Warm Garlic Butter Prawn & Tomato Pasta Salad
Post bank-holiday fresh comfort food
Hey everyone, I hope you all had a great bank holiday weekend.
If, like me, you've had a hectic but fun few days and need a little pick-me-up as you head into the workweek, this recipe might be just the thing. I’m not sure if I can technically call this a pasta salad… but I’m going to anyway. With tomatoes, especially those beautiful Isle of Wight ones, slowly creeping back into season, I get that yearly itch to start cooking with them again. I chopped up a few different shapes and colours, then served them with prawns gently cooked in garlic butter. This one’s best served warm, as the garlic butter gets poured over the pasta and tomatoes, soaking in and turning everything wonderfully rich and fragrant. It’s probably up there with the most indulgent — and not exactly the healthiest — of pasta salads, but sometimes a little treat is exactly what’s needed.
I’ve really been enjoying writing more about the places I’ve been eating lately, so this week I’ve got another spot to share. I went to Cafe Murano on a very sunny Friday evening — it was actually meant to be a rare night in, but I couldn’t resist the lure of a good dinner out. If you don’t know it, Cafe Murano has a handful of locations around London and is owned by Angela Hartnett, a chef I’ve admired for years. (She also co-hosts a podcast called Dish with Nick Grimshaw, which is a fun listen if you haven’t come across it yet.)
After a long week, I was properly craving some generous plates of pasta — and it didn’t disappoint. They have a Friday special each week, and when we visited it was a lamb ragù with maltagliati — broken pieces of lasagna sheets that literally translate to “badly cut.” The sauce was rich, but not overpowering, and all the pasta we tried was cooked perfectly.
That said, the starters held their own too. One standout was the Coppa Trentino with carta di musica — thin slices of beautifully cured salami served with crisp flatbreads I’d never had before. Carta di musica (which translates to “sheet music”) was new to me: super thin, crunchy, and with an almost buttery finish. It’s the sort of thing I’ll be trying to hunt down next time I’ve got people over for dinner.
What I loved most about Cafe Murano was its location. Tucked just off the beaten track in Bermondsey, near London Bridge, it’s super easy to get to by train or tube — or, for me coming from SE, an easy (and very welcome) cycle on a sunny evening. They’ve got a little terrace too, so we had the bonus of eating outside.