Prawn and spinach pasta
This prawn and spinach pasta is made with Gruyère cheese. If you don’t have any, you could use Emmental or anything similarly nutty and earthy, or perhaps Gorgonzola. As to the pasta, you can use any dried variety – from spaghetti to penne and novelty shapes. The prawns can be raw or precooked (i.e. already pink) – but if you use precooked ones, those need to be added at the end to the cheese sauce just to warm through (otherwise if you re-cook them, they’ll become rubbery).
Ingredients
Method
- Cook the pasta, following the instructions on the packaging.
- While the pasta is cooking, make the sauce.
- Finely chop the onion, garlic and red pepper.
- Heat a spoonful of oil in a large frying pan and sauté the onion and red pepper for 5 minutes.
- Add the garlic and stir-fry for 30 seconds then add the spinach, lemon juice and a drop of water.
- Put a lid on and cook for 3 minutes, until the spinach has wilted.
- Add the prawns, but the lid on and cook for another 3 minutes, until the prawns just have changed colour.
- Add the grated cheese, nutmeg, cayenne and salt to your liking. Add a ladleful of the pasta’s cooking water, then turn up the heat and stir gently until you get a creamy sauce.
- Drain the pasta and add it to the prawn sauce.
- Toss gently, then serve with plenty of pepper and some grated parmesan, if liked.