LARGE PRAWNS WITH HOT TOMATO SAUCE AND ARGULA/ROCKET/RUCOLA

A sudden return to summer heat and humidity and some work has made me a very bad blogger indeed and when it coincides with a general loss of blogging mojo and serious doubts about whether I should blog at all, it can have almost fatal consequences but I am heaving myself up through the hole in the ice to try to get back to normality or a new kind of normality maybe. Anyway, this is one of my favourite dishes right now, this summer we have eaten it more than ever. If you are lucky and happen upon good big shrimps or mazzancolle as they are called in Italian, they are sweet and full of flavour and there is a sort of symbiosis between sweet and hot, salt and sour that I find difficult to resist. And it is such an easy dish to make as well and you know how much I like that!

LARGE PRAWNS WITH HOT TOMATO SAUCE AND ARGULA/ROCKET/RUCOLA
3-4 servings

450 g/8.8 oz big shrimps
5-6 big tomatoes, mature and sweet
1 big handful of argula/rocket/rucola
chili pepper flakes
1 clove of garlic
salt
extra-virgin olive oil

Chop the tomatoes, I keep the skin on but if you are fussy you can remove it, and simmer them in some olive oil together with chili pepper, salt and the slightly crushed garlic clove for about 10 minutes or until it has become a thick sauce. If the sauce is too acid, add a little sugar or honey to make it a little sweeter.

If you use already cooked shrimps, add them together with the rucola, stir and heat up for a minute. If you are using raw one, add the shrimps and let them cook for a minute or two before adding the rucola. The rucola should just be a bit wilted and the shrimps just cooked when you serve the dish with some nice bread that you can dip in the sauce!