Prawn Saganaki

My husband and I have been a lot like ships in the night lately. A kiss as we run out the door of a morning, a brief chat with a cup of tea and a cuddle at the end of the day…….after work, children in bed, routine, life – you know the drill. I am sure you have been there or are there yourself. I don’t need anyone to tell me we need to schedule in time together. The signs are everywhere like when I found myself teaching a class this week that turned out to be ‘an ode to Michael’. Of course, the guests might not have realised this and nor did I concsiously set out to put each and every one of Michael’s favourite meals to eat in the one class menu but they were all there and with every explanation of the recipe, I thought of him and how much I love him and what a complete joy it is to cook for someone who adores food (not so joyous that he loathes cooking but that’s a whole other blog post!). I cooked this Prawn saganaki dish as one of the six seafood and fish recipes in class this week. I whipped up another the following day for my beau. It is a 10-minute’ whip up’ winning dish – no lie but it brought on the smiles of a 12 hour slow cooked roast lamb.

Prawn Saganaki 
Serves 4 as an entrée or side dish to a banquet or 2 as a main meal

2 tablespoons of olive oil
1 onion, finely sliced
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
400g tin of good quality tomatoes, diced
1 good pinch of dried chili flakes or use 2-3 long red chillies, seeds removed and finely chopped
125 ml dry white wine
2 tablespoons of fresh thyme leaves or 1 tablespoon of dried thyme
1 tablespoon of roughly chopped flat leaf parsley, plus extra to serve
1 fresh bay leaf
100g of marinated goats cheese or soft fetta
12-16 large green prawns, peeled and cleaned

Crusty white bread and green salad (optional) to serve

Preheat oven to 220oC.
Heat oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add onion and garlic and sauté until starting to soften (approx 3 minutes). Add tomato and chilli and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Add wine and herbs and reduce until slightly thickened (1-2 mins). Crumble in half the goat’s cheese or feta and gently stir for 1 minute or so. Place prawns in an ovenproof dish and gently pour or spoon tomato mixture on top. Crumble over the remaining goats’ cheese or feta and roast until the sauce thickens and fetta begins to melt (approx 15 mins). Remove from oven.
Sprinkle with extra roughly chopped parsley and serve with crusty bread and a big green salad.

Relish Mama cooking school is located in Melbourne. We are more than passionate about good food and using great ingredients. Relish Mama is a place where the food cooked is real – it has life, colour and flavour and the family are always at the heart of all that we do.