Zucchini, shrimp and pasta recipe
You see my Italian wife – who learned British English – refers to the tiny crustaceans you get in prawn cocktail as shrimps, while for her prawns are their meatier (so to speak) cousins. An Australian colleague of mine agrees with this. However… search Google for seafood recipes and the American recipes you find don’t half confuse the issue. Shrimps or prawns? Prawns or shrimps? These terms appear pretty interchangeable to unfussy Yanks. Good for them, not so good for my page-building sanity… So what’s the rule on this page? Well more people seem to search Google looking for ‘shrimp and pasta recipe’ than hunt out ‘prawn pasta recipe’, so I’m sticking with shrimp. This way I hope more hungry Googlers will find this page than would otherwise. But know this… I mean the 2- or 3-inch shrimp/prawn beasties, not their miniscule relatives nor those royally inflated King Prawns. Rant over, let’s cook. Serves 2 Ingredients: (For a printable PDF shopping list click here, or right-click this link and choose 'Save target/link as' to save for later.) 250g/9oz pappardelle/linguine pasta
2 medium zucchini/courgette (1 per person serving) 5-7 cherry tomatoes ½ glass of white wine 1 garlic clove Knob of butter Extra virgin olive oil Salt & Pepper Optional: chili pepper (flakes/powder/fresh chopped) Equipment: Frying pan (ideally with lid) 2nd frying pan / small cooking pan Sieve/colander
- Peel, remove ends and quarter the garlic clove. - Rinse and quarter cherry toms. STEP 2 - Cover base of frying pan with oil and cook garlic on medium hob until it starts to sizzle. Remove garlic. - Add zucchini, cover if possible, and fry – stirring regularly until soft. - This should take around 20 mins. After 10 minutes also add the toms, wine, a teaspoon of salt, pinch of pepper and optional chili.
- When zucchini are soft, remove that pan from the heat. STEP 4 - Boil up water in pasta pan, throwing in handful of salt. - Cook pappardelle as per packet’s instructions, then drain. - Add drained pasta to zucchini pan, along with shrimp, then put back on hob, stirring until warmed through (1-2 mins). To serve: either serve as is, or make a circle shape with the pasta and place prawns/shrimps (ah!) in the centre.
Is this shrimp and pasta recipe right up your street? Then check out these seafood pasta recipes next.
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150g/5oz fresh pre-shelled shrimp/prawn 
STEP 1 - Chop off the zucchini ends then quarter long-ways. Cut out and trash the central seeds, then dice the remaining zucchini into tiny cubes. 
STEP 3 - While zucchini soften, pop second pan on medium heat, add butter to melt, then fry shrimp until cooked - i.e. until they turn from grey to red (allow 5 mins max). If you bought pre-cooked shrimp/prawn, just fry until hot.
