Greek Prawn Pasta with Bisque

Prep: 30 min | Cook: 30 min | Plating: 15 min

Prawn pasta (Γαριδομακαρονάδα in Greek) is a crowd-pleasing dish served at nearly all Greek seafood restaurants, made with fresh whole prawns and a rich tomato-based sauce. In my version, I'm levelling it up to a finer dining dish with a divine Greek-style bisque sauce based on tarragon and an earthy anise-spiced twist; a very classy culinary combination with a very Greek summery flavour.

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Bisque can be messy to make but is so tasty and satisfying. The cook needs to put in a little more effort, but the result will impress, making it well worth all the sweat and tear. This dish is essential in my top 10 recipe repertoire at home, as it literally takes me back to the Greek summer during these dingy, cold, long winter nights in the UK.

Recipe

Bisque is a smooth, creamy, utterly seafoody and fragrant French soup made of prawns or lobster, vegetables and herbs, deglazed with wine and then sieved out and mixed with Crème Fraîche for serving. The result is a velvety, delightfully comforting soup for all seasons of the year. In my version, I am using the soup as a pasta sauce. I'm also deglazing with ouzo and using anise seed, tarragon and fennel to infuse some Greek summery flavours into the dish. You can do it even without ouzo by replacing it with 2 star anise seeds.

Ingredients (serves 6)

1 pack of linguine or spaghetti pasta

15 whole tiger prawns

1 fennel bulb, roughly chopped

1 large onion, roughly chopped

2 garlic cloves, sliced

2 carrots, roughly chopped

2 celery sticks, roughly chopped

5-6 cherry tomatoes, sliced

400 gr chopped tomatoes (could be freshly grated or from a can)

1 lemon or lime

1 tbsp tomato paste

20 ml ouzo (or 2 star anise seeds)

100 ml white wine

350 ml vegetable or fish stock

20g fresh parsley stalks

1 tbsp fresh tarragon leaves (or 2 tbsp dried)

2 bay leaves

2 tbsp Crème Fraîche

3 tbsp olive oil, and some more.

Equipment

Soup pot with lid: Needless to mention a soup pot is an absolute necessity in every kitchen. But if you need a new one right now, I suggest a stainless steel pot with a removable pasta insert strainer.

Large Sieve: A very useful kitchen tool for sifting flour and straining sauces. I would easily go for a 3-in-1 set if I had no sieves at all, but this 25cm KitchenCraft would suffice for most homes and for this recipe.

Hand blender: Bosch is a respected appliance brand with excellent quality and value for money ratio. Go for the CleverMixx with metal beam (plastics tend to absorb colour from foods) and at least a 600-watt motor and you will nail every soup recipe. Some followers also recommended me the 3-in-1 ultra-powerful 1000-watt Braun Multiquick, combining the hand blender with mixer and food processor capabilities, a great multi-tool for many recipes, which I find a great idea for home.

Bowls: the stainless steel Mixing Bowls Set of 3 is a must-have because: a) they are more suitable for food and eco-friendlier than plastic, b) they wash in the dishwasher, c) they nest for easy storage and d) they have lids for trapping odours in your fridge when marinating.

Method

Prepping the prawns (30 min):

• Twist to detach the prawn head from the body and tail and rinse the body parts under cold water to remove impurities. Peel the shell from the prawn bodies and marinate in a bowl with salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon or lime and some olive oil.

• Cover and put the bowl with the bodies in the fridge until you cook the bisque. Keep the prawn heads aside.

• Chop the vegetables.

Cooking (30 min):

• Heat the pan on medium fire with 3 tbsp olive oil. Start by frying 8-10 of the prawn heads for 1 min until they turn red, and then toss the sliced garlic for another 30 sec. Add some more olive oil if the pan looks too dry.

• Add the chopped onion, fennel, carrot, celery and sauté for 2 min. Add salt and pepper and deglaze with ouzo (if you are using).

• Stir in the tomato paste until fragrant, then the cherry tomatoes and then deglaze with the wine. Cook for 1-2 min until alcohol evaporates and then add the 350ml stock, chopped tomatoes, bay leaves, tarragon leaves, 4-5 parsley stalks (keep the rest for serving) and the star anise (if you have not used ouzo). Add salt and pepper, close the lid and let your bisque simmer for 25 minutes in low heat.

• Cook the pasta al dente (as they will cook a little bit more later with the sauce). Drain and set aside with a drizzle of olive oil to prevent sticking. Save some of the pasta water for the sauce.

  • 

    Deglazing with Ouzo

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    Bisque ready for simmering

Finishing and plating (30 min):

• Fish out the bay leaves and star anise seeds and pour the bisque into a blender or use a hand blender in the pot and blend until it is well mashed and chunky (like in the first photo below). Then pour the content in a large sieve and start spooning until all juices come down into the bowl and look like a soup. You should end up with roughly 400 ml of soup.

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    First strain

  • 

    Second strain

  • 

    Ready to cook

  • 

    Plunging the prawns in bisque

  
  

• At this point, you can live with this consistency or pass it again through a second much finer sieve to make the soup smoother and silkier. Add salt/pepper to your taste.

• Clean your pot and pour the sieved soup back into and heat it on low temp. Dissolve the 2 tbsp Crème Fraîche and then carefully plunge the marinated shrimps (with their juices) in the pot and let them cook for 2-3 minutes until you finely chop the rest of the parsley.

• Add the pasta little by little and stir in some saved pasta water if the sauce looks dry.

• Serve with chopped parsley, lemon slices, grated graviera or parmesan cheese and pepper.

• Enjoy!

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  Greek Prawn pasta with bisque

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  Greek Prawn pasta with bisque

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  Greek Prawn pasta with bisque

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  Greek Prawn pasta with bisque

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  Greek Prawn pasta with bisque