Casarecce, prawns, miso, chilli

This is a super simple riff on a dish we’ve been serving at Ragazzi over the last few months. The finished dish is only a little spicy but feel free to add more chilli if that’s your vibe.

I always like to serve shellfish out of the shell with pasta, so take the time to peel and devein your prawns or pick them up freshly peeled from your local HF. Scour the Imperfect Picks section for the veg – it’s my favourite part of the shop!

INGREDIENTS:

• Olive oil (1 ½ tbsp)

• 2 shallots (eshallots), roughly sliced

• 2 cloves garlic, squashed, skin removed

• 2 long red chillies, roughly sliced

• 4 ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

• ½ glass Shaoxing wine

• 2 tbsp white miso

• 350g peeled raw prawns

• 500g dried casarecce

• 1 tblsp unsalted butter

• Sea salt

• 1 bunch flat leaf parsley, roughly chopped

• Sweet vinegar, to taste (chardonnay, moscatel etc.)

 METHOD:

1. Heat up a medium sized pot over high heat and add the olive oil, quickly followed by the shallots, garlic and chilli. Stir so they don’t burn but let them take on a little colour. Give them about 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes, cook for a further 3 minutes before adding the white wine. Allow to boil to cook the booze off, turn down to a simmer for about 5 minutes, before taking the pot off the heat and adding the miso.

2. Meanwhile pop a large pot of water on for the pasta.

3. Allow sauce to cool a touch before using a stick blender to blitz it all up. You can use a benchtop blender if you don’t have the stick variety but be super careful when you are processing hot things.

4. Roughly chop the prawns into small pieces, more or less quarters but don’t stress to hard about the size.

5. Drop the pasta into the boiling water and cook for around 7 minutes.

6. Transfer your chilli miso sauce into an appropriate sized pan, one big enough to fit all the pasta once cooked.

7. Just before the pasta is ready, pinch a ladle’s worth of the cooking water and add to your sauce before draining the pot through a colander over the sink.

8. Add the pasta back to the sauce, pop it back over a medium heat before stirring through the chopped prawns. The prawns will cook in about a minute. Add the butter, it should be a saucy coating consistency. Add a good pinch of salt, the parsley, about two teaspoons of vinegar and give the sauce a taste. Adjust if you need to with a little more salt.

9. Serve and enjoy.

Scott McComas-Williams is the executive chef at Ragazzi. You can follow him on Instagram here.