Paccheri with Prawns and Calamari on Friarielli cream

For this recipe I used a typical Campania vegetable, "the broccoli", which are part of the broccoli family and which today, more and more often, can also be found in the most well-stocked supermarkets, even in Northern Italy. If you do not find them, you can easily think of replacing them with turnip greens or, ultimately, with spinach.

As I always say, to get an excellent dish you have to start with excellent raw materials. So, if you can, prefer prawns or even prawns but absolutely fresh, purchased from your trusted fishmonger. The same goes for squid. A separate chapter, however, is pasta. Here, I used a pacchero from Gragnano that cooks very well, but you can also think of using half paccheri or linguine ... possibly, always from Gragnano DOP.

One last tip: you will see, in the recipe procedure, that to keep the broccoli a bright green color, I first lightly blanch them and then, stopped cooking, put them in ice water, so as to keep the chlorophyll color intact. But, if you prefer to pay more attention to the taste than to the color, I advise you not to blanch the broccoli and to pass it directly in the pan with the garlic, oil and chilli (penultimate step in the preparation of this recipe).

320 gr of Paccheri di Gragnano DOP

400 gr of peeled Friarielli

2 large fresh squid (about 700 gr)

400/500 gr of fresh prawns

DOP EVO oil

Garlic

Coarse salt and fine salt to taste

Chilli (if you like)

Shell the prawns, putting the heads aside. Gut the squid and cut them into small pieces. Clean the broccoli (if you have not bought them already peeled) or the vegetable you have chosen as a replacement.

Place a pot with water on the fire and put it to boil, separately, prepare a bowl with water and ice. When the pot has come to a boil, blanch the vegetables for a couple of minutes at most, then stop cooking and maintain the brilliance of the color, passing it in the water and ice (if you prefer the flavor to the color, you can skip this step and go directly to the next step).

Now pour the broccoli and in the meantime put in a pan, to brown, plenty of fresh garlic with chilli.

Once browned, remove the garlic and add the broccoli.

Cook them for about 10/15 minutes, leaving them still a little crunchy. With the fire off, season with salt but do not overdo it.

Once cooled, pass them to the mixer and keep the cream that we will need for the dish.

Place a pot with plenty of salted water and when it comes to a boil, drop the pasta.

Meanwhile, in a large pan (you will then have to skip the pasta), put plenty of extra virgin olive oil and garlic. When golden, remove the garlic and add the heads of the prawns that you have preserved. After a few minutes, when the heads begin to take on a nice red color, add a glass of white wine and let it evaporate. In the meantime, always squeeze the heads a little, so as to release all the flavors of the shrimp.

Once the wine has been completely evaporated and the sauce has been reduced a little, remove the heads and add the chopped squid pieces and cook for 10 minutes. When the pasta is halfway through cooking, pass it in a pan, adding one or two ladles of cooking water and continue cooking, leaving it al dente, however.

Turn off the heat and add the prawns, continuing to stir, so that the prawns cook while maintaining their flavor.

Take some deep plates, large enough and on the bottom of each plate place a spoonful of broccoli cream, on which you will lay the pasta that, in the meantime, you have creamed in a pan, with the prawns and squid.

Take a sprig of broccoli that you have set aside, and decorate the dish to serve it on the table.