Linguine Prawns & Eggplant

Prawns

• 1lb Prawns - 

• 2T Tomato paste

• 1 lg clove Garlic

• 1/4c ish Water

• Some Oregano

• Some Cayenne

Marinate prawns in the above. Set aside. 

Tomato Sauce

• 2 ripe tomatoes 

• 1 clove of garlic

• Some Evoo

• Some Basil 

• SnP

• 1/4c Red Wine

• 1/4c veg broth

Sauté garlic in oil. Add tomatoes, basil, SnP. Cook down maybe 5-10 minutes. Add the wine n broth. Cook for another 10-15min. Set aside. 

You’re looking for about 1c of nicely flavored tomato sauce. Freshness comes from the basil. Vibrancy from the tomatoes. Earthy roundness from the wine, broth and EVOO. Umami from the garlic. 

Peppers n Onions

• 1/2 sweet onion

• 3 gypsy sweet peppers 

• EVOO

• SnP

Sauté until they sweat. Add a bit of water to deglaze the pan - pull flavors off and coalesce into a bit of a sauce.  

Add Peppers n Onion to the tomato sauce. Stir in. Set aside. 

I do the sauce and peppers& onions separately to keep the PnO from cooking down too much. Getting too soft. I feel it gives the dish better texture. If you prefer, you can add them at the sauté garlic stage of the sauce. 

Meanwhile boil water for pasta. Boil the pasta to finish in time for plating. Too early it’ll get cold and sticky. I boiled mine just when I started to sauté prawns. 

Eggplant. 

• 3 small Japanese eggplant cut into 3/8” thick discs. 

Sauté in oil with SnP. Set aside. Keep warm if possible. 

Add EVOO to a med to high heat pan. Sauté Prawns. With all the marinade. Cook until done. Maybe 2-3min each side. I pulled the prawns out when done. And cooked the sauce down a bit more. This is optional depending on how thick your sauce was when prawns finished. Sometimes it’s perfect and no more reducing is needed. 

Plating, timing is everything here - and this is where you can be artistic

• Bring temp back up on tomato sauce

• Drain and add pasta to sauce. *Always Reserve a bit of pasta liquid to add to sauce - if needed. 

• Toss sauce and pasta. 

• Top with eggplant. Pile it mostly in the center. Leaving a few inches around the edge. * the eggplant lost a bit of its fried texture, might place these on top of prawns next time

• Pile the prawns on top with its reduced marinade sauce

• Drizzle fresh high quality EVOO over dish

• Sprinkle parsley & basil over the dish. 

• I also added a good finishing salt - we use Maldon it’s a great universal salt. We mostly use Maldon for finishing and Diamond Crystal for cooking. 

Serve with some delicious crusty bread. Add a simple green salad for a complete meal. We just added a bottle of Grenache ;)