Smoky Prawns With Chickpeas

Clare Winfield

Serves
Serves 4
Total Time
25 Minutes
Ingredients
16–24 shell-on raw prawns
4 tbsp of olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 potatoes, diced and cooked until tender
500g of home-cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans), or 2 x 400g cans chickpeas, rinsed
Pinch of salt
1 tbsp of hot smoked paprika
75ml of dry white wine
200g of cherry tomatoes, halved
2 tbsp roughly chopped flat-leaf parsley
4 lemon slices, to serve
Method
Step 1

Remove the heads from the prawns and place them in a small saucepan with one tbsp of the oil. Fry off the heads until they begin to turn pink and then add three tbsp of water. Crush the heads to release all the fabulous flavour – you can use a mouli legumes (AKA a food mill), or a potato masher and then push the juices through a sieve, or a potato ricer, which looks like a giant garlic press. Set aside the deep orange, prawny juices.

Step 2

Heat two tbsp of the oil in a large pan, ideally something you can put on the table, and cook the onion until soft. Add the diced potatoes, chickpeas, a pinch of salt and the prawn juices, and stir around carefully. Leave over a low heat.

Step 3

Sprinkle the prawns with the smoked paprika. Heat the remaining oil in another large frying pan and throw in the prawns. As soon as you can really smell the paprika, it’s time to add the wine and the cherry tomatoes. Cook until the prawns are just firm and the flesh is opaque.

Step 4

Tip the prawns, tomatoes and juices over the chickpeas, sprinkle with parsley, taste and season. Serve with a slice of lemon. Generous quantities of aioli are good, too. You can worry about the garlic later (Campari works wonders).

Recipe courtesy of Super Pulses: Truly modern recipes for beans, chickpeas & Lentils by Jenny Chandler, published by Pavilion Books. Image courtesy of Clare Winfield.

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