Serves: 3-4 - Time:
You don’t have to make this dish with black spaghetti but I think the gently fishy flavour of the squid ink pasta compliments the sauce. Also, the colours look so wonderfully appetising together. Sobrasada, the soft paprika-flavoured sausage from Spain is sold in most supermarkets now or you can order it online. You could substitute cooking chorizo but the texture of the sauce will be coarser. I would suggest this quantity feeds three perfectly or four if it’s a course rather than the main meal.
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
- 3 garlic cloves, peeled and very finely chopped
- 155g sobrasada, crumbled
- 270g jar datterini cherry tomatoes, drained
- 1 tablespoon tomato purée
- 300g raw, peeled prawns
- 250g squid ink pasta
- 2 tablespoons roughly torn basil leaves
Method
- Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil. Meanwhile start to make the sauce.
- Heat the oil in a large sauté pan (you’ll be adding the pasta to the sauce later) and fry the garlic for 1 minute. Don’t let it colour or there will be a bitter taste to the sauce. Add the sobrasada and stir for 2-3 minutes. Stir in the cherry tomatoes, tomato purée and 2 tablespoons water and cook over a low heat for a further 2-3 minutes.
- When the pasta water reaches a rolling boil add the spaghetti and bring to the boil. Cook according to packet instructions-mine took 9 minutes.
- When you have 3 minutes pasta cooking time left on the timer, turn the heat up slightly under the tomato sauce and add the prawns. Cook for 2-3 minutes until the prawns are uniformly pink.
- Drain the spaghetti, keeping aside a mugful of the pasta water. Tip the spaghetti into the sauce and stir, adding most of the mugful of pasta water. Sprinkle over the basil and serve as soon as possible.
