Today we bring you a delicious seafood combination, exclusively for our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI COSE|COSEBUONE. As we know by now, this pasta demands a sauce full of flavour that doesn’t dominate but enhances the flavour of the pasta, the flavour of the wheat, and the flavour of the fields in which it is grown.
What better companion then than prawns. A delicate crustacean that can be eaten raw or cooked and is rich in protein. We’ll use this protein to add flavour and colour to our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI COSE|COSEBUONE by preparing a bisque. Prawns have a distinctly sweet aftertaste so we’ll need to balance this with another strong flavour. For this, we can use anchovy sauce, an ingredient typical of southern Italy, made by pressing anchovies in salt and water. The anchovies are placed in a barrel with a very small hole in the bottom. They are then pressed, and their liquid–the sauce–collected, drop by drop. The result is an anchovy-flavoured extract – quite salty and full of the flavour of the sea.
The key to this recipe lies in the preparation of the prawn bisque. It’s not a quick process, and it requires attention, but the result is definitely worth it. Here are the ingredients and the recipe:
INGREDIENTS
Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI COSE|COSEBUONE – 90 g
Red prawns – 500 g
Anchovy sauce – two tablespoons
Carrot, onion, tomato, Nebbiolo grappa
Salt, pepper, garlic, parsley, fresh chilli, extra virgin olive oil to taste
Prepare the bisque as follows. Twist the heads of the prawns off their bodies and place in the oven at maximum temperature for approximately 15-20 minutes, until they are either slightly burnt or you can smell the prawns even with the oven door closed.
In a pan, with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, toast the carrots, onions and tomato for a couple of minutes until browned and caramelised. Then add the prawn heads and cook for a further two minutes. Add some Nebbiolo grappa and, when the alcohol has evaporated, add ice and very cold water: the thermal shock will draw out all the flavour from the heads and fix the bright red colour. Bring the bisque back to the boil. Then reduce the heat to low, leaving it to cook for about an hour and a half, possibly two. Skim off any impurities that rise to the surface in the form of foam. Once ready, strain through a fine mesh sieve with a sheet of kitchen roll to ensure all impurities are eliminated, creating the perfect bisque.
Shell the prawn tails. Make a small incision along their backs to make them curl during cooking, and marinate in a little oil, chilli, salt, pepper and some parsley stalks.
In the meantime, cook our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI COSE|COSEBUONE in a large pan of lightly salted boiling water. Drain halfway through cooking and finish cooking in the bisque, continuing to add liquid gradually, as if making a risotto.
When the pasta is two minutes from ready, sauté the prawn tails in a large pan over a high heat, without salt or pepper, for one minute. Then transfer them to the pasta for the last minute of cooking. Stir everything together to combine all the flavours. Remove from the heat and add two tablespoons of anchovy sauce.
Serve our Spaghetti Mancini Unique Edition for FABI COSE|COSEBUONE with a sprinkling of chopped parsley and you’re ready to enjoy the flavours of the land and the sea.
Recipe by Luca Robledo
