Pasta with prawn and anchovy cream sauce

5 min read

This pasta with prawn and anchovy cream sauce is another dish I found in my father's journals of the recipes he charmed out of people whilst on his travels as a young man, in this case the owner of a pensione where he stayed on his numerous, obsessive trips to Pompeii and Herculaneum. It tastes a lot more glamorous than the very easy cooking process.

Pasta with mushrooms, capers and walnuts

Diamond in the rough

My father was enthralled by discovering the flavours of the world and diligently scribbled down the recipes he learned on his travels in a series of journals. As an innate seafarer, that was a lot of places and a lot of recipes. This is just one of them.

Denton—my Da'—rapidly evolved a clever strategy for pursuing his passion for food. Upon disembarking, he'd swagger along the quayside, white cap and flashy gold stripes commanding a certain authority. Then he would take off his cap as a sign of respect and ask the oldest stevedore or harbour master where the best places were to stay; somewhere he could get some really good home cooking after weeks at sea, a total fabrication because, as he admitted, some of the best cooking he ever learned was from the cast of international characters responsible for the officers' saloon on the vessels on which he sailed.

Crafty, nonetheless. He knew that in every port the local men hanging around would inevitably be keen to throw business in the direction of their mother, grandfather or cousin. In this way, he seamlessly navigated his way to backstreets, hidden gems and "authentic experiences" in a world long before the slew of guide books (over)promising these things even existed. And, for him, Italy was the gift that kept on giving.

He knew how to use his Celtic ginger charm and impeccable manners to get the most brittle of nonas to give up her kitchen secrets. He was a true culinary lothario. One woman, the manager of a small osteria in a less salubrious street in Naples, once brought over some digestifs and suggested they drink a toast. When he asked why, she said, grinning and nodding her head in the direction of the matriarch, her mother: "She refuses to give anyone that recipe. Not even me. And I run her restaurant. She told me that she will leave it with the priest to give to me when she's gone. Saluti!"

Whether this is one of those prized recipes coaxed from suspicious Italian women with gravitas, I have no idea. I'm sure he, like me, often found that people were delighted in the interest of those who wanted to know how the delicious meal they had just eaten was created. They readily shared. All I know was that it was a recipe he jotted down after eating it in a family-run pensione in Torre del Greco in the early 1960s before returning to Naples and sailing for Gibraltar, Liverpool, Montreal and Baltimore.

Either way, it's a bit of a winner and it's not difficult to cook.

The amusing aside is that for many years after having his journals handed to me, in the days before the Internet made such things easy, I never cooked it because I imagined that panna liquida was some exotic, hard-to-find ingredient. It's simply single cream.

The quantities in this recipe will serve 2 to 3 diners. Scale up proportionally as needed. Please note that I'm cooking it in slightly different proportions in the images.

3 top tips to get this recipe right:

This isn't one of those Southern Italian dishes where the chilli is meant to have a bite. Hence, the use of fresh, mild peperoncini. And, if you can't get your hands on the Italian kind, use any mild red chillies.

This dish actually cooks really quickly, so make sure you get all of your prep lined up because you want to get the pasta into the sauce and served as soon as it's cooked.

Keep an eye on the cream in this dish. It's important that it never boils or simmers too vigorously. This makes it one of those dishes where you need to be present while it's cooking. The upside is that it cooks quickly.

Shopping list

for the pasta with prawn and anchovy cream sauce

Approx. 80 to 90g (dried) linguine per diner; or equivalent in other "ribbon" pastas
Approx. 250g raw, shelled king prawns; cut in half
Approx. 70g anchovies; roughly chopped
3 cloves of garlic, roughly chopped
6 tbspns virgin olive oil
6 or 7 echalion shallots (or other shallots), peeled and sliced
3 tspns small capers; slightly crushed (or chopped large capers)
2 or 3 fresh peperoncini chillies, deseeded and sliced
A generous clutch of parsley; chopped
The juice, pith and zest of 1 fresh lemon
½ glass dry white wine
200ml single cream
2 fresh bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste

for the salad

In this case I've opted for a classic salad of mixed leaves and cucumber dressed with, balsamico, and extra virgin olive oil.

Cooking Method

the pasta with prawn and anchovy cream sauce

In a large frying pan (or wok), heat about a third of the oil on a medium heat. Add the raw prawns, lemon juice and pith. Sauté until the prawns are almost cooked. Remove from the heat and lift the prawns onto a plate using a sieve spoon
About this time, start boiling the water for the pasta since the sauce will take only about 10mins to cook
Using the juices in the pan, add the remainder of the olive oil and heat on a medium heat. Add the sliced shallots and sweat. When the shallots become soft, add the sliced pepperoncini chillies. Cook for an additional minute or so
Add half of the white wine, increasing the heat so that it cooks off. When the wine cooks off—ideally no more than 3 or 4mins—add the capers, bay leaves and chopped anchovies. Almost immediately reduce to a low heat, adding the rest of the wine
When the best part of the wine has cooked off, add approx. half of the cream, stirring nearly constantly. Though it may be tempting, don't increase the heat: wait for the cream to heat as you stir
Don't ever let the cream boil—a few simmering bubbles here or there at most—and, when your pasta is a few minutes from ready, add the mostly cooked prawns back into the sauce, stirring gently. Season with black pepper and salt as needed
Drain your pasta, saving about ½ a cup of the "pasta water". Ensuring that the prawns are now fully cooked, add the drained al dente pasta and remainder of the cream into the pan to finish off. If it becomes too thick, add about 30ml of "pasta water" at a time until your sauce reaches optimal consistency
Remove from the heat and sprinkle over the finely chopped parsley, allowing it to merely warm from the heat of the dish, not cooking it
Plate and serve immediately with the simple salad

Alternatives

This dish is by default pescatarian. I'm not sure I can say much more than that. I'm not going to insult vegans or carnivores pretending there is a viable alternative: choose another dish.

Pairings

This is one of those dishes that naturally calls for a white wine or a light rosé. I have never really tried it with any memorable wine, though I do remember particularly enjoying it with a Château d'Esclans Whispering Angel Rosé 2024 most recently.