Prawn and courgette carbonarish

Sneaking vegetables into our dinners has become a habit, not only because it makes the meal healthier, but because I really like it. As luck would have it, my family does too. Well, most of the time. There are dishes I'm not allowed to tamper with, although I do it anyway if nobody is looking and hope to get away with it. Feigning innocence when I'm found out rarely works. Burgers and meatballs should apparently be free from carrots. Who knew? If I cook meatballs for all of us, I try my best to stay away from the roots, but if I know I'm the only one having them, anything goes. Burgers are nowadays a mess-free meal.

This carbonara however a meal I can play freely with and I do. It featured on a TV programme called Eat well for less, a title that speaks directly to my soul. Eat well, always. Spend as little money as possible and still eat well, fabulous! If you haven't yet watched the series, I can really recommend it. Quite a few of their recipes have been tried and enjoyed in our house and some of their food swaps too. 

The idea of the programme is helping big spenders to save on groceries and still use good quality food items. Since watching an episode where they swapped someone's big brand ketchup, I gave up my all time favourite Heinz for Asda's own. No, I'm not a brand snob, but when it comes to ketchup I know a good sauce from a rank one. After years of gagging on cheap excuses for ketchup, I only managed to add Branstons to my short list and gave up trying to cut the cost on this particular item. After watching Eat well for less, I decided to give their swap a go, but I didn't have much hope. As it turned out, Asda's own brand is right up there with the best, for less than half the price. Thank you very much.

Anyway, back to the dinner.

The original recipe was for a smoked mackerel carbonara. I made that, exactly according to the guidelines in the programme, but found it sickly and the mackerel repeated on me all evening. Was I deterred by that? No, not at all. Cutting through the sickly mixture of smoked fish, yogurt, horseradish sauce and eggs was a sense of potential. With a bit of Mia Magic, this dish could be rescued and loved as it deserved to be.

To start with, the name. Surely carbonara is made with cream, bacon and an egg, right? This one uses Greek yogurt, there is no bacon and definitely no egg. Let's call it cabonarish, which gives me free reins to treat it exactly how I please.

In my first attempt I used spaghetti, courgette, horseradish sauce, Greek yogurt and frankfurter coins. It was rather nice. Nice enough to have again. The second attempt was however the winner and that's the one I have decided to share with you.

1-2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

1 pepper, roughly chopped

1/2 leek, finely sliced

400 g prawns

2 portions of spaghetti for 3 people

2 large courgettes, roughly grated

3-4 heaped tbsp Greek yogurt

parmesan, finely grated

2 tbsp horseradish sauce or 1 tsp sambal oelek

dill and parsley

salt & pepper

1. Prepare garlic, pepper and leek and put pasta water to boil in a saucepan.

2. Soften garlic, pepper and leek in a little oil.

3. Grate courgettes and set aside.

4. Grate parmesan and set aside. 

I don't like too much cheese in this dish, but if you are a parmesan lover you may want to use more. If can also be cut out if you don't want any cheese. The dish will be nice anyway. I have tried.

5. When the pepper has softened somewhat, add prawns. By now the water should be boiling and ready to cook the spaghetti.

By adding a fair amount of courgette to this dish, I have found that I need slightly less pasta than I would normally have. 2/3 is usually enough, depending on how hungry your dinner guests are.

6. Add your choice of seasoning. 

This time I opted for sambal oelek, a chilli paste, as I didn't have any horseradish sauce at home. Either one works well with prawns and I tend to use whatever I have in the fridge. Sweet chilli sauce and chilli ketchup (Heinz...) also works well. I haven't tried mustard, but I think it could be quite palatable. Anything with a hint of heat to cut through the yogurt is worth a try. If you love heat, add loads. If you are afraid of your head exploding, use a little less. Experiment and make the dish your own. Just remember to make a mental note of what works and what doesn't.

7. Add courgettes and mix well. They are likely to leak loads of liquid and it is a good idea to let them cook on a fairly high heat to reduce the juices before the prawns turn into rubber.

8. Add yogurt and parmesan. 

I think I used 3 or 4 heaped table spoons of full fat Greek yogurt this time, but I have used low or no fat yogurt before and that worked just as well. Add as much as you want, depending on how much sauce you fancy and how much spaghetti you plan to use.

9. Stir and taste test the liquid. You may want to adjust the seasoning.

10. Add the cooked and drained spaghetti. 

11. Stir and breathe in the beautiful scent of the dinner you are about to devour.

12. Dish up and enjoy.

I hope you'll enjoy this meal as much as I do, or at least realise its potential. Perhaps you want to add the raw egg and play with high intensity smoked fish instead of prawns, or play with ham or bacon. Swap the spaghetti for broccoli florets or something else with substance, if you want to stay low carb. Let carbonarish be the glorious experimental dish in your kitchen. Feel free to let me know how you get on. I would love to get new ideas of what to try next.