Prawn, Fennel & Bacon Linguine

Prawn, Fennel & Bacon Linguine

Recently my Son and his beautiful girlfriend have moved home to save for a deposit on a house.  My other son moved out and we had two weeks of decreased bills and empty nester bliss, just enough time to not get used to it.  Since then, I have been scrolling through my website, looking for inspiration and not really creating anything new to add.  Mind you, I have cooked a few cracking recipes that I haven’t done for eons so it has been quite a good opportunity for tweaking and revamping a few oldies.

The new additions to the household are quite the foodies, they eat anything I dish up and are often the source of the inspiration.  I constantly get the “can you cook this?” And “can you cook that?”. One of them mentioned a Prawn Linguine and while there are a few on the website, I felt like something different and also wanted to use some ingredients I had lying around.  This was the result…..

Prep time:  10 Minutes

Cooking time:  25  Minutes

$$  Medium Budget

Serves 4

Prawn, Fennel & Bacon Linguine Ingredients:

Olive oil for frying

300gm of green prawn meat, diced

4 streaky bacon rashers, thinly sliced

2 cloves of garlic, finely minced

1 brown onion, peeled, halved and finely diced

1 small fennel bulb, core removed and diced

1 tsp of chilli flakes

Grated rind & juice of a lemon

400gm tin of diced tomatoes

100ml of cream

A few handfuls of baby rocket, roughly chopped

Sea salt & Cracked pepper

500gm of Linguine, cooked to packet instructions

2 tbs of chopped fresh parsley

Freshly grated Parmesan, baby herbs (optional) & a drizzle of Extra Virgin Olive Oil to serve

Heat a large heavy based frypan and add a drizzle of olive oil.  Fry the onion until just starting to soften and add the sliced bacon.  Turn the heat up a notch and brown the bacon and onion until the bacon has some nice colour on it, before popping the diced fennel in and continuing to fry until the fennel has softened.  Add the garlic, chilli & lemon rind and sauté for a couple of minutes before pouring in the lemon juice, scraping the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to deglaze.  Pour in the tomatoes and cream and stir to combine, season with a good pinch of sea salt and cracked pepper, then allow the sauce to simmer on a low heat while your pasta cooks.

When the pasta is almost done, thin the sauce out slightly with a few tablespoons of pasta water, then add the prawns and rocket leaves.  Literally cook for about 1-2 minutes before scattering over 2/3rds of the parsley and adding the cooked and drained linguine to the sauce.  Use a couple of wooden spoons to toss the linguine through the sauce to combine.

To serve, divide the Prawn, Fennel & Bacon Linguine  between bowls, grate over some fresh Parmesan and the remaining parsley.  Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and if you happen to have baby herbs lying around, place a nice pile on top.  Serve with extra lemon if you so desire.