This is one of those meals that tastes luxurious and indulgent. The garlic and chilli prawns are full of flavour and are super comforting with the creamy cauliflower puree.

I feel like I do at least a cauliflower recipe a week… coming into summer there will be less of them! But it’s such a good replacement for potato mash, lighter and full of nutrients. I’ve loaded it with cheese here as this is meant to be a slightly more indulgent recipe (still full of vegetable goodness!). You could cut back on it though (you crazy person, cheese is life!).

I love seafood and probably eat it one or twice a fortnight. I try to eat it as responsibly as possibly and make the best decisions I can… I know that eating prawns isn’t the most sustainable choice but I stll look for the Australian one’s with a responsibly sourced tick.

This dish looks really fancy but is surprisingly easy to make. It does take at least 30 minutes if you’re really capable or up to an hour if you’re not as familiar with prawns and cleaning them etc. You’re just removing the head and shell, splitting the prawn down it’s back to reveal the ‘poo track’ (is that what you call it?!) then removing that. That’s probs not an appetising thing for me to write about when I’m trying to convince you that a dish is delicious… whoops. There’s lots of videos on youtube if you’re not confident with that sort of thing. If you really hate the idea of doing that (I’m thinking of one of my friends in particular) you can buy the shell off kind, buy 500g instead and just use chicken stock in replace of the home made quick prawn stock.

You get a super flavoursome sauce by using the prawn heads to make a very basic and quick ‘prawn stock’ but you could just buy a chicken stock. The way I describe doing it in the recipe is just cheap and uses something you might otherwise just throw away. Which seems wasteful, because even responsibly sourced prawns (like banana prawns in Australia) are something we should not be wasting.

The greens soak up all the flavour from the sauce and by cooking them in the same pan there’s also one less dish to wash (I’ve already made you use 2 pots, 1 pan and a food processor – my mum hates recipes that use every bowl in the kitchen, so I had to save this recipe somehow!).

I think I’ve blabbed on about sustainability, my guilt about how much I love seafood, not wasting it and how yummy cauliflower is enough now. Let’s cook.

Serves 4

Ingredients

600g prawns, shells on

Cauliflower puree

1 medium head of cauliflower

1 cup freshly grated parmesan cheese (can use less!)

Marinade

4 cloves garlic

1 spring onion

1/3 cup flat leaf parsley

1 Tbs olive oil

¼ cup white wine

2 Tbs chilli flakes

The greens

1 Tbs olive oil

1 bunch broccolini

3 stalks of Tuscan Kale (each bunch should come with a number of stalks with leaves attached)

Directions

Peel the prawns removing heads and shell and reserving the heads. Clean the prawns well and set aside. Put a medium sized pot on medium high heat. Once hot add heads and brown. Once bright orange add hot water until just covered. Simmer for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, Separate cauliflower into florets and discard any outer leaves. Place in a large pot and fill with hot water until cauliflower ris just covered. Add a generous pinch of salt and bring to a boil. Turn down to a simmer and cook for 20 minutes or until cauliflower is tender, including the stalks. Strain and set aside.

In a small food processor blend the garlic, spring onion, and parsley until well combined. Add the olive oil, 2 Tbs wine and 2 Tbs water. Process until just combined. Pour over your cleaned prawns and toss to coat. Add chilli flakes and toss again.

In a clean food processor process the cauliflower and cheese until very smooth. Check seasoning. Set aside with a cover over to keep warm.

Heat a large non stick pan on medium high heat. Add prawns, do not crowd the pan, cook in batches if necessary. Cook for a couple of minutes either side, longer if you’re using bigger prawns., until bright pink and cook through. Remove prawns from the pan and place the pan back on high heat.

Add remaining white wine to the pan and cook until reduced by half, this should be very quick in your hot pan. Strain your ‘prawn stock’ and add ½ cup of this to the pan. Reduce slightly (by about 1/3, but don’t cook for longer than 1 minute or so you don’t want everything else getting cold) then add the broccolini and kale. Toss to coat in the sauce and stir fry for 2-3 minutes, until kale is wilted and broccolini is bright green.

To serve, Place cauliflower on the bottom of the plate followed by greens. Top with prawns and drizzle over any remaining pan juices.

HH. x