I have hit a rather preposterous stage of my sleep cycle proceedings where going to bed at 1am feels, comparatively, like an early night — but otherwise, when am I going to get these blog posts done? At a reasonable hour? Can you locate one for me? So, once again I find myself on the other side of midnight, rationalising every minute, but I’m going to keep ploughing onwards because it’s already October 3rd which means it’s basically mid-October which means it’s basically next June. And, importantly, because this recipe is so delicious that I’m committed to telling you about it in a relatively timely fashion. Fortunately it’s so sprightly-quick that by the time I’ve typed out its name — prawns, rocket, gruyere, lemon — you could be halfway to making it.

The inspiration for this recipe comes from a gloriously cerulean cookbook called Aegean by Marianna Leivaditaki. Her recipe was equally minimal in terms of bullet pointed ingredients, but she used squid and graviera, a sheep’s milk cheese from Crete. Our (somewhat ironically, given dairy is one of our primary industry) geographic cheese-related limitations (where is the provolone!) prompted me to use the author’s suggested gruyere as a replacement, the prawns were my own whim; the remaining two ingredients — rocket and lemon — are unchanged. It’s not that it’s entirely daring to make dance partners of the ocean and the pasture; indeed, lobster mac and cheese has its numerous acolytes, as does its more humble cousin, the cheese-topped fish pie made with canned tuna. But in this fashion? With no burnished maternal patina of melted cheese to hide behind? Dare we?

There is a high likelihood that your tastebuds will look at this dish and prepare themselves for pesto-esque oily richness, and you couldn’t be more wrong despite appearances — this is bracingly fresh, with the boldly peppery, pulverised rocket giving way to a vivid curtain of pure lemon. The cheese is nutty and mellow, matching the equal mellowness of the prawns — which I like peeled and headless but with the beguilingly crunchy tails left on, and absolutely positively definitely raw before you start to cook them. The cheese doesn’t even have the option of considering whether or not to melt as this carpet of green — not quite a sauce, not quite a condiment — surrounds the hot prawns, made edibly pink after a few obligingly brief rotations in a hot pan. To that end, you may be tempted to add oil to the rocket-cheese-lemon emulsion, but the astringent, almost salty lemon juice requires neither tampering nor distraction — however, silently torn petals of naan, quickly flipped in a hot, buttered pan beforehand, can acceptably provide a kind of leavened spatula for the lemony-green rubble. I’ve made this several times now, sometimes with a more pulsed, visibly sum-of-its-parts mixture as you can see in the photos, and sometimes thoroughly blitzed to almost a puree. Both have their textural merits, you’ll know which way you want to lean.

Is this a starter? A main? Lunch? Group friendly or just for you? The truth is, a plate of prawns is whatever you need it to be. And what it offers in return is cooking through at the speed of light and being bouncily, sweetly delicious.

If you feel like making more recipes that are neither dinner nor lunch nor a side but also somehow all these things, I recommend my Roasted Cherry Tomatoes with Cherry Tomato Dressing; my Cauliflower Marbella, my Feta with Chilli Oil Pine Nuts, and this Pipérade for all seasons. And with any leftover frozen prawns, make Zibdiyit Gambari.

Prawns, rocket, gruyere, lemon

Boisterously flavoured despite the simple method and minimal ingredients list — everything has its space to shine and it really is that fast. Recipe adapted from Aegean, by Marianna Leivaditaki.

• 70g rocket
• 70g gruyere, or any hard sheep’s cheese of your choice
• The juice and zest of a large lemon (or two small)
• A dash of olive oil for frying
• Salt and pepper and plenty thereof
• 200g frozen, raw prawn cutlets (that is, peeled, deveined, tail on, uncooked)

1: Stuff the 70g rocket leaves into a food processor. Either roughly chop or crumble the 70g gruyere into the food processor after it.

2: Follow this with the juice and zest of the lemon, perhaps rolling the lemon around on the bench a bit first to unclench as much juice as possible from it, and blend thoroughly — or as unthoroughly — as you like to make a bumpy yet amalgamated green paste.

3: Add plenty of salt and pepper to taste, and set aside. Heat a light splash of olive oil in a large frying pan and tumble in the 200g frozen prawn cutlets, just as they are — that is, don’t worry about thawing them — and fry them briskly for about 2 mins a side or until thoroughly pinkened, and then continue frying them for another minute to get a little golden sear on them. Beyond this, not much more is required.

4: Remove the pan from the heat. Spatula the rocket-gruyere mixture into a bowl and mix in the prawns, then immediately divide between two plates and eat.

Serves 2, though I have made this for just myself several times without reducing anything other than the prawns; which I just count out rather than weighing till I feel I have a good quantity before me.

music lately:

Violently Happy by Björk, I am obsessed with the breaks and growls in her voice, when it goes so large that it has to splinter — and with the urgency of this entire thing — she truly captures the odd, frantic stress of certain types of joy.

Roadrunner by the Modern Lovers because it’s always the right time to hear the greatest song of all time, including if it’s the first time you’re hearing it. Let me tell you, from the moment I heard that “one, two, three, four, five, six” I knew my life would never be the same again, so, brace yourself.

If He Walked Into My Life from Mame, as performed specifically here in 1998 by Jennifer Holliday, whose pliant and cavernous voice envelopes this song fearlessly and ferociously, making it both torchily slinky and roof-blowingly enormous; I cannot watch this enough times.

I’m devastated to learn of the young death of Broadway’s Gavin Creel. I’ve mentioned him so many times on this blog, but I think it was the 2009 Hair revival where I first truly came to know of him — his rendition of Where Do I Go is particularly shattering now, with that beautiful, consonant-rich, ripplingly sincere tenor voice; while you kind of have to let some things go with Hair the fact is his chemistry with Will Swenson in this performance of the title song was nothing short of startling; however it’s this blurry yet crystalline video of him singing Rainbow Connection to a group of children that undid me. Sometimes when you hear a stranger singing enough times, their voice comes to you as that of a friend.

PS: As I’ve said previously, ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal is important to me. Their team, through perishingly difficult circumstances, are on the ground trying to help. They updated recently to report that they’ve helped provide food, water, and support to over 40,000 people — if you’re looking for relief effort to support for Palestine, I recommend them as a starting point.