Wednesday, November 27, 2013

Easy Entertaining Meal: Donna Hay's Garlic Prawn Pasta

Easy Entertaining is this week's theme. With many American households preparing elaborate turkey and/or ham dinners with a gazilion side dishes, wouldn't it be nice to have something that wasn't turkey prior to days upon end of eating it as leftovers? Yes, I think it would. If you are a seafood lover, this may be for you. Garlic, shrimp and pasta.....simple yet delicious foods when combined.

It seems the rest of the world know shrimp as prawns. Whenever Nigella, Jamie, Gordon and Donna speak of what I know as shrimp, they say prawn. This caused me to look into the history of the term. Here is what I found out from Help With Cooking:

The terms "prawn" and "shrimp" are often used interchangeably and it does depend on where you live, as to which term will be used. The terms "prawns" and "shrimps" are used in cookbooks, restaurants and markets, but not necessarily correctly. Believe it or not, there is actually a difference between prawns and shrimps. Prawns legs are longer than shrimps and the shrimp's front pair of pincers is larger, whilst the prawns second pair of pincers is bigger. Prawns are similar to lobster, as they have two pairs of small pincers but due to the fact that they are similar in size to shrimps, they are sometimes confused with them.

So now I know. But to be honest, I would eat either one without needing distinction of it’s true nature. They are just so delicious! Here are some wonderful garlic shrimps served with pasta...and white wine of course!




Garlic Prawn Pasta
From Fresh, Fast Simple cookbook
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Ingredients
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8 to 10 ounces (200g) angel hair pasta or spaghetti
3 tablespoons (45grams) butter
1 tablespoon olive oil
4 cloves garlic, sliced
1 teaspoon dried chili flakes
1 tablespoon shredded lemon zest
12 large (raw) prawns (shrimp), peeled, cleaned and halved length-ways (I used 3/4 pound)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
¼ cup flat-leaf parsley leaves, roughly torn
sea salt and cracked black pepper

Method

Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water for 8–10 minutes or until al dente. Drain and keep warm.

While the pasta is cooking, heat a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the butter and oil and cook until the butter has melted.
Add the garlic, chili and zest and cook for 2 minutes.
Add the prawns/ shrimp and cook, stirring, for 3 minutes or until the prawns are tender.
Add the pasta, juice, parsley, salt and pepper to the pan and toss to combine.



Serve with a simple green salad.

Would you like to see a short video of Donna Hay preparing this dish? Check it out HERE

IHCC Donna Hay Badge resized

Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends and family. I don't know what this year's celebration will be like for us but, you can sure we will eat well. It's a busy time of year for many people - I am hoping that won't be true in our case. Chillin' out with extra days off work. Yep.

18 comments:

  1. Oh so delicious I'm sure Tina. Seafood is always worthy of a celebration! Happy Thanksgiving, Tina to you and yours:) Stay safe and thanks for sharing...

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  2. Happy T day to you too, Louise! Trying to stay warm and dry here :-)

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  3. This dish sounds fantastic with that delicious combination of ingredients. Perfect as a pre-Thanksgiving meal or for any occasion.

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  4. Prawns are a favourite in my house, so this dish would be gone in no time at all! Looks delicious!

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  5. It looks so good!!! I want it now.
    Hope you had a nice Thanksgiving.

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  6. Thanks all, this sure is an easy fix. We are just are over Thanksgiving today...whew!

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  7. We love shrimp over here. And garlic...and everything in this dish! I can't resist a recipe that can be made in the time it takes to cook pasta. Nothing against Thanksgiving leftovers, but this is what I really want.

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  8. What a great choice! I love prawns or shrimps. Thanks for sharing their differences. I used to call bigger one prawn, and smaller one shrimps :) This pasta looks so flavourful.

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  9. Prawns ... shrimps ... whatever you choose to call them (actually we normally call them prawns here too), both are absolutely delicious. I have this book too, Tina, and this is a dish I've made a few times now - it's one of our favourites for a dish that's quick and easy, yet good enough for company. Your shrimps look so beautifully plump and pink - yum.

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  10. Lemon, garlic, shrimp and pasta always makes me happy and this one is making me drool! ;-)

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  11. After a week of eating turkey and all the leftovers, I am definitely ready for a change ... and an easy change sounds even better! Market day is tomorrow and shrimp has just been added to the grocery list!

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  12. It's so nice to hear from you all! Thanks for the nice comments :-)

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  13. Tina- I always feel like prawns is a much more sophisticated term than shrimp. Shrimp hardly seems like a flattering name for anything. Regardless, garlicky shrimp with pasta is one of my very favorite meals (especially when served with wine). This looks like heaven!

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  14. Garlic, shrimp pasta. 'nuff said.

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