Tunisian Prawn Spaghetti

 Jamie Oliver 5 Ingredients Mediterranean

You will love this prawns (shrimp) Tunisian pasta recipe with harissa. 

This Tunisian recipe is a quick midweek meal that would go down well as a seafood dinner party main course.

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It seems Tunisians eat a lot of pasta. Apparently, the North African nation consumes as much pasta as Italy - who knew?! Well, I didn't.

The rose harissa in this prawn pasta recipe really enhances the sweetness of the prawns.

Couscous remains the traditional dish of Tunisian cuisine but still, they love pasta and

You can buy the 5 Ingredients Mediterranean Jamie Oliver book over on Amazon or, in any good bookshop or supermarket. 

Ingredients for prawn spaghetti

• 150 g dried spaghetti

• 8 large raw king prawns (shrimp) defrosted if frozen as mine were

• 2 teaspoons rose harissa

• ½ a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, (15g)

• 1 lemon

How to make Tunisian prawn (shrimp) spaghetti

Cook the pasta in a pan of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions.

Meanwhile, run a small sharp knife down the back of each, discarding the vein, so they butterfly when they cook.

Toss the prawns with the harissa and leave to marinate for a few minutes.

Heat the olive oil in a pan.

Roughly chop and keep back the top leafy half of the parsley, then finely slice the stalks and add them to the pan with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.

Fry for 1 minute, add the marinated prawns and cook for 1 minute on each side.

Using a pair of tongs, put the pasta into the pan, and squeeze in half the lemon juice.

Throw in the parsley leaves, then mix together, loosening with a splash of starchy cooking water, if needed.

Once it's all stirred together the harissa will coat the pasta and your finished dish will look, and taste amazing!

To serve, cut the remaining lemon half into wedges for squeezing over. 😋

Recipe Top Tip!

Please note, that you will also need olive oil, salt and pepper.

I've slightly altered Jamie's recipe and instead of using raw shell-on prawns.

I used frozen prawns (defrosted) with the shells and heads already removed.

Why? Because after reading his recipe I didn't fancy 'picking out the crispy prawn heads' before serving the dish. 😨

Try to buy rose harissa as it's much more flavourful than regular harissa and is the key ingredient in North African cooking.

Rose harissa contains rose water and/ or rose petals, so it has extra floral fragrance rather than just the heat of regular harissa.

Another top tip - Rose Harissa is cheaper in most supermarkets than it is via my Amazon link - just saying 😉 

Belazu brand is my personal favourite and is used by many professional chefs.

Anyway, I'll add alternative and original bits in the recipe card below.

Have you tried this recipe? Please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ star rating in the recipe card below!

Tunisian prawn spaghetti, Jamie Oliver 5 Ingredients Mediterranean, prawns and harissa,

main, lunch

Tunisian

Yield: 2

Author: Jan Bennett

Tunisian Prawn Spaghetti

Simple, quick and easy prawn spaghetti. Adapted from Jamie Oliver's book 5 ingredients Mediterranean

Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 20 MinTotal time: 25 Min

Ingredients

• 150 g dried spaghetti
• 8 large raw king prawns (shrimp)
• 2 teaspoons rose harissa
• ½ a bunch of flat-leaf parsley, (15g)
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 1 lemon

Instructions

If using raw shell-on prawns as Jamie does, see notes below

1. Cook the pasta in a pan of boiling salted water according to the packet instructions.
2. Meanwhile, run a small sharp knife down the back of each, discarding the vein, so they butterfly when they cook.
3. Toss the prawns with the harissa and leave to briefly marinate.
4. Heat the olive oil in a pan.
5. Roughly chop and reserve the top leafy half of the parsley, then finely slice the stalks and add them to the pan with a pinch of sea salt and black pepper.
6. Fry for 1 minute, add the marinated prawns and cook for 1 minute on each side.
7. Using tongs, put the pasta into the pan, squeeze in half the lemon juice, throw in the parsley leaves, then mix together, loosening with a splash of starchy cooking water, if needed.
8. To serve, cut the remaining lemon half into wedges for squeezing over.

Notes

If using raw shell-on king prawns as Jamie does:

Step 2

Meanwhile, peel the prawns, removing and reserving the heads and leaving the tails on.

run a small sharp knife down the back of each, discarding the vein, so they butterfly when they cook. 

Step 4

Place the prawn heads in a large frying pan on medium heat with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and fry until golden all over, stirring regularly and gently squashing to extract amazing flavour. 

Then, follow the recipe until you get to step 8

Step 8

To serve, pick out and discard the crispy prawn heads and cut the remaining lemon half into wedges for squeezing over.

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