Guest Chef: Nic Naitanui learns luxe pasta dish for Valentine’s Day from Modo Mio’s master, Giovanni Di Serio

Tagliolini with scarlet prawns alla Siciliana

Ingredients

200g Moreton Bay scarlet prawns

For the soffritto (flavour base)

1 garlic clove, chopped

30g spring onion, chopped

1 tbsp dry chilli

0.2g saffron

10g muscatel

5g pine nuts

For the green fennel puree

10g fresh dill

50g fennel (green parts only)

1g samphire (a native plant that adds saltiness; buy one at Bunnings so you always have some on hand)

For the saffron fumet

500g fish bones (ask your fishmonger)

1 litre of water

70g onion

70g leek

50g celery

10g parsley

1 garlic clove

1g saffron

2g black pepper

For the pasta dough

500g flour 00

500g semolina, fine

12 whole eggs

For the red coral

65g flour 00

60g egg white

50g unsalted butter

5g tomato paste

salt

For the muddica atturrata (toasted breadcrumbs)

20g breadcrumbs

1 garlic clove

2g dry oregano

Extra virgin olive oil

Method

Step 1 To make the pasta, mix all ingredients in a bowl to form a dough. Rest for 30-60 minutes, then open and fold the dough with a pin. Pass the dough through a pasta machine until it reaches the thickness desired, then cut the sheets in 2-3mm strips.

Step 2 For the saffron fumet, boil all ingredients in a pot for 15 minutes. Strain and cool down.

Step 3 For the soffritto, gently fry ingredients in olive oil in a pan. Add white wine and saffron fumet.

Step 4 For the green fennel puree, blanch all ingredients in salty water for 30 minutes. Drain and cool with ice. Blitz in a blender, adding ice cubes as needed.

Step 5 For the red coral, mix all ingredients together and spread in a coral shape (ideally using a mould). Bake for 8 minutes at 160C (fan off).

Step 6 For the muddica atturrata, mix all ingredients and cook in a pot with olive oil until golden.

Step 8 For the prawns, peel and devein, season with olive oil and salt, then rest for 10 minutes at room temperature.

Step 9 Meanwhile, cook the tagliolini in boiling salted water for 3 minutes. Strain, reserving some cooking water.

Step 10 Add the soffritto and green fennel puree to the pasta, using the cooking water to adjust the sauce. Season with salt, pepper and olive oil.

Step 11 To serve, place the tagliolini on plates and add the sauce and muddica atturrata. On top, place up to six raw scarlet prawns. Finish with fresh dill and the red coral (grapefruit pearls optional, see chef’s tip).

SERVES 6

Chef’s tip: When “Gio” makes this dish, he also includes ‘grapefruit pearls’ to take the dish to another level; if you want to do the same, first you will need to do an online order for sodium alginate and calcium chloride. To make the pearls, prepare a setting bath of 500ml water, 4.5g of calcium chloride, 50ml white wine and a little olive oil, salt and ice. For the pearls, mix 150ml grapefruit juice and 150ml water in a blender and in a separate bowl, mix 3g sodium alginate and 2g sugar. Combine the two mixes at low speed in the blender and put into a squeeze bottle. Put drops of the solution into the setting bath, wait one minute, then collect pearls and rinse.