. Remove from the heat and plunge in cold water and you should be able to pinch the skins so that the skin peels right away from the flesh. Remove all skins.

4. Meanwhile put your crushed garlic and the zest of your lemon into a saucepan and fry off gently in olive oil for a few minutes, then add your prawns – if they are raw cook for 5 - 8 minutes until they turn pink and are cooked through, if already cooked then just leave in for a few minutes to get some flavour and heat through. (Make sure you don’t cook for too long, there is nothing worse than chewy, rubbery prawns!) Remove the prawns from the pan leaving as much garlic and lemon as you can.

5. Chop your now ‘de-skinned’ tomatoes and add to the pan with the remaining garlic and lemon zest. Add the juice of half of your lemon and salt and pepper and simmer on a medium heat to thicken a little.

6. Whilst your sauce is thickening, add your fresh pasta to the other pan of boiling water and cook for the required time (usually 4-6 minutes) Once done drain the pasta and heap into serving bowls

7. Add your prawns back into the tomato sauce, after a couple of minutes stir 2 tablespoons of creme fraiche through still over the heat for a minute (make sure it isn’t too high)

8. Serve with your cooked pasta and ENJOY!!!!