This prawn butter linguine is a restaurant style pasta recipe. Made with juicy prawns, rich prawn butter from shells and heads, tomatoes, zucchini and chilli oil, this shrimp pasta is deeply flavoured and glossy. It's an impressive but easy seafood pasta recipe for dinner parties or entertaining.
About This Prawn Shrimp Linguine
This prawn or shrimp linguine is a deeply flavoursome pasta as it uses the prawn heads and shells to impart a rich flavour. Adapted from a chef recipe it is rich, delicious and tastes like it came from your favourite restaurant! This recipe came from Laura who adapted it from Chef Thomas Straker. I've made a similar pasta using crab butter and it's one of my favourite pastas.
Why You'll Love This Prawn Butter Linguine
Apart from being damn delicious, this is a no waste dish. We shell the prawns and then use the shells and heads (which contain so much flavour) and cook them with butter to create the most divine sauce.
This dish also uses zucchini so it's a complete meal in one.
You can use any pasta, I like linguine whereas Laura uses homemade linguine. Both long and short pasta works with this although long pasta is traditional.
Video How To Make Prawn Shrimp Linguine
Video: Prawn Shrimp Linguine Recipe
Ingredients For Prawn Shrimp Linguine
Olive oil - Extra virgin olive oil (virgin or pure olive oil is more processed and lower quality)
Prawns - Raw prawns with the shells and heads on. I recommend banana prawns rather than tiger prawns as the shells are softer and easier on hands when peeling a large amount. Use prawns within 1 day of purchasing.
French shallots - Golden shallots.
Sweet paprika - Smoked paprika also works.
Tomato paste - Double concentrate, ideally.
Butter - Salted butter.
Tomatoes - Ripe, sweet tomatoes.
Zucchini - Fresh zucchini, please weigh.
Garlic cloves - Fresh garlic cloves, large.
Green chilli - Large green chilli (mildly spicy).
White wine - Dry white wine like Pinot Grigio or Sauvignon Blanc (not a sweet dessert wine).
Parsley - Flatleaf parsley not curly.
Lemon - Fresh lemon for the zest (can reserve the actual lemon to serve with the pasta).
Chilli oil - Use your favourite chilli oil or try chilli oil recipe here.
Pasta - linguine, spaghetti or fettuccine.
Tips For Making Prawn Shrimp Linguine
1 - Whenever I get raw prawns and have to peel them myself, I always keep the heads and shells in the freezer. It started off as a way for me not to put the prawn heads and shells in the bin (they start to smell, especially during summer!) but then they came in handy for making seafood stock out of them for dishes like seafood glass noodles or pancit.
2 - Rope someone in to peel the prawns! Peeling and deveining the prawns is my least favourite task. Also see note above about which prawns to choose for easy peeling.
3 - A potato masher is the best item to extract the flavour from the prawn heads. Press down vertically and firmly.
Delicious prawn butter
4 - The more prawn butter the better so I sometimes increase the amount of prawn butter I make if I have extra heads and shells in the freezer.
5 - Zucchini really vary in size and weight so please weigh the zucchini. If you add too much zucchini it will affect the balance of the sauce and make it watery.
6 - Adding pasta cooking water is the key to a glossy sauce that doesn't absorb back into the pasta.
7 - If you are cooking this for guests, you can go up to step 6 but hold off cooking the pasta until 15 minutes before you want to serve it.
Prawn Shrimp Linguine Recipe
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200g/7oz grated zucchini (around 2 small or 1 medium)
Olove oil for cooking
3 garlic cloves, peeled and diced
1 green chilli, sliced
1/2 cup/125ml/4fl oz white wine
1/4 bunch flat parsley
Zest of 1/2 lemon
3-4 tablespoons chilli oil
For Pasta
375g/13oz dried linguine
Salt
Step-By-Step Instructions
Step 1 PREP - First prep the prawns. Peel the prawns well separating the shell and head from the meat. Cut down the back of the prawns and devein. Chop the meat roughly and keep both the shells and the meat in the fridge until needed.
Step 2 PRAWN BUTTER - Heat a large frying pan with high sides on medium heat. Add the olive oil and shallots and fry for 3-5 minutes until softened but without taking on any colour. Add the paprika and saute for 30 seconds. Stir in the tomato paste and cook for 2-3 minutes. Add the prawn heads and shells and turn heat up to medium high heat turning the shells and heads until they turn pink. Add the butter to the pan and melt.
Step 3 MASH - Then using a potato masher, press down on the shells to extract all of the flavour. Strain this mixture through a sieve pressing down well to get all of that butter. Discard the shells and heads. You can do this part 1 day ahead of time keeping the prawn butter in the fridge.
Step 4 TOMATOES - Remove the calyx from the tomato with a small paring knife and cut an X in the base of the tomato. Place a medium sized pot of water to boil and have a bowl of ice water ready. Blanch the tomatoes until the skin starts to peel back. Remove with tongs and place in ice water. When cool, remove the seeds and skin and finely chop tomato.
Step 5 ZUCCHINI & PASTA - Grate the zucchini on a double layer of paper towels or a tea towel. Squeeze to remove extra water. Put a large pot of water onto boil and add a tablespoon of salt. Place the pasta to cook for the required time according to directions minus 1 minute.
Step 6 FRY - Place a large frying pan with high sides onto medium high heat and add oil and the garlic and green chillies and fry for 30 seconds. Then add the grated zucchini and tomatoes and the white wine and bring to a simmer for 5 minutes with the lid on.
Step 7 FINISH - Add the chopped prawns and stir to cook the prawns evenly. Add the prawn butter back into the pan along with the chopped parsley, lemon zest and chilli oil. Add 1 cup of pasta cooking water to the sauce and then using tongs, add the pasta to the sauce in the pan. Turn to coat the pasta and leave it to cook for 2-3 minutes to soak up some of the sauce. Season and serve with lemon to squeeze over if needed (also extra chilli oil never goes astray).
Personal Note
The day that I made this last I was having quite a day. I was a bit sick so I had just set myself a lighter day than usual. But the day did still involve making and shooting this pasta.
And nothing was going right.
I had broken a container of soup - thankfully it didn't have a lot of liquid in it as it was mostly meatballs, but I had to clean it up. Then I spilled water when bringing a pot from the sink to the stove. Sometime during that morning I had taken out the prawn shells for this pasta out of the freezer into the fridge. Except when I stared at the fridge I couldn't see them. Do you know sometimes you can't see something right in front of your face? It doesn't happen often (it's more a Mr NQN thing) but I couldn't ask Mr NQN as he was out. I looked about 5 times opening drawers and even cupboards. Had I put it in a drawer or cupboard in my semi-fugue state?
When Mr NQN came home I told him that I needed his help urgently.
"I've lost a container of prawn shells...somewhere in our house!" I said in a desperate voice before adding, "We are in a race against time! If we don't find them, they'll start smelling!" (Yes I watch a lot of true crime and am dramatic).
He looked everywhere around the kitchen and in both pantries and then he looked in the fridge. The container of prawn shells were sitting askew in the fridge door. And then I recalled this thud that I had heard when I put them in the fridge and I thought "I really should check on that" but then figured that that was a problem for future me. I really should have listened to past me!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you ever lose things? Do you save prawns heads and shells?
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