Green Garlic and Queensland Prawn Casarecce
Cook Time 35 to 40 minutes
Servings 4
Ingredients
1kg casarecce pasta
8 eschalots, brunoised
1 green garlic bulb, microplaned
125ml cooking white wine
1.25L quick prawn stock
16 pieces Skull Island tiger prawns
100g Reggiano parmesan
120g butter
2 whole lemon
300ml grapeseed oil
1 star anise
Salt and black pepper
Method
Start by peeling the prawns and removing the heads. Set aside prawn meat for adding to pasta later.
Sauté the heads, shells and star anise in 100ml grapeseed oil. Once very well coloured and aromatic add in 2L water and bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer for approximately 25 minutes to give you a very light prawn flavoured water to cook the pasta in. Just a way to use up the shells and heads without having to complete an exhaustingly long recipe.
Start by getting a large rondel pan on a medium high heat, add grapeseed oil to just cover the base of the pan and wait until oil begins to haze. Add garlic (set aside the greens of the garlic for grilling later) and eschalots to the pan and allow to sweat until translucent without colour. At this stage season well with salt.
Add casarecce pasta to the pan and stir to coat all pasta in the eschalots, garlic and oil. Allow the pasta to get very hot, without burning any of the onion or pasta. When the pasta is starting to look jammy and sticky, deglaze at a high temperature with white wine. Boil wine off quickly and then start the 250mL additions of stock, stirring them in each time and being sure that the pasta stays at a boil throughout the whole cooking process. Once the pasta has reached a point close to al dente (approximately 10-12 minutes) add in butter, Reggiano, salt, lemon juice and peeled/veined pieces of prawn cut into four pieces. Lower the heat and gently cook prawn meat for approximately one minute until firm and visibly cooked, still translucent.
On a hot griddle pan, oil the garlic greens lightly and grill till lightly charred and aromatic. Spoon hot pasta into warm bowls and top with grilled garlic greens and a twist of black pepper. Eat immediately.