Simple Food, Easy Recipe

Since I am a lousy cook, I have to constantly search for real simple recipes which I can follow.

I have not attended any cooking classes and I have no one to teach me even the basic skills of identifying the different types of vegetables, different cuts of meat and till now I am still very confused over the names and types of the fishes available at the market (^^') With the lack of skills, I could only manage very very very simple recipes. I have long given up on asian cookbooks because of the long ingredient lists and vague instructions. I prefer to follow cookbooks such as those under the Australian Women's Weekly series as they are simple enough for me and most importantly, majority of the recipes are one-dish meals :D

One classic example is this Chilli Prawn Linguine which I saw on the Australian Women's Weekly website a couple of weeks ago. I bookmarked the recipe right away and attempted to replicate this dish just last night. I didn't have the exact ingredients, eg flat leaf parsley and baby rocket leaves, so I replaced them with dried parsley flakes and some lettuce. I hope the taste would not be too far off from the original version.

It is indeed an easy recipe...our dinner was ready in 30mins! What a wonderful dish...you only need to put in minimum effort to achieve excellent results. The pasta tasted delicious despite the minimum ingredients used. From the photo, the surface of the pasta may appear plain and dry (I reduced the amount of oil used), but trust me, it is full of flavour and there was just enough sauce to coat the linguine. I was surprised that the garlic, chilli and fresh, juicy prawns could add so much flavour to a dish. I would prefer to use chilli padi instead of long chilli, if only my younger child has attained that level of spiciness.

It was a joy watching my kids slurping away, and best of all, cleaning up after the meal was a breeze :)



Chilli Prawn Linguine
recipe source

Ingredients
(serves 3)

500g uncooked medium to large sized prawns
250g linguine pasta
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 fresh long red chillies, sliced thinly
some lettuce, coarsely chopped
some dried parsley flakes

Preparation:

• Shell and devein prawns, leave the tails intact.
• Cook linguine in large saucepan of salted boiling water (2 litres of water plus 2 teaspoons of salt),  until al dente or just tender.
• Meanwhile, heat oil in a large frying pan, over medium heat, cook garlic and chilli, stirring, until fragrant. Add in prawns and cook until just changed in colour. Drain pasta and reserve about 1/4 cup of the pasta cooking liquid.
• Transfer pasta to frying pan with the reserved cooking liquid and lettuce; toss to combine. Sprinkle with dried parsley flakes and ground pepper if desired. Serve immediately.

(Note: this recipe serves as a rough guide only. Adjust the ingredient amounts according to individual preference.)