Prawns and pistachios work because they bring opposite textures and neither needs many supporting ingredients. The common mistake is to overcook the seafood or turn everything into a heavy cream sauce. Prawn and pistachio pasta can be creamy with nothing more than cooking juices, pasta water and finely ground pistachio.
Ingredients for four
Use 320 g pasta, about 400 g whole prawns or 250 g cleaned tails, 80-100 g Sicilian pistachios, one garlic clove, extra-virgin olive oil, lemon zest, salt and pepper. Parsley is optional. If you want a stronger sauce, a spoonful of pistachio pesto is enough; half a jar would hide the prawns.
Start with the prawns
Clean them and, if you have heads and shells, make a quick stock by toasting them in a little oil and adding water before straining. Cook the tails separately over high heat for only a minute or two depending on their size. Remove them as soon as they change colour and return them at the very end.
Why not leave them in the pan while the pasta cooks?
A prawn cooked for ten minutes becomes firm and loses its delicate sweetness. Separating the stages means you can take your time with the sauce without sacrificing the seafood. It is one of those small practical details that makes more difference than an expensive extra ingredient.
Make the sauce without cream
Grind half the pistachios finely and leave the rest coarser. Add the fine portion to the pan with a little prawn stock and pasta water. Transfer the pasta al dente and toss, adding more water until the pistachio forms a coating rather than a dry paste.
Lemon as an accent
A small amount of freshly grated lemon zest brightens the sauce but should not turn it into lemon pasta. Add it off the heat with the prawns and coarse pistachio. If you use ready-made pistachio pesto, taste before adding salt.
Which pasta shape?
Linguine, spaghetti and busiate are excellent; paccheri and casarecce work too. Long pasta needs a looser emulsion, while short pasta catches pieces of prawn and pistachio easily. There is no single correct shape as long as the sauce ends up on the pasta rather than at the bottom of the bowl.
Serve immediately
This is not a dish that likes to wait. Pistachio absorbs liquid as it sits and the prawns continue cooking in residual heat. Have the plates and diners ready before the final toss: once the pasta is creamy, take it straight to the table.
