Fish Bone Pasta
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 60 minutes with pressure cooker, 2.5 hours on stovetop
Serves 4
- Oil for drizzling
- 500g/1.1lbs. fish bones or prawn heads/shells (I had 2 snapper heads/bones and the rest prawn shells)
- 1 onion, peeled and quartered
- 2 sticks celery, roughly chopped
- 1 carrot, chopped
- 5 cups water (you can also replace a cup of the water with white wine)
- 700ml/25ozs. tomato passata
- 150g/5ozs. cherry tomatoes, halved
- Saffron
- 2 chillies, sliced
- Sugar, salt and pepper for seasoning
- 400g/14ozs. shelled prawns
- 500g/1.1lbs. mafaldine, reginette or festoni pasta or pasta of your choice
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 200C/400F and line 2 baking trays with parchment. Roast the bones/shells for 10 minutes. Place in a pressure cooker with the celery, carrot and water and cook on medium pressure for 30 minutes (you can do this on the stovetop too and just simmer for 2 hours). Press the vegetables and bones/shells through a sieve and strain the liquid. It should be nice and concentrated. Strain the liquid.
Step 2 - Place the strained fish bone sauce in a saucepan and reduce until you get about 1.5 cups or so of liquid. Add the passata, cherry tomatoes, saffron and chillies and season with sugar, salt and pepper to taste.
Step 3 - Boil the pasta in plenty of salted, boiling water and reserve 1 cup of pasta cooking water. Add the pasta to the sauce and then add the prawns cooking until just cooked through adding some pasta water if you need it. Serve with chopped parsley, lemon and pangrattato.