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Italian Prawns on Fresh Fetuccini

I had a fairly mediocre afternoon yesterday, what with the low-grade Guinness, train strike and subsequent bus trip home taking three times as long as a train, and finally the Fish’n’Chips I picked up on the way home ended up being two parcels of chips with no fish products.
However, this last event proved to be much better than anticipated. I dropped into the Fish Café today to tell them what had happened, and it since I’m a very reasonable person and saw no need to be obnoxious the Café owner was most apologetic and I ended up with about 1.3 kg of large cooked prawns.

!/recipes/images/Bag_of_Prawns.jpg (Fresh Cooked Prawns)!

We resisted the temptation to eat said prawns for lunch (in fact we generally skipped lunch) as I had a plan for dinner. The Silver Spoon came out of the recipe book cabinet and I browsed through it for suggestions. I’d originally thought maybe a creamy sauce on pasta, but came across the “Sugo agli scampi e cappesante” on page 62 which looked tasty. Now since I didn’t have the forethought to also get some fresh sea scallops or shallots while shopping, I would have to make a few modifications.

To top it off, we found and cleaned my pasta machines so I of course felt the need to make fresh pasta to go with the prawns. Thus the afternoon was spent making pasta (the children enjoyed cranking the pasta machine).

!/recipes/images/PM.jpg (Pasta Machine)!

h1. Fresh Fetuccini

h2. Ingredients.

* 450 g flour (preferably Durum wheat flour, but otherwise plain will do).
* 4 eggs (room temperature – not straight from the refrigerator)
* a Tablespoon or so of water if required.

h2. Method.

Place the flour in a mixing bowl and make a well in the middle.
Crack the eggs into the well. Whisk together with a fork, and slowly whisk in the flour. You may need to change to a wooden spoon or a butter knife.
Once it’s mostly combined, tip it out on the bench and knead the remaining flour into the dough. The dough should be firm and not in the least bit sticky. If it’s too dry, add a little tiny bit of water, if too wet add some more flour. Form into a log about 6 cm in diameter.

Cut off a piece of pasta dough about 1 cm thick. Set your pasta machine to the widest setting (1 on the knob) Pasta machine – knob setting 1 Pinch one end of the pasta dough piece, and feed it into the smooth roller part of the machine while cranking the handle at a steady pace.
Repeat diminishing the gap between the rollers each time until you have passed it through at setting 4. You should now have a lengthy, fairly thin sheet of pasta (not exceptionally thin). Feed the sheet of pasta into the larger of the two cutter rollers while cranking. The larger cutter roller Collect the pasta as it comes out of the bottom of the machine trying not to squish, twist, or break it. Lay it over a spoon or rod and hang up to dry. Repeat with the remainder of the dough (actually I found 5 spoon loads of cut pasta was sufficient for a family of 5).

!/recipes/images/Fetuccini_from_below.jpg (Hanging Fetuccini)!

Leave to dry for a couple of hours.

h1. Italian Prawns

Based on “Sugo agli scampi e cappesante” from The Silver Spoon.
!/recipes/images/Italian_Prawn_on_Fresh_Fetuccini-closeup.jpg (Italian Prawns)!

h2. Ingredients.

* 1.3 kg of fresh cooked prawns
* 2 small leeks
* 2 anchovy fillets
* 1 Tablespoon of brandy (I don’t have any brandy, so I used Cognac instead)
* 1 can of roma tomatoes
* salt and pepper to taste
* about 100 ml of white wine (I used old Sauterne (and I do mean old – 1989 vintage))
* about 2 Tablespoons of olive oil
* 1 clove of garlic, crushed in 0.5 teaspoon of salt.

h2. Method.

Peel the prawns. Peeled Prawns

Chop the leeks lengthwise once, then across-wise finely.
In a fry pan, add the olive oil and leeks, and sauté for about 5 minutes (until soft).

In a large saucepan, boil some water and salt, and toss in the fresh fetuccini.
!/recipes/images/Fetuccini_on_plate.jpg (Fresh Fetuccini)!

Add the garlic/salt paste, and the brandy/cognac. Cover and continue to sauté until the brandy has evaporated.
Add the tomatoes and crush them. Season with salt and pepper, stir and cook for about 10 mins.

Add the white wine, and prawns, simmering until the prawns are warmed through (since we’re using cooked prawns).

Drain and serve the fetuccini. Spoon over the prawns and sauce.

!/recipes/images/Italian_Prawn_on_Fresh_Fetuccini.jpg (Italian Prawns on Fresh Fetuccini)!

posted to Italian,Recipes @ 7:52 pm

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