Returning home from an hours exercise this evening my thoughts turn to supper. I mentally scour the fridge and there isn’t much that takes my fancy. There is an hour left before the store closes and in many ways its a great time to shop for a tasty supper.
Wandering down the aisles I spot the guy with the ticket gun reducing the fare that wont make it through another day. I am eating much less meat these days but my appetite for fish is voracious. Spying a tremendous bargain in the shape of some juicy uncooked prawns and something similar at the deli with a little pot of marinated anchovies I emerge triumphant but with only a sketchy idea of what I’m going to create. This is part of the joy in the kitchen for me, testing my imagination in coming up with something tasty and fast from a bunch of random ingredients.
Back in the kitchen I assemble the cast. Prawns, marinated anchovies, some green leaves, a soft ripe avocado, spring onions, garlic and some mixed beans. Melting a thick slice of butter in a hot pan I toss in a chopped clove of garlic and a couple of sliced spring onions. As soon as the garlic starts to colour I add the prawns and throw them around in the foaming butter with a sprinkle of salt and watch as they turn from grey to pink putting me in mind of those magic painting books that I had as a child which transformed in front of my eyes with just a brushstroke of water. In a bowl I combine the avocado, cut into thick chunks, the rocket, watercress and the beans. With two or three good glugs of a wonderfully grassy olive oil and a gentle shake of balsamic I turn it all together making a worthy base for my succulent prawns. Piling the salad onto the plate I lay a few anchovies over the leaves and heap a mound of juicy prawns on the top.
Its hard not to feel good after all that. I have taken care of myself by exercising, shopped thriftily and fixed myself a quite beautiful supper in less time that a flavourless ready meal would have taken to heat in the oven. In moments like this its easy to look back on the day and realise that everything is alright.
Ingredients
200g Uncooked Prawns (or more if you are sharing)
A few Marinated Anchovies (optional but incredibly tasty…I could eat far too many)
410g Mixed Beans (or Chickpeas, Butter Beans..whatever you have)
Garlic – a clove
1 Avocado
2 Spring Onions
Slice of butter (15g or so)
Salad leaves – whatever you have is fine and I happened to have some Rocket and Baby Spinach
Olive Oil & Balsamic or a salad dressing of your choice (not Salad Cream because that is ridiculous isn’t it?….so stop it)
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