What to Cook Tonight #5

A knockout Prawn, Fennel & Harissa Pasta we're sure you will love, Fish Tacos with red & green sauce for your Friday night, and a Everyday Grain Salad that's equal parts delicious and virtuous.

Our first recipe for the week is this Prawn, Fennel & Harissa Pasta, which tastes as good as it looks. It’s so satisfying and the fennel becomes wonderfully unctuous — cooking it right out until it is starting to caramelise unlocks a depth of flavour and sweetness that carries the dish so well, plus harissa adds a nice kick. Harissa is a spicy North African paste, that is likely to become your new favourite condiment. Its rounded spiciness works well with meat, seafood, and vegetables. We also like to swirl it through mayonnaise or yoghurt, and use as a marinade. You can use more or less as you please in this recipe. Storebought harissa is fine, if you’re feeling ambitious you can make your own using this recipe.

As always, we’ve added lots of greens, but you can use less if you like. If you wanted even more greens you could add in a couple of handfuls of baby spinach too — add them in with the cooked prawns and use the hot pasta to wilt the leaves.

Whenever we can, we source fresh whole prawns from Australia. Whilst they may be slightly more expensive, they are much more sustainable than those from rest-of-world and haven’t travelled as far. Because these prawns are a treat, we like to make them go a long way. You can use the tails for this pasta and freeze the heads to make stock for a risotto we’ll be making in the coming weeks.

If you don’t want to use prawns this would also work with seared scallops or fish such as tarakihi or kahawai (cut fish into small pieces and pan-fry). If you’re buying fish, make sure to ask where and how it was caught — you can learn more about sustainable seafood at this link.

If you’re wanting to keep this veggie, we recommend using another bulb of fennel and adding in some baby spinach. If you’re making this for kids and don’t want the spice of the harissa, you can use red pesto in its place, or mix 2 tbsp tomato paste with 2 tbsp olive oil and fry this off with your garlic.

This is another pasta that warmly welcomes Garlicky Breadcrumbs (the recipe for which you can find here). When they are in season, we love to sear some cherry tomatoes and add them in too.