How many tomato pasta recipes does a person need? To me, one of the primary joys of cooking is working out each evening which puzzle pieces need to slot together to assuage that night’s tastebuds. I guess that’s my paid-by-the-word way of saying “what’s for dinner”. I like not knowing what my whims will be and yet knowing myself enough to answer their call accurately; whether it’s the prune-dark fruitiness of ancho chillies and the pre-banked temporal thrill of slow-cooking — anticipating anticipation, if you will — or whether the receptors down the side of my tongue long for the pugilistic sting of vinegar, or whether I want to indulge that strange human need for multi-sensory food that snaps, crackles, and pops. And sometimes I want another tomato pasta, and just the right recipe will feel brand new to me — and today, that recipe is this pasta with prawns, tomatoes and cream.

So, what sets this recipe — lightly adapted from Tessa Kiros’ Apples for Jam — apart? Aside from the defining titular malacostracans, I was swayed by the addition of toasty cognac, blurred and briefly reduced down over high heat, and the softening, mellowing addition of cream — a shockingly modest quantity, mind you, and I had to practically grip my own hand to stop myself customarily pouring in half the bottle.

It is, indeed, an exemplary example of a recipe where the overall process and demeanour remains simple despite some flouncy ancillary ingredients; a particularly gratifying way to make dinner. That is, it’s fancy and straightforward at the same time without any pressure on you. Simplicity is nothing if it doesn’t make sense though, and this absolutely does; sweet prawns curling towards each other like crustacean love-hearts, ribboned with frilled lengths of pasta, a tin of tomatoes made rich and intense through little more than high heat, the hebetating, acid-suppressant qualities of the cream, a resinous scattering of sage. Like all the recipes I’ve made so far from Apples for Jam it has an insouciant, artless luxury to it, the kind of structureless recipe that you still need a framework for initially before making it from muscle memory henceforth. What do I mean by that? I don’t know, I always end up writing these blog posts at 1am but much like the recipe, success is the brightly-lit meeting point between actual vibe and intent.

As I noted in the recipe itself, this is equally entrancing, if texturally divergent, made with canned cherry tomatoes or tomato paste — the former feels more boisterously interesting, the latter more luxe yet a little prosaic. I enjoy having the opportunity to twirl, but something short and ridged in place of the curly fettuccine would be fine here (and is indeed what Tessa Kiros’ recipe specifies.)

For more tomato-pasta recipes that are all just different enough for quotidian consumption, I suggest my Sheet Pan Gnocchi Puttanesca, this Creamy Gochujang Tomato Pasta (which I recently made using butter and cream and it was stunning) my Vegan Penne alla Vodka, my Spaghetti with Caramelised Tomato Sauce, and my Very Simple One-Pot Tomato Spaghetti.

PS: Elated to report that the Āporo Press Boosted campaign cleared its deadline and then some — thank you to everyone who donated to this mahi or shared the link or both. More novel news imminent and incoming…imminently.

Pasta with prawns, tomatoes and cream

A straightforward yet luxurious recipe that capitalises on the immense usefulness of keeping a bag of raw prawns in the freezer; another worthy addition to the tomato pasta canon. Adapted slightly from Tessa Kiros’ Apples for Jam.

• 200g long pasta with a bit of width to it — I favour a curly fettuccine
• Salt, for the pasta water and seasoning
• 3 cloves garlic
• 25g butter
• 180g frozen raw prawns — or as many as you want, I never actually weigh them but this would be a good starting point if you needed to
• 3 tablespoons cognac or brandy
• 1 x 400g tin of cherry tomatoes
• 3-4 tablespoons cream
• A few sage leaves, for garnish

1: Bring a large pan of water to the boil, or — and I’m not 100% sure it speeds things up, but it feels like it — boil the jug instead and then pour that freshly-boiled water into your pan. Either way, salt it generously once it comes to the boil, and then cook your 200g pasta for 10-12 minutes or until tender.

2: While the pasta is cooking, peel and finely chop the three cloves of garlic and set aside. Melt the 25g butter in a pan and once hot, drop in the 180g prawns — straight from the freezer — and let them cook over high heat, going from opaque grey to pink and white with a good sear on each side, which should take no more than five minutes.

3: Add the chopped garlic to the pan and stir for a minute to soften, then pour in the three tablespoons of cognac and let it bubble up with a hiss. Remove the prawns from the pan to a side plate and cover — it’s fine if some of the garlic and evaporating cognac remains.

4: Empty the tin of cherry tomatoes into the pan and let it bubble away energetically for five minutes, stirring regularly. At this point, you can add a splash — a scant couple of tablespoons — of the pasta cooking water, the starches of which will help the sauce thicken a little. Stir in the three tablespoons of cream.

5: By this point your pasta should be cooked. Drain the pasta, reserving a little more cooking water if you think it needs it. Remove the tomato sauce from the heat and stir in the pasta and the reserved prawns. Taste for salt, or even to ascertain the need for another splash of cream or spoonful of butter, bearing in mind it will be ferociously hot.

6: Roll up the sage leaves and finely slice them. Divide the pasta between two plates, using your tongs to make sure there’s an even number of prawns, and scatter over the sage leaves.

Serves two, although this is very easy to scale — for three people, add a few more prawns and another 80-100g pasta, but leave everything else roughly the same — by which I mean, don’t double the tomatoes until you get to 4+ servings.

Notes:

• I am VERY partial to making this with a 70g tin of tomato paste instead of the cherry tomatoes; I find it needs more cream and pasta cooking water, and you’ll want to let it fry for a bit to take off the tin-can flavour edge, but can highly recommend as a variation for the smooth-and-creamy crowd.
• In the interests of simplifying, I tried making this by adding the tomatoes straight to the pan with the prawns still in it — it tasted fine, but the prawns had a certain boiled tension to them — so, I urge you to dirty an extra plate.
• Cognac isn’t cheap, but look out for those little minibar-sized bottles, usually near the checkout at your nearest liquor store, as a more viable option.

music lately:

Verte Ecolé by Butterfly Child, kinda in the same way that one ingredient shifting can lead you into a different recipe, I started listening to this because I read that they released an album on A.R. Kane’s label and now here I am sitting and listening intently! The way this glittering melody flutters over my brain makes me feel as weightless as the sound itself.

On by Aphex Twin, while we’re twinkling, and when the rain sounds come in I could not, indeed, be any more in myself.

Science Fiction Double Feature by Daphne Rubin-Vega and Joan Jett, from the 2000 Broadway revival of the Rocky Horror Show; Daphne’s voice is not so much like catnip to me as what I imagine catnip would actually sound like could it rise up and sing and I will fight anyone in the town square who offers any kind of disparagement towards her singular talents; don’t even get me started on the way her and Joan’s voices blend in harmony here. This is not even a song I would consider anywhere near my favourite from this musical generally, unless it’s in their hands.

PS: As we enjoy our food we can’t forget those going violently without it. Though the people of Gaza are beyond crisis point and surviving under barbaric cruelty, locally-based humanitarian org ReliefAid’s Gaza Appeal continues to work to deliver food and water so give it if you’ve got it. I also recommend checking out BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Aotearoa and Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa for straightforward, targeted ways to use your lack of dollars, consumer-wise, to take action as well.